TV Linked To Lower Achievement

The following verifies something that I have believed for many years now. Television watching stultifies a person's mental capacity --- and many people are shutting off their televisions --- as evidenced in the ratings that are 40% off their highs of decades past. For more about this --- please see my other writings on this site concerning television ratings and viewership.

For those readers who still do not understand the effect that television can have on a person --- you are invited to watch Robert Greenwald's excellent documentary entitled OutFOXed: Rupert Murdoch's War On Journalism --- where the psychological manipulations of the audience by FOX-NEWS are exposed.

Dear readers --- the television has been used as a tool against us --- used to capture the minds of the young. As the globalists are fond of saying, "Get them while they're young, and have them for life."

The journal article reference also appears at the end of this paper . . .


TV LINKED TO LOWER ACHIEVEMENT
July 13, 2005
http://www.world-science.net

From toddlerhood to adulthood, watching television is associated with lower educational achievement, three new studies suggest.

The studies found that three-to-five-year-olds who watched more television performed worse on reading and math tests three years later; that third graders with televisions in the bedrooms performed worse than others on standardized tests; and that children who watched more TV from ages five to 15 were less likely to finish school or go to college.

All three were published in the July issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, a research journal.

In one bright spot in the picture, researchers with the University of Washington, Seattle, found that TV watching between ages 3 and 5 could also have positive effects. Some programs, such as Sesame Street, have been found to have educational value for young children.

The University of Washington researchers found higher scores in working memory and reading recognition"the ability to read individual words correctly"among watchers of more TV in this age group.

But otherwise, the findings about TV watching were almost uniformly bad in the studies, conducted in the United States and New Zealand.

Although many people suspect TV may make you "dumber, these studies, according to the authors, are among the first research to show clear-cut relationship between the tube and lower academic achievement.

Past studies, however, have shown people who watch more TV are at greater risk for obesity and aggressive behavior, according to the authors of one of the studies, with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, and Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.

Simply finding TV is associated with lower achievement doesn,t necessarily prove TV causes the poor achievement, researchers acknowledged. But the University of Washington group said that various details in their data suggested the relationship is indeed one of cause and effect.

"The inclusion of extensive controls for parental preferences, ability, and investment in their children's cognitive development suggests that these associations may in some direct or indirect way be causal," they wrote.

SOURCES:

Association of Television Viewing During Childhood With Poor Educational Achievement - Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, vol. 159 no. 7, July 2005

World Science - TV Linked To Lower Achievement

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