HHS HealthBeat (January 22, 2009)

Kids and media

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From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

A thorough review of research on kids and media indicates that kids who are deep into media use are worse off in lots of ways. Scientists at the National Institutes of Health and Yale University examined 173 studies done over three decades. At the NIH, researcher Ezekiel Emanuel:

[Ezekiel Emanuel speaks] ``The association between media and violence is pretty well known. But the idea that we had such an overwhelming amount of negative studies about media and obesity, media and smoking, media and educational attainment, media and sex – I didn’t anticipate that.’’

Emanuel says kids can’t be cocooned from TV, the Internet and other such things. He notes they’ll need these media skills as 21^st century adults. But he says parents especially have to set limits on kids’ media, and give the kids other things to do.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: January, 27 2009