This is a study worth knowing about but it worries me because too much can be made of it without thoughtfully considered how it applies to the teenagers in their own homes.

It was just published in the  Archives and Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine and is reported in Medpage Today.

Please, if you are concerned about this, discuss this with your child’s own doctor.

Since the study compared to groups of teens 16 years apart, it is important because it may have identified an important trend. Sixteen years is forever in computer land.

Bias alert! I don’t think television time and computer screen time necessarily are equal and yet in this study it would appear that computer screen time is more limiting than television time.  I could be badly mistaken. This is the result of watching kids do both and is my own purely observational, informal and not scientific comment.

Television time is much more passive. Computer screen time may or may not be passive. If they are actively learning, designing or interacting with peers, that may be another matter when it comes to affecting their most important relationships. This study shows the opposite outcome. Computers are worse for kids inter-personal relationships. Worse than television? Why? Why? Why?

Of course, for years, public educators, parents in low income or remote locations and others have worried about the “digital divide,” the difference in opportunities for kids who have computer access and those who don’t. Their concern is well-founded because a lack of a digital access is a limitation educationally.

So, with much caution, parents might want to read this study.

More important is the context. Is your young screen-starer doing okay with friends and family? Have teachers commented on problems with peer relationships at school? Do you, or does your child, sense that all is not well with this kids’ circle of friends? Or, rather, that there is not one?

There is reason to pay attention to your child’s screen time. There also is reason to ask if you are seeing these signs, the ones that signal screen time is limiting them in their most important relationships.

Medpage Today

“The more time teens spend watching television and using computers, the less likely they are to develop close relationships with parents and peers, a study of two New Zealand teen cohorts separated by 16 years found. (Emphasis added)

“For every hour adolescents spent watching television, there was a 13% increased risk of low attachment to parents (risk ratio 1.13, 95% CI 1.00 to 1.26; P<0.05) and a 24% increase in the risk of having low attachment to peers (RR 1.24, 95% CI 1.08 to 1.40; P<0.05), according to a report on one of the cohorts published online in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. (Emphasis added)

“In the second cohort, investigators found that the risk of having low attachment to parents increased by 4% for every hour spent watching television (RR 1.04, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.08; P<0.05) and by 5% for every hour spent playing on a computer (RR 1.05, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.09; P<0.05).

“Screen time was associated with poor attachment to parents and peers in two cohorts of adolescents 16 years apart,” Rosalina Richards, PhD, of the University of Otago in New Zealand, and colleagues wrote.”

“Given the importance of attachment to parents and peers in adolescent health and development, concern about high levels of screen time among adolescents is warranted.”

Source: Medpage Today, March 1, 2010

Citation: Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2010; 164: 258-62.