What tactics truly work to reduce how much time young children
spend in front of a TV or computer screen? Researchers seem
ready to throw up their hands on this one, especially after a
new study show that even in-depth counseling for parents
couldn't curb screen time. According to Reuters Health, the
latest defeat in the war against too much TV took place in
Canada, where researchers assigned 160 3-year-olds and their
parents to one of two groups: one that received counseling on
screen time habits and another that received minimal feedback.
In the counseling group, researchers talked to parents about the
health impact of excessive screen time—which includes everything
from childhood obesity to delays in speech development—and made
suggestions about removing the TV from the child's bedroom,
turning TV off during meals, and ideas about how to budget
screen time. The comparison group only received basic
information about safe media use and television rating systems.
What happened when researchers checked back in