I caught a post on Bioethics.net referring to an article in New Scientist on the work of Dimitri Christakis and Frederick Zimmerman, from the University of Washington in Seattle. Christakis and Zimmerman wrote an editorial in the latest issue of the journal Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. It contained this quote:

We’re conducting a large uncontrolled experiment on our children and waiting to see what the results will be.

I first became concerned about the effects of television during my training as a clinical social worker. I recognized the strong effect advertisements had on me, especially as a child. I was a TV addict as a child. I probably watched as much as six hours a day from preschool through high school.

I remembered begging my parents for certain products I'd seen advertised on TV and the feeling of gratification when I got my way, and the deprivation I felt when refused. "All my friends have it," I'd complain. The truth is, I seldom really knew anyone who had what I wanted. I just assumed they did because after all, it was on TV!

College broke the habit, but only for a while. The addiction returned until TV lost it's appeal around the time my son was born. That's when my view of TV changed dramatically. I began to see the level of violence on the screen as potentially desensitizing children to the real horrors of deviant behavior. I imagined disturbed youths copying the errant behavior they see on TV in new and creative ways.

Over the years, I watched for evidence of studies documenting these effects. But not being in that field, the literature escaped my attention because it was seldom shown in the mainstream media, probably because the sponsors wouldn't allow it. Now, finally, that we have a huge source of information on the Internet, I started finding references to conclusive research on the effects of TV. Now I have no doubt that what these researchers claims are indeed true. TV is the primary educator of our children. And we have only scratched the surface in understanding how that fact is affecting their development, behavior and maturation process. We don't know if we are allowing Madison Avenue advertisers to engineer our culture to be more favorable to the sponsors. I strongly suspect that power of multi-media has a dramatic effect on our culture. We are years away from documenting it's effects.

Are we creating a materialistic culture? Many would argue that day has already arrived.

Research shows that exposure can increase obesity, tobacco and alcohol use, risky sexual behaviours, violence and social isolation, say Dimitri Christakis and Frederick Zimmerman, from the University of Washington in Seattle, in a controversial editorial. The data linking violent media to aggression, for instance, are “just as strong” as those linking smoking and lung cancer, says Christakis.

US children over eight years old spend more time watching TV and playing videos than any other activity except sleeping. More than a third of those under six have TVs in their bedrooms. And things are only set to get worse, as every child with a cellphone will soon to be toting a TV in his pocket, says Christakis.

Fifteen separate papers and three editorials examine the growing problems associated with excessive media exposure and media violence. Among the findings:

• toddlers who watch more than two hours of television a day are more likely to be overweight at ages 3 and 4-and-a-half


• each additional hour of TV watched each day by kids resulted in an extra 167 calories consumed, often from sugary drinks, fast foods and candy featured in adverts


• among teenagers whose parents discouraged sex, watching two or more hours of TV per day made it significantly more likely the teen would have sex within the year


• playing a violent rather than a benign video game makes children more accepting of using drugs or alcohol, and having sex without a condom, because, the researchers suggest, it increases general disregard for the safety of yourself and others MORE

If we are going to be social engineering our children, our culture, shouldn't we be putting our best minds into this work? Do we continue to abdicate our responsibility to the Madison Avenue advertisers?