adhd

Research has shown that children watching TV mirror the unrealistically fast paced TV images. Every hour preschoolers watch television each day increases their chances of developing attention problems by about 10 percent. Is it any wonder that more and more children are taking drugs for ADHD?

Virtual Mirroring: TV watching predicts future ADHD

The single act of watching television can shorten attention spans, cause difficulty concentrating, restlessness, impulsiveness, and vulnerability to confusion, obesity and aggressiveness.

Even Sesame Street, the Cadillac of preschool educational TV programs has been demonstrated to cause attention problems. The typical sixty minute show presents about 40 short, unrelated segments. Within each segment there is a change of concept, content, format and character. Such a rapid sequence of attentional and thought focuses inhibits learning to pay attention and read in school.

One study compared two groups of children on academic tasks after eight hours of watching either Sesame Street or adventure films. Children who watched Sesame Street were much less persistent than those who watched the adventure films. The researchers concluded it must have been the [children's] willingness to persevere that was affected by their exposure to the fast-paced, kaleidoscopic structure of the program (Sesame Street). Most children's TV follows a similar hyperactive pattern.