TV is bad for children's education, studies say
科学研究表明：看电视不利于儿童教育
|
http://www.100md.com 2005-7-6
ChinaDaily |
The more time children spend watching television the poorer they perform academically, according to three studies published on Monday.
Excessive television viewing has been blamed for increasing rates of childhood obesity and for aggressive behavior, while its impact on schooling have been inconclusive, researchers said.
But studies published on the topic in this month's Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine concluded television viewing tended to have an adverse effect on academic pursuits.
For instance, children in third grade who had televisions in their bedrooms -- and therefore watched more TV -- scored lower on standardized tests than those who did not have sets in their rooms.
In contrast, the study found having a home computer with access to the Internet resulted in comparatively higher test scores.
"Consistently, those with a bedroom television but no home computer access had, on average, the lowest scores and those with home computer access but no bedroom television had the highest scores," wrote study author Dina Borzekowski of Johns Hopkins University.
American homes with children have an average of nearly three televisions each, the report said, and children with televisions in their bedrooms averaged nearly 13 hours of viewing a week compared to nearly 11 hours by children who did not have their own sets.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has urged parents to limit children's television viewing to no more than one to two hours per day -- and to try to keep younger children away from TV altogether.
In two other studies published in the same journal, children who regularly watched television before the age of 3 ended up with lower test scores later on, and children and adolescents who watched more television were less likely to go on to finish high school or earn a college degree.
University of Washington researchers reported that 59 percent of U.S. children younger than age 2 watch an average of 1.3 hours of television per day, though there is no programing of proven educational value for children that young.
TV watching appeared to help 3- to 5-year-olds with basic reading recognition and short-term memory, but not reading comprehension or mathematics, so the net effect of television watching is "limited in its beneficial impact," wrote study author Frederick Zimmerman.
(Agencies)
本周一(7月4日)发表的三份研究报告声称，儿童花在看电视上的时间越多，他们的学习成绩就越差。
研究人员说，人们一直将儿童肥胖和过激行为的日益增多归咎为看电视太多，但是，关于看电视对儿童的学习的影响到底有多大，目前还没有定论。
不过，本月刊登在《儿科和青春期医学档案》上的有关这个话题的三份报告得出结论说，看电视容易给孩子的学习带来不利影响。
文章举例说，如果一个三年级孩子的卧室里放有电视机，这样孩子就会经常看电视，那么他在标准化测验中的分数将低于那些卧室中没有电视的孩子。
相反，研究还发现如果孩子的卧室里配有接入互联网的电脑，孩子在考试中就会获得相对较高的分数。
“通过我们长期的观察发现，一般情况下那些卧室里有电视而没有电脑的孩子成绩最差，而那些卧室里有电脑而没有电视的孩子的成绩最好，”研究报告的撰稿人、霍普金斯大学的迪娜·勃尔杰克夫斯基写道。
这份报告声称，有孩子的美国家庭平均每户有近三台电视。那些卧室里有电视的孩子每周看电视的平均时间约为13小时，而那些卧室里没有电视的孩子每周看电视的时间则只有11个小时左右。
美国儿科学会敦促家长们把孩子每天看电视的时间限制在一到两个小时之内，并且让年幼的孩子们远离电视。
根据同期杂志刊登的另外两份研究报告，如果孩子在三岁之前经常看电视，他以后的学习成绩就会比较差，而且经常看电视的儿童和青少年也很少能完成中学学业，更不用说取得大学文凭了。
华盛顿大学的研究人员再报告中指出，尽管目前还没有已被证明对年幼的孩子有教育价值的电视节目出现，但在两岁以下的美国儿童中，有59%的儿童平均每天看电视的时间为1.3小时。
对三到五岁的孩子而言，看电视可能会提高他们的识字和短时期的记忆能力，但是却无助于阅读理解和算术能力的提升。所以，看电视的“实际益处相当有限”，报告撰稿人弗雷德里克·齐默曼写道。
(中国日报网站译)
Vocabulary:
academically: 学问上，理论上
obesity: the condition of being obese; increased body weight caused by excessive accumulation of fat(肥胖)
net effect: 净效应，有效效应，实际结果
| |
| |
|
|
. |
|
