TV May Increase Aggression in Toddlers

Nov. 3 -- MONDAY, Nov. 2 (HealthDay News) -- Yet another study has found that television viewing is linked to aggression in young children.

This research, published in the November issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, found that direct TV watching by young children or exposure to indirect viewing in the household were both associated with increased aggression in small children.

After controlling the data for other factors, such as maternal depression, living in an unsafe neighborhood and being spanked, "for every hour that a child watched TV directly, aggression went up 0.16 on a scale of zero to 30. For a TV being on in the house, it was 0.09," said study author Jennifer A. Manganello, an assistant professor of health communication at the University of Albany School of Public Health, State University of New York.

And, she said, while the increase may not seem like a lot, when the researchers looked at all of the other factors, "TV was more likely than some other factors to increase aggressive behaviors."

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is concerned enough about the media's effect on children's behavior that they recently updated their policy on media violence.

"Exposure to violence in media, including television, movies, music and video games, represents a significant risk to the health of children and adolescents. Extensive research evidence indicates that media violence can contribute to aggressive behavior, desensitization to violence, nightmares and fear of being harmed," wrote the AAP Council on Communications and Media.

For the current study, Manganello and her colleagues collected data from the home and by telephone for 3,128 children born between 1998 and 2000. The children came from 20 large U.S. cities, and their mothers completed surveys when the child was born, and again at ages 1 and 3.

Because so many factors can influence a child's behavior, the researchers tried to control for as many factors as they could, including maternal health and depression, maternal parenting attitudes and behaviors, maternal experience with violence, the safety of the neighborhood and demographic characteristics.