Can Children Develop ADD From Watching TV?
In the early days of “Sesame Street,” producers noticed that the program wasn’t moving fast enough on street scenes to keep kids’ attention. What did they do? They utilized advertising research which showed that the best way to engage viewers was through ad-like shorts with quick movement, bursts of color, and loud noises. The result was a cross between entertainment and education, which became known as “edutainment.”2 Sure enough, it’s kept kids attention since 1969. But can fast-paced ad-like programming make kids hyperactive? Some researchers think so. According to a study by pediatricians at the University of Washington, which was published in the journal Pediatrics, one hour of daily television by children birth to three was directly tied to as much as 10 percent loss of attentiveness when the child reached age seven. Should we be concerned? We should when 2,500 kids were studied.3 The results of the study took into consideration that during the early stages of brain development,
