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Journal Issue: Children and Electronic Media Volume 18 Number 1 Spring 2008

Media and Attention, Cognition, and School Achievement
Authors: Marie Evans Schmidt Elizabeth A. Vandewater

Electronic Media and Achievement

Researchers investigating the influence of media have found modest negative links, or none at all, between the total time children spend viewing television and their school achievement. A review of twenty-three studies, varying across several measures, found an overall weak negative association (median = -.06) between television viewing and achievement.5 Moderate TV viewing—one to ten hours a week—was positively associated with achievement (compared with no television at all), whereas heavier viewing—more than eleven hours a week—was negatively linked with achievement (-.09).6 Numerous correlational studies, with large samples, have found similar small negative effects of total time spent watching TV on achievement.7

Many studies have found what social scientists call curvilinear relations between hours of TV viewed and achievement. In other words, up to a certain threshold number of hours viewed, TV viewing is linked positively with achievement; above that threshold the link becomes negative. A meta-analysis of more than 1 million students by Micha Razel suggests that the optimal number of hours of TV viewed daily decreases as children get older; for a nine-year-old two hours a day is optimal, whereas for a seventeen- year-old it is half an hour.8

Research that takes into account relevant characteristics of the children under study, such as their IQ and socioeconomic status, typically finds no significant link between hours of TV viewing and achievement.9 IQ, in particular, plays a large role in the association between TV watching and achievement; students with lower IQ scores, for example, watch more television, on average.10

The amount of time spent viewing television also appears to influence achievement for children from different socioeconomic backgrounds in different ways. Watching a lot of television is negatively linked with achievement for advantaged children.11 But TV viewing is positively associated (or not associated at all) with achievement for disadvantaged children or those with limited proficiency in English.12 George Comstock and Haejung Paik interpret these findings as meaning that television viewing and academic achievement are negatively associated when TV displaces cognitively enriching experiences, but positively associated when it provides such experiences.13

When researchers examine the relative importance of media content and total time spent with media, they find that content matters more. For example, empirical evidence strongly supports the notion that high- quality educational programming has positive benefits for children's academic skills, academic engagement, and attitudes toward learning.14 The evidence is particularly strong for preschoolers, as described in the article in this volume by Heather Kirkorian, Ellen Wartella, and Daniel Anderson.

It does not seem that time spent with media greatly displaces time spent reading or doing homework, largely because American youth spend so little time doing either.15 When TV first became available, TV viewing replaced “functionally similar” activities, such as listening to the radio, reading comic books, and going to a movie.16

Studies have not consistently found that time spent watching television, in general, reduces adolescents' time spent in school-related activities. Most cross- sectional correlational studies, for instance, have not found a significant link between television viewing and less reading.17 A few studies of the influence of TV on young children, however, suggest that TV viewing may hinder the acquisition of reading skills over time.18 In a recent longitudinal study in Germany, Marco Ennemoser and Wolfgang Schneider found negative associations between total TV viewed by children at age six and reading achievement at age nine, even when controlling for IQ, socioeconomic status, and prior reading ability.19 Importantly, the negative association was between achievement and entertainment viewing; educational TV viewing was generally linked positively with reading achievement. This finding is consistent with other research that suggests that TV's effects on reading are largely dependent on the content viewed.20 For instance, Anderson and his colleagues found that educational TV viewing at age five positively predicted book reading in adolescence in a prospective longitudinal cohort.21