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. 2013 Apr 5;25(3):142–147. [Article in Spanish] doi: 10.1016/S0212-6567(00)78477-0

La televisión y los niños: ¿es responsable la televisión de todos los males que se le atribuyen?

Television and Children: is Television Responsible for All the Evils Attributed to it?

BE Caviedes Altable a,*, E Quesada Fernández a, JL Herranz b
PMCID: PMC7675803  PMID: 10730436

Abstract

Objetive

The purpose of this study was to analyze children's television viewing habits and their parents attitudes towards such viewing.

Design

Cross-sectional descriptive study.

Setting

Primary care.

Participants

A survey was undertaken with 317 three to fourteen year old children and their parents as part of the primary care check-up program for healthy children. Measurements and main results. Time devoted to television viewing was 106 ± 50 minutes on weekdays and 141 ± 80 minutes weekends. Despite this, 49.2% of parents thougth their children saw little television, especially those with children under six (57.6%). Children of parents in highly qualified positions and of parents in the uppermost socioeconomic group saw television the least, on non-working days (70 ± 61 minutes and 144 ± 78 minutes respectively, p ≤ 0.0001). Some 71.9% of children watched television alone and 34% did so at meal-times. Altogether 48.3% of parents were unaware as to what their children watched and some 61.5% encouraged television viewing, above all those having children of under six (76%). The youngest children preferred to watch cartoons which were generally of a violent nature. For those aged from 11 to 14, 19.5% chose as their favorite programs those having a high level of violence.

Conclusion

Television habits are an educational problem for parents, an important shakeup in their attitudes beig called for, in which pediatricians should be involved in developing health programs aimed at proper use of the television.

Key words: Television, Children, Parents, Violence, Education

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