REEL TIME: THE EFFECTS OF TELEVISION EXPOSURE TO THE

ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF ADOLESCENTS

AND YOUNG ADULTS
CHAPTER 1
Introduction

Over the years, we have seen the rapid growth of the appearance of
television, from the simple box type black and white screens to the now high-tech
flat screen televisions. Apart from the growth of the hardware system, we have
also seen the growth of programs being shown and produced from time to time
for television viewers of all ages; cartoons, and animated shows for children,
variety shows for teenagers and movies and dramas for the adults. Over the
years as well, experts have been debating from time to time about the effects of
television viewing to its audience. There has been conducive studies on
television viewing, correlating it with violence in adolescents, television viewing
and the impact it has on a familys relationship, television advertisements and its
impact on young consumers, and more importantly, television viewing and
cognitive development.
According to Alexander (2012), even so, the debate continues as to
whether television viewing may affect or interfere in the education of children.
Achievement, intellectual ability, grades, and reading show complex relationships
with television viewing. For example, the relationship between television viewing
and academic performance is not clear cut. Children who spend a great deal of

time watching television do poorly in school but children who spend a moderate
amount of time with TV perform better than non-viewers.

Burtina (2008) quoted in an article that we live in a fascinating world and

even more enthralling society. Our society is becoming more and more capable
of being constantly informed, entertained, and connected to the other individuals
at the click of a button. Life without media is simply unthinkable.

Looking at the more technological lifestyle offered by different forms of

media available today: is TV viewing still a factor that affects academic
performance? Or is it something rather irrelevant today? Among all the
technological advancement today, music players, to game consoles, to
innovative mobile smart phones, and to the very widely available use of internet,
would teenagers still spend a majority of their time in television viewing? The
answer is actually yes, but not as much anymore, compared to when the other
forms of media, such as computer games, internet use, and the like has not been
introduced yet. According to an article in 2009 edition of the Los Angeles Times,
a study has found that the average teen watches approximately 103 hours of
television a month or more than three hours per day. Moreover, there is evidence
to suggest that television can have a negative effect on an adolescent's mental
health.

Mckee (2009) posed a thought provoking idea that when people try to
imitate something seen or heard, there is a difficulty in letting them distinguish
between right and wrong. Thus, the media has a great impact in the way we act
or think.

In a report by Quismundo (2011) a London based research and ratings

from Quacquarelli (QS) released its 2011/2012 index of top-rank universities,
with four Philippine universities rated outside the 300 worlds best - The
University of the Philippines (332), Ateneo de Manila University (360), De La
Salle University (551-600 bracket) and the University of Santo Tomas (601+
bracket). Is television and other media forms to blame for this fall in rankings? Or
are adolescents these day just too caught up with other things thus affecting their
overall school performance?

Although there may be many contributing factors as to why we (The

Philippines) fare very badly in the annual rankings of studies like these, we
researchers feel that television viewing maybe one important contributing factor,
and hopefully by narrowing the study down, the researchers will be able to come
to a deeper understanding as to whether television is really good or bad for
students in terms of academic achievement.

Foreign Literature
According to Melissa Raineri (2008), in the average home, the set of
television viewing ranges to about 7 hours a day. Some even more. Survey says
women watch more than men, non-Whites more than Whites, pre-schoolers and
retired people more than those in school or working, and the less educated more
than the highly educated.

This distraction obviously interferes with daily activities. When their

attention is on TV shows, school-aged members of the household have less time
for studying. Parents put off work they could've finished. The time spent in front
of the TV could be spent having quality time with the family. Some would argue
that watching TV together is their idea of family time.

Dworjan (2012) argued that when children are very young, the television
already begins to have an influence on their life. Modern generations have grown
up on shows like Sesame Street, Barney and Teletubbies. While many of these
shows are educational and beneficial to development, when children grow up to
be teenagers, and step out of the educational television arena, that is when TV
potentially becomes a negative influence. Different genres of television show are
globally available for viewing of the teenagers. Parents now have limited
restriction on their sons/daughters choice of television shows to watch.

Dworjan (2012) also noted the negative influences of television that can
be found on many programs. The following situations are most likely to be
viewed by teenagers:

Violence, crime or fighting scenes

Explicit sex scenes or conversations about the topic

Alcohol, cigarette or drug use

People making bad decisions such as dating someone dangerous

Cursing or other verbal obscenities

Descriptions of stereotypical characters such as the girl who sleeps

around with everyone or the bad boy

These scenarios are worse when teenagers start to get a hold of shows
with themes like these. Aside from accommodating interference in their study
hours, more of their attitudes on other things could be influenced as well.

According to Ransohoff (2009) television can be a powerful teacher. Like

Dworjans view, watching Sesame Street is an example of how toddlers can learn
valuable lessons about racial harmony, cooperation, kindness, simple arithmetic
and the alphabet through an educational television format. Some public television
programs stimulate visits to the zoo, libraries, bookstores, museums and other
active recreational settings, and educational videos can certainly serve as
powerful pro-social teaching devices. The educational value of Sesame Street,

has been shown to improve the reading and learning skills of its viewers. In some
disadvantaged settings, healthy television habits may actually be a beneficial
teaching tool.

Still, watching television takes time away from reading and schoolwork.
More recent and well-controlled studies show that even 1 hour to 2 hours of daily
unsupervised television viewing by school-aged children has a significant
deleterious effect on academic performance, especially reading.

Wood (2008) suggests that 14 year old teens who sit in front of the TV for
hours a day may have complications with their education. Especially when
watching three or more hours a day, it may probably lead to poor homework
completion, negative views toward school, bad grades, and poor performance in
college.

Television has the potential to generate both positive and negative effects,
and many studies have looked at the impact of television on society, particularly
on children and adolescents. An individual childs developmental level is a critical
factor in determining whether the medium will have positive or negative effects.
Not all television programs are bad, but data showing the negative effects of
exposure to violence, inappropriate sexuality and offensive language are
convincing. Still, physicians need to advocate continued research into the
negative and positive effects of media on children and adolescents.

According to Sternheimer (2010) teenagers may also watch a lot of TV for

other reasons. It can be a less expensive substitute for other entertainment, a
particular issue for low-income families.
Local Literature

Aguilar (2008) states that on average, Filipino children spend five hours a
day in front of the television, more time consumed in going to school. Television
has been blamed for childrens obesity, loss of interest in outdoor games and
lack of motivation in studying and doing homework.

Filipino children spend most of their times watching the television, in result
they become what we call couch potatoes. Couch potatoes are people who stay
in front of the television watching for hours and eating unhealthy food like
candies, junk food etc. because of this, children have the tendency to neglect
their studies and become unproductive.
Theraconcepts (2008) mentioned in an article entitled Children and
Television that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) suggest that older
kids watch not more than 1-2 hours of Television or video per day, while kids
under 2 years of age not watch any television and above all, television should not
be a substitute for activities like playing, exercising or reading.

Physical activities such as playing, exercising or reading are not only

important to a persons physical development most especially a childs but also to
their overall mental and cognitive development, through play and games, a
person develops logical and spatial skills, while through reading, a child
enhances his vocabulary. Putting a person in front of the television will hamper or
take away the time they could have used in beneficial activities like these.

Also by Theraconcepts (2008), according to the AAP Policy Statement

entitled Children, Adolescents, and Television there are negative health effects of
television viewing on children and adolescents, such as violent or aggressive
behaviour, substance abuse, sexual activity, obesity, poor body image, and
decreased school performance.

Children and adolescents who engage in watching television are observed

to display negative health effects, such as obesity from being inactive and long
hours of staying in front of the television. Negative behaviour and emotional
effects such as violence and aggression also result from what they see on
television. Poor body image, having seen the societys standards of beauty the
children and adolescents could feel some pressure conform to the standards
they see on the television. Because of the pressure to conform it could lead to
substance abuse, seeing people doing it can make them curious and try these
things. Also going along with the pressure to conform, it cannot be avoided that
there would be displays of sexual activity, this could give them the wrong idea

about the things they are obviously not yet ready to handle to face. Decreased
school performance is also blamed in watching television, having all you focus in
the television, conforming to everything the television consumes time and takes
away the attention they should have been giving their studies

Foreign Studies

According to a study conducted by Ariel R. Chernin, BA and Deborah L.

Linebarger, PhD, in the United States, despite the widespread use of computers,
and the internet, television (TV) remains the dominant form of media in childrens
lives. A recent nationally representative survey found that 8- to 18-year-olds
watch an average of 3 hours of television a day compared with 1 hour a day
spent on recreational computer use. Younger children (infants to 6-year-olds)
watch an average of 1 hour of TV a day while they read (or are read to) for an
average of 39 minutes per day. (Chernin & Linebarger,2005)

Reading or being read to, watching television, studying, and doing

household chores are four very important activities that is presumed to affect a
childs cognitive and social development. What if among the four activities, your
child tends to spend more time on watching TV and tend to devalue the other
three activities? There is absolutely no question that children and teenagers who
spend greater amounts of time with television perform less well on standardized
tests of achievement. This inverse relationship the greater the viewing, the

lower the achievementholds for the three basic skills (i.e., reading, writing, and
mathematics) and for other subjects as well (e.g., science, social science, and
history). (JRank, 2004).
Why is this so? Why is this inverse relationship considered to be so true?
Here are the reasons; in general, while watching television, your child is probably
not doing any of the following:

Asking questions

Solving problems

Being creative

Exercising initiative

Practicing eye-hand coordination

Scanning (useful in reading)

Practicing motor skills

Thinking critically, logically, and analytically

Practicing communication skills

Playing interactive games with other children or adults (helpful for developing
patience, self-control cooperation, sportsmanship)
(Healthy Children, 2012)

Huang and Lee, (2010) stated in a study, conducted in Korea, where the
TV habits of children ages 6-7 and 8-9 were studied to see if it affected their
cognitive development, Overall, for math score at ages 8-9, watching TV during

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ages 6-7 and 8-9 has a negative total effect, mostly due to a large negative effect
of TV watching at the younger ages 6-7. For reading score, there is evidence that
watching no more than 2 hours of TV per day has a positive effect, whereas the
effect is negative outside this range.

According to this study conducted by Huang and Lee, the recommended

number of hours of television exposure per day should not exceed 2 hours. Any
exposure more than that can prove to be deteriorating to a childs cognitive
development

Mistry, Minkovitz, Strobino and Borzekowski (2007) also stated that the
American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under age 2 watch
no television while children age 2 and older are limited to no more than 2 hours
of daily viewing.

Do these studies also pertain to adolescents and young adults? Too much
television affects children as young as 2, how much more as they get older and
more media genres are made available to them.

Moreover, Seattle Children's Hospital (2009) recommends that if you allow

television time, choose age-appropriate programs. Involve older children in
setting guidelines for what to watch. Use guides and ratings to help, but beware
of unproven claims that programs or DVDs are educational. Even cartoons

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produced for children can be violent or over stimulating. Limit TV time to no more
than two hours per day. Less is better.

Johnson (2007) adds another persuasive evidence that confirms other

large studies concluding that parents worried about their kids going to college
and being successful beyond should make sure their teenagers are not watching
too much TV.
It could be whether watching a lot of TV sharpens people's mental skills or
shortens their attention spans, zaps energy, and fosters violent behavior has
been the source of much debate over the years. Hundreds of studies have come
down on both sides of the argument.
This study is considered valuable by many experts because it has
followed 700 families for 19 years. The same people were interviewed at the
ages of 14, 16, 22, and 33 in upstate New York. Crook (2007) says this is a wellexecuted study and is important because it looks at the possible effects of TV
watching over such an extended period.
Crook (2007) adds that the data goes back a very long way, unlike most of
what comes out about TV and its purported effects. Other analyses are based on
a kind of one-shot deal, whereas this assesses subjects again and again over
many years.
Many see it as a wake-up call, including groups who are disinclined to
agree with basic conclusions that TV is inherently a negative influence.

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Other experts are taking the findings to task for not considering other
reasons why adolescents who watch large amounts of TV have less academic
success as they mature.
Howard (2007), chair of the marketing department at Cox School of
Business at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, agrees with the
fundamental conclusion that it's not a good thing for kids to sit around and watch
too much TV.
But Howard also adds that he would suggest that people not get too
comfortable with the particular conclusion that TV is the monster. The root cause
of a lot of these later developmental problems by TV watchers could be some
other problem. The whole implication that if you stop TV viewing, that all of these
other problems might go away is wrong.
Others voice concern that the study may be a bit dated since it began
before the proliferation of some modern media include cable and satellite TV with
some 700 channels and the researchers are looking to see if this study still
pertains to the modern generation.
Local Study

According to the TRU study (2012), Filipino teens are more immersed in
the digital universe in 2012 with more than half or 58% of their respondents
going online compared to 45% in 2011. Most of the respondents use the

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Internet primarily as a connector and relationships enabler, thus making social

networking sites more popular than ever.

Due to this study, will it mean that the television has a smaller impact on
adolescents as compared to the days when television was the only
distractive media form present? How will this affect an adolescents
behaviour, attitudes and study habits.

Alanzalon, (2011) stated in her thesis study, foreign media content have
been a staple in the programming of Philippine broadcast media. Most of the
studies indicated in her thesis analyzed the audience and found out that the
reason for this is the attractive physical appearance of the actors, the good
values presented in the content, and the high quality production of the
television shows. The same elements are present in Korean popular music
(the new fad) and the presence is the same reason why many Filipino teens
become much attracted to Kpop music, videos and artists.

Based on this study, we can see how big the effect of media form is on an
adolescent, teenagers do not content themselves with only listening to Kpop
music, or watching other foreign television shows but many teenage viewers
would go as far as following their hairstyles, fashion and purchasing products
their favourite foreign actors and actresses promote.

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Osorio (2012) elaborating a study by TRU on teenage consumers, three

key activities remain true to Filipino teens - watching television 96%, hang out
with friends 85%, and play sports 76%. Television continues to be a dominant
medium, peer groups remain a vital cog in relationships and active
engagements persists in young peoples lifestyles.

Theoretical Framework

In the light of the theories cited in the Archives of Pediatrics and

Adolescent Medicine, specifically the editorial posted in 2005 entitled The
Relationship between Childrens Television Viewing and Academic Performance
by Ariel R. Chernin, BA and Deborah L. Linebarger, PhD, this study aimed to
correlate the relationship between television exposure to the Academic
Performance of adolescents.

Figure 1, shows the Research paradigm of this study. The articles in the
current issue of the ARCHIVES generally found a negative association between
childrens overall TV viewing and academic performance, (Chernin and
Linebarger, 2005) They also stated that 3 articles theyve studied all discuss the
impact of TV on academic achievement within the framework of displacement
theory, which suggests that as children spend more time watching TV, they
spend less time participating in more valuable activities, such as reading and
doing homework.

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Research Paradigm
Fig.1
Little Television Time

Too much Television Time

<2 hours per day

>2 hours per day

High Academic Performance

Low Academic Performance