NEW YORK — More than an entire day -- that's how long children sit in front of the television in an average week, according to new findings released Monday by Nielsen.
The amount of television usage by children reached an eight-year high, with kids ages 2 to 5 watching the screen for more than 32 hours a week on average and those ages 6 to 11 watching more than 28 hours. The analysis, based on the fourth quarter of 2008, measured children's consumption of live and recorded TV, as well as VCR and game console usage.
"They're using all the technology available in their households," said Patricia McDonough, Nielsen's senior vice president of insights, analysis and policy. "They're using the DVD, they're on the Internet. They're not giving up any media -- they're just picking up more."
The increase in consumption is in part the result of more programming targeted at kids, she said, including video on demand, which is particularly popular among young children who like to watch their favorite shows over and over again.
"When I was a kid, I had Saturday morning cartoons," McDonough said. "And now there are programs they want to watch available to them whenever they want to watch them."
The findings alarmed children's health advocates, who warned that increased television watching is linked to delayed language skills and obesity. A 2007 study by researchers at the University of Washington found that babies who watched videos geared to them learned fewer vocabulary words than infants who never watched the videos.
When kids are plunked in front of a screen, they're also missing out on critical opportunities to learn from their parents and develop imaginative play, experts said.
"I think parents are clueless about how much media their kids are using and what they're watching," said Dr. Vic Strasburger, a professor of pediatrics at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and a spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics.
"The biggest misconception is that it's harmless entertainment," said Strasburger, who has written extensively about the effects of media on children. "Media are one of the most powerful teachers of children that we know of. When we in this society do a bad job of educating kids about sex and drugs, the media pick up the slack."
The academy recommends no screen time for children younger than 2 and less than an hour or two for those older than 2.
