Teen-agers who watch more television are more prone to violence, study says

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Teen-agers who watch more than an hour of television a day during early adolescence are more likely to be violent in later years, researchers say. <br><br>The rate of violence, including

Thursday, March 28th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Teen-agers who watch more than an hour of television a day during early adolescence are more likely to be violent in later years, researchers say.

The rate of violence, including assaults, fights and robberies, increases dramatically if daily TV time exceeds three hours, according to researchers who studied more than 700 people for 17 years.

``Our findings suggest that, at least during early adolescence, responsible parents should avoid permitting their children to watch more than one hour of television a day,'' said Jeffrey G. Johnson of Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

``The evidence has gotten to the point where it's overwhelming,'' said Johnson, who led the team of researchers studying families in two upstate New York counties.

The work is the latest to associate aggression with television viewing. But while other studies have linked watching violent television to later aggressive behavior, Johnson said this is the first to investigate the total amount of time individuals spent watching and to follow those people over many years.

``I was surprised to see a fivefold increase in aggressive behavior from less than one hour to three or more hours,'' Johnson said in a telephone interview.

The study is appearing in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

Among youths who watched less than an hour of television daily at age 14, just 5.7 percent were involved in aggressive acts by the ages of 16 to 22, the study found.

For those who watched between one and three hours, the aggression rate jumped to 22.5 percent, and the rate was 28.8 percent for those who watched more than three hours, the study found.

The effect was most pronounced for boys with rates of 8.9 percent committing aggressive acts for those who watched less than an hour of TV at age 14, 32.5 percent for one to three hours and 45.2 percent for those watching more than three hours of television. For girls the rates were 2.3 percent, 11.8 percent and 12.7 percent, respectively.

A researcher whose 1998 analysis found increased violent behavior in youths who watched more than six hours of television daily welcomed the report.

Mark I. Singer of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, who was not connected to the new research, said it was ``an important study'' that covered a significant period of time and took into account potential outside influences.

He said part of the importance of the new report is the indication that there is a relationship in both sexes between television viewing and aggressive behavior.

Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters, said Wednesday he has not seen the study but found the results surprising.

``Anyone who watches much television knows that broadcast television is far more tame in program content than that found on cable and satellite,'' he said. He cited recent research that suggests violence on TV has fallen over the past two years.

In a commentary accompanying the report, Craig A. Anderson and Brad J. Bushman of Iowa State University said the findings were ``important evidence showing that extensive TV viewing among adolescents and young adults is associated with subsequent aggressive acts.''

The effects are ``not trivial'' and suggest it may be worthwhile to restrict the viewing time of adolescents, they wrote.

The American Psychological Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Medical Association, American Academy of Family Physicians and American Psychiatric Association also have reported connections between viewing violent television and aggressive behavior.

Johnson said the increase in aggressive behavior associated with higher television viewing held true both for people who had previous violent incidents and for those who had not had shown earlier aggression. That means the findings are not merely the result of people already prone to violence being more avid viewers.

The study also looked at young adults, measuring television time at age 22 and the odds of a violent or aggressive acts by 30.

Overall, just 7.2 percent of 22-year-olds who watched less than an hour of television daily were later involved in aggressive acts. For those watching one to three hours the rate rises to 9 percent and at more than three hours it is 17.8 percent.

The rates for males were 14.6 percent, 14 percent, and 18.8 percent. For women the rates were 0 percent, 3.9 percent and 16.8 percent.

More than 1,000 families started the study, ending with reports on 707 after people moved or dropped out for some other reason. The subjects were in Albany and Saratoga counties, both urban and rural areas. They were 91 percent white and 51 percent male.

Television viewing was studied through interviews in 1975, 1983, 1985-86 and 1991-93. The later aggressive acts were determined both through interviews and from local, state and federal police reports with a last check in 2000.