Children's Sleep Affected by Violent Media Content, Says Study
A new study was recently published which showed that children who were exposed to violent television programming were more likely to have trouble sleeping, highlighting the crucial role parents have in monitoring what their children watch.
It has long been suspected that there is a causal effect between television and sleep patterns in children, but this study provides evidence to back up those claims.
"This study demonstrates that a healthy media use intervention can improve child sleep outcomes and adds evidence that the relationship between media and sleep in preschool-aged children is indeed causal in nature," said Dr. Dimitri Christakis of Seattle Children's Research Institute.
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The study, which was published in the journal Pediatrics, was conducted using 565 families in the Seattle area with children aged three to five.
The participants were then divided into two groups, with the first group receiving age-inappropriate media content with educational-type videos and the second, or control group, was given nutrition-related content.
Researchers then monitored the children's sleep patterns by assessing sleep in terms of categories including the time it took for the child to fall asleep, nightmares and difficulty waking.
This study was different than previous ones because this study focused on content choices rather than viewing time. This allowed researchers to focuses solely on content, suggesting the content itself played a key role, according to CBC.
Children who viewed non-violent material had lower occurrences of sleep problems, but those effects were seen to only last for a certain period of time after the research ended, Christakis reported.
"Given that early childhood sleep problems have been associated with a range of deleterious outcomes, both acute and long-term, including increased injuries, behavioral and emotional problems, difficulties in school, and obesity, the availability of useful, feasible strategies is critical," Christakis explained in the study.
