Iowa State psychology doctoral student Edward Swing (left
and Associate Professor of Psychology Douglas Gentile (right)
Photo by Bob Elbert, ISU News Service
Greater attention span problems reported when exceeding TV and video game viewing guidelines.
A new study published in the July issue of Pediatrics, Television and Video Game Exposure and the Development of Attention Problems, has concluded that too much time spent watching television and playing video games can double the risk of attention problems in children and young adults.
Edward Swing and colleagues at Iowa State University assessed two age groups: middle schoolers (third-fourth-fifth graders) and 2010 college students.
Using the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation of watching TV or playing video games less than two hours a day, they discovered that “Those who exceeded the AAP recommendation were about 1.6 times to 2.2 times more likely to have greater than average attention problems.”
In commenting on the study, Dr. Dimitri Christakis, the George Adkins Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington in Seattle stated, “These media aren't going away. We do have to find ways to manage them appropriately."
He also explained that his own research found that the faster-paced shows increased the risk of attention problems because "You prime the mind to accept that pace. Real life doesn't happen fast enough to keep your attention."
Although one study does not prove the case, trainers, teachers, and speakers have first hand experience with participants who cannot focus for longer periods of time.
As new generations enter the learning environment, and the workplace, the need to deal with participants whose minds are conditioned for, and expecting, a faster pace, will likely require learning “that happens fast enough to keep their attention.”
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Lenn Millbower, the Learnertainment® Trainer and former Disney training leader, helps trainers, teachers, and speakers keep their learners awake so the learning can take through one-on-one coaching, keynotes and seminars, open enrollment workshops, instructional design consulting, and his published works.
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Comments
Did they ever study (or ask the child/teen) WHAT it was thinking about when the attention shifted to something else? Not all kids are born listeners either. Pace is one thing, interest renewal is another. I'm quite sure that if the conversation between two kids ever drifted to that particular show or game, they could talk about it for a while and be quite pertinent in their arguments about it.
your life could change in the blink of a second...
Do the video games cause the lack of attention or does the lack of attention cause the playing of video games?
So you can play a game for hours but being in a study situation, you don't pay attention?
Maybe it's due to games being more fun than real life...and school work.
I know I wasn't interested in being educated long before I ever had a computer or really watched TV, you either like school/certain lessons or you don't, I loved art and history and had no real passion for anything else so I didn't pay much attention.
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