Study Indicates R-rated Movies Can Equal F Grades
February 21, 2007

"You can't watch television until your homework is finished," may be an oft heard expression in your home. And perhaps your children have questioned why their friends have "nice" parents that let them turn on the tube when they get home so they can unwind after a long day at school. (I've certainly heard this plea more than once from my kids.)

Now there is a study that squarely backs up your restrictions. In fact, not only does it support parents in applying time restrictions on media, it also strongly indicates how content in media may have a direct affect on school performance.

Published in Pediatrics: Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the study surveyed over four thousand middle school students in New Hampshire and Vermont. The fifth to eighth graders were asked questions to reveal what type of parenting methods were in place in their homes along with how television, video game and movie viewing were regulated.

Researchers Iman Sharif and James D. Sargent, both medical doctors, wanted to test two hypotheses in this study. One, referred to as the "displacement hypothesis," suggests that kids who spend time watching television or playing video games are stealing hours that would otherwise be used for homework.

The other angle looked at in the study is the "content hypothesis," where the amount of adult oriented material is considered and a determination made as to if it affects school performance as well.

Previous studies have looked at similar topics, but only in very young children. A recent report indicated preschool children could actually realize school performance benefits if they viewed nominal amounts of educational television. Unfortunately, by the time your children are in grade five, educational TV choices are less likely to dominate a child's media diet.

The results? I'm sure most parents won't be surprised to discover the displacement hypothesis holds true -- at least during weekdays. The more "screen time" (television, movies and video games) students enjoy on school weeknights, the more their performance in the classroom suffers. Over half the respondents say they watch between one and three hours of television on school nights, and another 19% play video games for a similar length of time.

While 35% of this group of moderate media watchers reported "excellent" school performance, the group that watched no television on weeknights made up 50% of the top-ranking category.  Likewise, when the time watching television and movies increased to between four and seven hours, "excellent" school performance dropped to little better than 20%.  Increased video game use caused a very similar decline.

You can give your kids some good news. Weekend use of media didn't correlate nearly as closely to decreased grades, unless it exceeded seven hours of movie and television time. This suggests that parents are justified in giving kids a little more TV and gaming time on weekends.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the study has to do with viewing R-rated movies and the number of premium cable channels in homes. On the questionnaire, students were asked if they were able to always watch R-rated movies, view them only sometimes, once in a while, or never. The correlation between these answers and school performance was shocking.

In the group that reported they were "never" able to view R-rated movies, there were hardly any students that reported being below average achievers and well over half of these students reported above-average marks.

Conversely, in the group of kids who reported having no restrictions on viewing R-rated movies, little more than 20% reported themselves as above average students, while better than 10% were below average. Similar results were found when asked if their parents imposed restrictions on the types of television programs they were able to view. Kids who could watch anything had significantly poorer grades in school. The number of premium cable channels also correlated with school performance -- more choices on the tube related to poorer marks on the report card.

Interestingly, the study also showed relationships between media content, risk taking behavior and self esteem. Again, students with little or no viewing restrictions were more likely to seek risky activities and reported feeling bad about themselves.

It's also important to emphasize these researchers feel the two issues of quantity and content are independent of determining school achievement. In other words, even a few R-rated movies are shown to have a detrimental effect. Likewise, eight hours of The Waltons reruns on a school night wouldn't be a good idea either.

Like all studies, this one suffers from limitations, the greatest being the chicken and egg syndrome. It is not known if viewing R-rated movies causes these behaviors, or if kids who are already showing these personality traits are more drawn to this type of entertainment.

However, a couple of factors do come through clearly: Kids in homes with parents enforcing media rules are doing better in school. And there is no denying a relationship between academic performance and media choices -- we just aren't sure which one is the cause and which is the effect.

So the next time you hear the complaining begin when you say, "TV off until homework is done," click this link [http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/118/4/e1061] and deliver the latest evidence about media and school performance to your questioning brood.

Rod Gustafson

Besides writing this column for the Parents Television Council, Rod Gustafson authors Parent Previews® - a newspaper and Internet column (published in association with movies.com) that reviews movies from a parent's perspective. He's also the film critic for a major Canadian TV station, various radio stations and serves on the executive of the Alberta Association for Media Awareness. Finally, his most important role is being the father to four wonderful children and husband to his beautiful wife (and co-worker) Donna.

Parenting and the Media by Rod Gustafson

The Parents Television Council - www.parentstv.org

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