BILL WOULD ADDRESS IMPACT OF ELECTRONIC MEDIA ON CHILDREN
Sens. Brownback (R-Kan.), Clinton (D-N.Y.)and Lieberman (D-Conn.) introduced legislation Wed. authorizing a $90 million federal grant program for research into the effects of electronic media on children’s physical and psychological development. The Children & Media Research Advancement Act (CAMRA) would establish a program within the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development to look at the impact of all forms of media, including TV, radio, videogames and the Internet, on children’s behavior at the early stages of brain development.
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The senators said they were optimistic the bill would pass this year, even though it’s late in the session and little new legislation is likely to become law. “We have an interesting bipartisan coalition here,” Lieberman said: “We are going to look at some vehicles to attach this to as an amendment.”
The senators decided to introduce the bill now because of growing evidence of a direct link between certain health problems and the amount of TV a child watches, particularly in the early years, Clinton said. But there isn’t a single, well-coordinated research program on the impact of the media on children in wide-ranging areas, such as obesity, sexual attitudes and brain development. “The longer we wait to understand the full impact of media on our children the bigger risk we take and we are gambling with their futures,” Clinton said.
Brownback cited a Kaiser Family Foundation report that found children under 6 are reared in a media saturated environment. About 30% of children 3 and under and 43% of children ages 4-6 have a TV in their bedroom. “How does this have an accumulated effect on a generation raised on a media that is increasingly sexual and increasingly violent?” Lieberman asked. In fact, children spend more time with media than any other activity besides sleeping.
The bill received immediate support from advocacy group Children Now. “Given the rapidly changing technological environment, including the transition to digital television, we need to understand the impacts of interactivity and new technologies on children in particular,” Children Now officials said in a statement. The American Academy of Pediatrics also supported the proposal.
The research would look at the consequences of very early screen usage by babies and toddlers on children’s cognitive growth, and the role of sexual messages in the media on children’s sexual attitudes and practices. “It really is about putting us on a fact-finding mission,” Lieberman said. The research would focus on children and may later look at media content -- an area Clinton said Congress has been only “marginally successful” at addressing. The research would also provide the media with information to act more responsibly about the programs they put out, Brownback said.
The bill also calls for a report to Congress on the research findings and recommendations on how scientific evidence and knowledge may be used to improve children’s development and learning capacities.