How Much TV Do Kids Watch?

Sunday November 8, 2009

According to a recent Nielsen report, kids ages 2-5 are spending more than 32 hours a week on average in front of a TV screen. At first glance, the number seems impossible. How could kids that young possibly be watching so much? A closer look reveals that the report includes time watching TV and/or playing video games, but the hours of reported TV watching alone are still staggering.

With so many different forms of kids' entertainment involving screen time, it's easy to see how the hours can add up. Kids, and their parents, may feel like they're engaging in different activities as they move from watching TV, to playing on the computer, to watching a DVD, to playing a video game...but all of these activities add up to a ton of screen time. Even if the screen time is high quality or educational (a whole new study needs to be done on that), the numbers from Nielsen are disturbing.

All of the articles on the study have got me wondering about our family's screen time numbers. As an adult who works on the computer, I don't even want to know how much time I spend in front of a screen. But I do want to know what the numbers look like for my kids. We generally keep TV viewing to one hour a day or less; however, we have Friday movie night quite often, and I never really add up the hours they spend playing American Idol on Xbox or playing Disney Fairies on the computer (they really don't have time to play those much, so it didn't seem necessary to have a rule). Then there's the educational reading program they play for school -- it's a great program, but still involves sedentary time in front of a screen. I think I'll track the screen time they put in this week, just to see how it comes out. I do think there is a difference when the program or game is educational or school-related, but there is still a point where it goes overboard. I estimate that my kids put in an average of 10-12 hours total screen time in a normal week. We'll see how close my guess is.

How much screen time do you guess your kids get in one week?