Media Risks

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Media Saturated Lifestyles

Our curriculum was developed to be used in the elementary school system. The pilot project consisted of eight classes of students for a total of 178 students, 91 male students and 87 female students. The students were selected from four different schools in the community of Deep Cove in North Vancouver, British Columbia. The students ranged from grade 2 to grade 6. Parental participation was an important element of the project as well, so information packages, pamphlets, surveys and newsletters were sent home throughout the project.

Lots of people worry about school bullying and the obesity epidemic. But can we do anything about these problems?

A pilot study conducted in North Vancouver Schools last May and June under the direction of Dr. Stephen Kline suggests there is. This project set out to make children’s lives safer and healthier by reducing the risks associated with TV watching, Internet use and playing with video games.

The research team developed a media education curriculum that asked students to reflect on the role that media play in their lives and challenged them to explore what they would do if they didn't rely on media to entertain them so much. They then tested the effectiveness of this programme during a Tune out the Screen challenge.
Eight classes were involved in the project from four different schools from the Deep Cove district of North Vancouver. There were a total of 178 students in grades 2-6 including 91 male students and 87 female students. The intervention started with an audit of media use (questionaires and diaries), followed by five one hour in class weekly workshops and was supplement with parent newsletter and workshop. The evaluation was based on a Tune Out Week activity diary as well as student, parent and teacher interviews and playground observations.
The results of this pilot project demonstrate that communities can do something to reduce the lifestyle risks and ill-effects associated with the media saturated world our kids are growing up in. After the students participated in a media education strategy the researchers found an 80% reduction in screen use and an encouraging increase in reading and active leisure.

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1) Media Saturated Environment

Access to media in the home

The study was launched with an audit of children’s media use in the home. Access to television in the home was found to be nearly universal, with only one female student without a television. Video game systems were also prevalent with 72% of the students having access to a video game console in their home and 94% with computer. There was no evidence of a digital divide between girls and boys.

Mean time spent with the media
The audit also indicated that not only were the homes media saturated, but well used. The average time spent using all media during the week was 217 minutes per day.

Bedroom culture
Concern has been expressed that multiple media in the bedrooms increases the child’s sedentary lifestyle options while reducing the ability of parents to know about and regulate children’s use of the various media because consumption happens in isolation. Our sample indicates that 25% of children have one screen medium in the bedroom and 14% have more than one.

The North Vancouver parents we surveyed were deeply concerned with violence and adult content in television. 75 % of the parents felt that violence worried them the most; 69 % of parents also stated that adult content was a concern. Although the gender of the child was not related to these two top concerns, when it came to displacement of other activities (sports, reading, and family) parents were significantly less worried about boys 26% than girls 52%.

Video games
As with television, parents are concerned about violence. Yet fewer parents (37%) were concerned about exposure to adult content or associated video game play with sedentary lifestyle issues.

Computers
The survey indicated that 52 % of parents were concerned with adult content on the computer and Internet, while 38% with violence, and 26 % with the displacement of other activities.

3) Dynamics of Media Regulations in the Home

Parent’s Perspective

From the parents’ perspective, television is regulated for content while other media use stipulations concern time spent. Completion of homework was the least important stipulation in children’s media use. 62% of the boys and 76% of the girls reported that there were rules for media use in their homes. For boys, rules declined significantly from 89% to 52% as they grew older, but not for girls.
Moreover, parents and children did not always agree on what the household rules were. Moreover, 21% of the sample stated that they disobeyed rules relating to their computer particularly those with computers in the bedroom.

Eminem was the only star that made both male and female students lists. Musical talents seemed to be most popular among the girls' with 45% from the music genre, followed by stars from the comedy 27 % and adventure/fantasy genre 13%. The boys however selected comedy as their primary favourite at 42% followed by music and action; 24% and 17% respectively

Favourite Television Show
The students were asked to not only discuss who they would want to meet, but they were also asked what their favourite show was. The programmes mentioned by the students ranged from educational and child orientated programming such as Rescue Heroes and Zaboomafoo , to adult orientated shows such as MTV 'jackass’ and South Park. The favourite shows for the boys were The Simpsons (22%), Yu-Gi-Oh (12%) and Hockey Night in Canada (6%). The girls also enjoy The Simpsons (14%), but they also selected Friends (9%) and Lizzie Mcguire (6%) as other favourites

Reasons for why they liked these television characters
The boys like TV characters who were funny 37%, cool 28% and stupid at 15%. For girls characters must be funny (70%) pretty/nice/soft hearted as 44% , and both cool and smart (both at 17%).

The ‘Tune Out’ Challenge was accepted enthusiastically. Of the 121 students who kept a record of Tune Out Week activities, we found that sixty percent of the students reported getting through tune out week without using screen entertainment (TV and VCR, computer games, video games) at all. Girls were slightly more enthusiastic (62% vs. 54% for boys) thought older boys (grades 4-6) were far more successful than younger ones (63%) compared with 41% of younger ones. The opposite was true for girls as 65% younger in grades 2-3 were ‘media free’ compared with 59% of older girls.

“It was hard without any media, but I still had some fun. First I took out the batteries in my TV, then I unplugged my computer. Then I played scrabble and checkers with my grandpa. Then I played hockey, outside. I didn't watch or do any media today”.
Grade 5/6 boy

“Today was easy for me not use any media because the weather was warm and sunny. I played hockey with my dad after school. Then we went out for dinner and played monopoly when I got home. Before I knew it, it was time for bed”. Grade 5/6 boy.

Evidence gathered in the form of contracts for the ‘tune out the screen challenge’ revealed that the contract process was important for the success of the challenge: 64% of the children chose to go cold turkey, 29% adopted a ‘controlled use’ approach, and less than 7% ‘opted out’ the challenge. Analysis showed that the ‘controlled use’ strategy was far more popular among the younger students where as the ‘cold turkey’ strategy was chosen by 82% of the older ones who seemed to take up the ‘challenge’ more enthusiastically. It was noted that those refusing to take the ‘tune out challenge’ were disproportionately boys (83%) and also were far more likely to be from grade 2 and 3.

Of those that adopted a controlled use approach, 56% chose to allot themselves a time limit (average 1 hour) while 44% chose to only watch their favourite programmes.

The ‘cold turkey’ group consumed media on average only 5 minutes a day during tune out week, gaining 109 minutes of leisure time, and participating in 4.3 activities whereas the ‘opt out’ group consumed 27 minutes and gained 97 minutes, and participated in 3 alternate leisure activities. The ‘controlled use’ group used media for 22 minutes per day on average and gained 90 minutes of leisure time, although this was dramatically different for the younger students (who only gained 64 minutes) when compared with the older students (153 minutes gained). Again it was those ‘opted out’ younger boys who consumed the most media during tune out week (38 minutes).

Displacement Effect

The ‘displacement effect’ was estimated by subtracting the amount of time spent using media in tune out week from that during audit week. The net effect was that students gained 100 minutes a day of leisure time from reducing their dependency on screen entertainment during tune out week. Those that went cold turkey gained 35 minutes more than those that didn’t, but all children seemed to benefit from the media education programme.

The programme was more successful with the grades 4-6 students who gained 117 minutes compared with 79 minutes for the grades 2-3 students. Those in grades 2/3 that tuned out gained on average 90 minutes while those that didn’t gained only 66 minutes. Those grade 4-6 students who tuned out gained 133 minutes compared with 92 minutes for those that continued to use media.

Alternatives to the Screen

So what did those who participated in the Tune Out challenge do with the discretionary time they gained? The analysis of 65 tuned out week diaries indicates that sports and outdoor play was the most frequent activity accounting for 34% of their responses. Indoor play and hobbies (19%), eating (15%), homework (14%) and media (8%) accounts for more than half their recorded time. Reading 6%, and just resting/ ‘vegging out’ (2%) accounts for the rest of their discretionary time. Sleeping, travel and self-maintenance time were eliminated from this analysis. It was noted that active leisure is much more common in the after school hours than in the evening.

Teacher Comments

Interviews with the teachers confirmed that not only did the students were excited about the programme, but that the effect of tuning out had a positive impact on their classroom. One teacher described a calming effect, remarking on the absence of disruptive behaviour as a refreshing change from the usual atmosphere in her classroom. Another talked about the completion of homework and the solidarity that developed in her class as the students coalesced around taking the ‘challenge’ together.

The project was coordinated by the Media Analysis Lab at Simon Fraser University’s School of Communication in partnership with the North Vancouver Parents Advisory Council and the North Vancouver District Board of Education.

Funding for this pilot project has been provided by the Ministry of Justice Canada’s Community Mobilization Programme.

To find out more about this research go to:
http://www.sfu.ca/media-lab/risk

For more information contact:
Stephen Kline, Project Director : 604-985-9661 or email kline@sfu.ca
Kym Stewart, Project Coordinator: 604-291-3434 or email kyms@sfu.ca

Executive Summary

Click to view the Executive Summary of Media Risk Reduction

To learn about this Risk Reduction Strategy watch this video

Watch this video to learn about teachers' experiences of the project