Are television and video games really harmful for kids?

Are watching television (TV) and playing video games really harmful for children's development? By using a unique longitudinal dataset with detailed information on children's development and health, we examined the causal effect of hours of TV watched or of video games played on school‐age...

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Published inContemporary economic policy Vol. 33; no. 1; pp. 29 - 43
Main Authors Nakamuro, Makiko, Inui, Tomohiko, Sench, Wataru, Hiromatsu, Takeshi
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.01.2015
Blackwell Publishers Ltd
Western Economic Association
Subjects
Behavior
Bildungsökonomie
Child behavior
Child behaviour
Child development
Child health
Children
Children & youth
Childrens health
Computer & video games
Computerspiel
Evaluation
Fernsehen
Games
Health
Health aspects
Japan
Longitudinal studies
Längsschnittuntersuchung
Mediennutzung
Obesity
Schools
Schüler
Studies
Television
Verhalten
Video games
Japan
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Summary:Are watching television (TV) and playing video games really harmful for children's development? By using a unique longitudinal dataset with detailed information on children's development and health, we examined the causal effect of hours of TV watched or of video games played on school‐aged children's problem behavior, orientation to school, and obesity. The results suggested that the answer to the question is yes, but the magnitude of the effect is sufficiently small to be considered as negligible. The results were robust to within‐twin‐fixed effects. (JEL I10, I20)
Bibliography:istex:79DFA3D8DD1D83F7965A2DA98504FEFA7E3CDBB9
ArticleID:COEP12058
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Contemporary Economic Policy
as well as Daiji Kawaguchi, Kengo Yasui, Anil B. Deolalikar, Mindy Marks, Todd Sorensen, Shinji Yamagata, Yoshimichi Sato, Yasuyuki Sawada, Hidehiko Ichimura, Katsumi Shimotsu, Hideo Ohwan, Shunsuke Managi, Hideo Akabayashi, Juko Ando, Ayako Kondo, Koyo Miyoshi, and other participants in the Tohoku‐UC Riverside International Symposium, the Empirical Micro Research Seminar at University of Tokyo and Environmental & Resource Economics Workshop at Tohoku University, and Western Economic Association International, 10th Biennial Pacific Rim Conference and Tokyo Labor Economic Workshop for their insightful comments and suggestions on the draft of this paper. We also thank the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare for permission to use the Longitudinal Survey of Babies in the 21st Century. All the remaining errors are ours.
This study was conducted as part of a project titled “Research on Measuring Productivity in the Service Industries and Identifying the Driving Factors for Productivity Growth” of the Research Institute of Economy, Trade, and Industry (RIETI). We gratefully acknowledge that this research was financially supported by Grant‐in‐Aid for Scientific Research (A‐3243044). This paper benefited significantly from the comments of co‐editor, Michael R. Ward and anonymous referees of
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ISSN:1074-3529
1465-7287
0735-0007
1465-7287
DOI:10.1111/coep.12058