If you choose wisely, television can make you smarter -- and some research finds no harm to kids

Chicago Tribune (MCT) - Parents, you can keep those flash cards and alphabet books.

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But there's another device in your home that can help develop language and visual skills. It's called _ hold on to your remotes _ the television set.

Instead of being simply society's whipping boy and the root of all cultural evil, the so-called "idiot box" might actually boost test scores, especially in disadvantaged homes, a recently published study out of the University of Chicago says.

Even as it baby-sits electronically, the TV can be teaching both modes of learning and facts, other studies suggest, and keeping those who watch it from engaging in more destructive behaviors.

That's the good news about the boob tube. There's certainly bad, including the warning that "there's no two-dimensional screen that can equal a three-dimensional caregiver," says Dr. Donald Shifrin, the American Academy of Pediatrics spokesman on the impact of media on children. Then there's the study showing kids who watch more TV do less reading.

But we'll get to the numerous caveats _ especially the one about "Desperate Housewives" being less helpful than "Sesame Street" _ later.

For now, let's deal with what many may find surprising.

The prevailing, almost unquestioning cultural bias against TV, especially among the upper-middle class, is nailed by the humor blog Stuff White People Like, which puts "Not having a TV" at No. 28 on the list.

"The number one reason why white people like not having a TV is so that they can tell you that they don't have a TV," the authors write. But there is an academic consensus, if not a popular-culture one, that TV may actually be useful as more than just a means for frazzled parents to buy a few moments of uninterrupted time or wind down mindlessly at day's end.

"I used to laugh and say, 'I did 25 years of research on children in television, and I can summarize it in one sentence: It's the content that matters,'" says Aletha Huston, a professor of child development at the University of Texas.

"If used correctly, television can be a wonderful medium for kids. It can be a way of exposing them to the world. It can be a resource for kids to get to places and times they wouldn't get to," says Huston.

Yet, "it is a message that doesn't get out there somehow," she says, citing the surprisingly intense interest when "we published a study a few years ago showing the positive effects of 'Sesame Street' on early schoolkids' performance."

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The Chicago study came out of the Graduate School of Business, where young economists have been looking at media and its effects. Although based on an old data set, it offers new confirmation of the evolving views of television.

Standardized testing of almost 350,000 6th, 9th and 12th-grade students showed that the students who had more exposure to television in early childhood did slightly better on the tests than those with less exposure.

"We find strong evidence against the view that childhood television viewing harms the cognitive or educational development of preschoolers," write Jesse Shapiro and Matthew Gentzkow in the paper, published this year in the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

There's a big caveat: The testing data are from 1965, because those kids had been around when television rolled out from city to city in the U.S., providing what essentially hasn't been seen in the United States since, a large-scale, clear-cut, before-and-after comparison.

"It's an open question how the ways in which television is different now than then would affect the data," says Shapiro, an assistant professor of economics at the GSB.

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But even with more recent data, another U. of C. economist reached a similar conclusion to that of Shapiro and Gentzkow.

"Despite the conventional wisdom, watching television apparently does not turn a child's brain to mush," wrote Steven Levitt, with co-author Stephen Dubner, in the 2005 hit book "Freakonomics."

They looked at a huge early-childhood study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education in the 1990s and found "no correlation," they wrote, "between a child's test scores and the amount of television he watches."

One of the big questions for economists is not just examining an activity in isolation but considering what activity it replaces.

Psychological research shows that violence in media increases aggression, for example. But "violent crime decreases on days with larger theater audiences for violent movies," another recent study of media effects found. The implication: However aggressive you may feel, you can't do the crime if you don't have the time.

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Violent movies aren't the same as children's afternoon television shows. But Shapiro and Gentzkow also found that much of the impact of the medium they were studying seemed to be related to what activities it might be replacing.

In their findings, even after controlling for parental income and education levels, TV's "effects are more positive for children from less advantaged families or from families where English isn't the first language," Shapiro says.

Put another way, that translates into a whopper of a caveat: "For children with highly educated parents and rich home environments, the cognitive effects of television appear to be smaller and may even be negative," they write.

In other words: TV as a surrogate parent is not equal to Scrabble with an English-lit-major mom.

The common wisdom is that TV has been in decline for decades, but many critics share the view of another popular book, "Everything Bad Is Good for You." In it, author Steven Berlin Johnson contends that TV now is actually much better, "more complex and nuanced," than it was at the time of Shapiro's study.

"The most debased forms of mass diversion _ video games and violent television dramas and juvenile sitcoms _ turn out to be nutritional after all," Johnson writes, largely because the storytelling and complexity of action demands much more of the viewer.

He's looking at adult TV, comparing the intricate "The Sopranos" to the simple "Starsky & Hutch," for instance, but the argument can also be made for children's television, where the straight-ahead action-hero cartoon story has been replaced by the subtle social interactions and multiple layers of meaning in "SpongeBob SquarePants."

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Patricia Greenfield has looked at more contemporary data, too, and concluded television is a mixed educational blessing. It's likely responsible for a rise in verbal IQ scores, while it may be to blame for declines in verbal SAT scores.

"The real strength of television in teaching vocabulary is the visual context for teaching definitions," says Greenfield, director of the Children's Digital Media Center at UCLA and California State University at Los Angeles. That applies to IQ tests, which use "everyday vocabulary," she says. Meanwhile, SATs look for "Latin-based, literary vocabulary," which TV, by and large, does not offer.

Her 1998 paper, "The Cultural Evolution of IQ," also makes the case for television's helping to teach "visual intelligence," the reading of signs, symbols, images so vital in today's culture.

With television and DVDs being used widely in schools and by parents, her reading is that anti-TV forces may actually be "in decline," to the point that "I'm a little bit more concerned about people not understanding the costs, only looking at the benefits."

That's certainly a worry of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which recommends no screen time for children under age 2 and a maximum of two well-chosen hours per day for older kids.

The concern is not TV per se so much as what TV, especially relevant with one study showing nearly 40 percent of children age 6 and younger have TVs in their bedrooms.

"Are we viewing 'Elimidate'?" the academy's Shifrin asks. "Or are we viewing 'Dora the Explorer'?"

The doctors group understands that youngsters are growing up "as digital natives," he adds. "We want parents to understand it's up to them to be literate enough to know what's being taught" on the screens.

He recommends the Web site Common Sense Media (commonsensemedia.org) as a good way for parents to achieve such literacy.

"We are not going to censor television _ we'd like to censure it at times _ but what we are going to say is, 'Caveat emptor,'" Shifrin says. "It's about what you watch, how much you watch and where it's watched."

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HOW TO USE IT

1. Don't be passive. The stereotype is of the viewer numbly flipping through channels, looking for anything of interest. Instead, seek out what you have good reason to believe will be good or interesting and watch then or set your DVR or VCR to record it. You don't read books or go to films at random, do you? One quick way to find out what the critical consensus is: the Web site Meta critic.com, which sums up what major critics say about a show then provides an average rating. For kids' TV, try common sensemedia.org.

2. Ignore TV series in their first run. If you don't need to be part of water-cooler chatter the next morning, the much more efficient, educated way is to get a well-reviewed series from Netflix or your library after it has come out on DVD. Watch at your pace, without commercials.

3. "Documentary" does not equal "medicine." Many of us have some brain filter that counts nonfiction as castor oil, even when another part of our brain knows better. To take docs out of the equation _ the great work of PBS' "Frontline," for instance _ is to miss some of television's best work.

4. Take the TV out of the bedrooms. We've all got great kids with great judgment, but they are curious creatures, and left alone with the box, they'll seek out its most shocking fare _ not to mention get one more reason to procrastinate. Take temptation off the dresser.

5. If they must have TVs, use filters. All those ratings that were put in place do actually work. Spend 10 minutes with your TV's manual ("Ratings"), and you'll be able to limit the viewing possibilities to appropriate levels, plus be able to set a password strong enough to keep your settings from being overridden by the electronic-media genius you're raising.

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BEST SHOWS FOR CHILDREN

Five of the best TV shows for kids, according to Common Sense Media (commonsensemedia.org):

_"Planet Earth": "Stunning high-def series spotlights world wonders." Discovery (5 and older).

_"Little House on the Prairie": "Classic pioneer drama," in reruns. "Parents may find themselves answering questions about American history and geography, which is just one great reason to watch." Hallmark, syndicated (7-plus).

_"Arthur": "Its social lessons 1/8covering family issues3/8 are more complex and original than you'll find in most cartoons." PBS (5-plus).

_"American Experience": "History comes alive in excellent docu-series." PBS (12-plus).

_"Franklin": Young turtle show, "highly recommended for preschoolers and has no worrisome content." Noggin (3-plus).

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Steve Johnson: sajohnson@tribune.com

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