Watching, Wanting and Well-being
By Greg Childs
The latest salvo in the continuing attacks on children’s use of media came in a report issued by the National Consumer Council in which academics studied the attitudes of higher and lower income children (9-13’s) in relation to consumption, advertising, acceptance of media messages and the volume of television consumed. The report – “Watching, Wanting and Well-being” available on the NCC website, makes interesting reading, not least because the research itself could be said to be “wanting” in many respects. It contains inaccuracies – in that it claims children are watching more television when Ofcom’s latest figures clearly indicate they are not – and it glaringly states the obvious when it reveals that children in less advantaged homes watch more commercial television and are more likely to be influenced by it into equating happiness with wealth. As so often with this type of research there is confusion between the causal and the incidental. Might we not assume that kids in households where parents are depressed because they can’t pay the mortgage would come to the conclusion that more money means more happiness, whether they watch more TV or not?
However flawed, reports of this nature are devoured by the media as yet another scare story for British parents. With Save Kids’ TV as one of the few organisations now prepared to stand up for the value of television time for kids, we are often drawn into the press debate. Having previously avoided these discussions as being outside our core purpose, we have now come to realise that the radio and TV interviews offer us an opportunity to refocus the messages onto our own agenda. The key point for us (and what matters for UK kids) is that the quality of what they watch is in decline. Scaremongering is not going to make children watch very much less TV. But the quality of what’s on offer will have important affects in the long run. We take every opportunity to communicate that message as we engage in the “toxic childhood” debates.
And as for the National Consumer Council, who’s motto is “Making all consumers matter”, well, we’ve asked the to give some serious thought to the way in which kids as consumes of media are about to be seriously short-changed. That’s what really matters.
