Weekday TV watching hurts schoolwork

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. youths who watch television on weekdays tend to do worse in school than those who don't watch during the week, but weekend viewing appears to have no negative effects on schoolwork, researchers said on Monday.

The study of 4,508 middle school students ranging in age from 9 to 15 years also found schoolwork suffered among those allowed to watch adult, or R-rated, movies and cable channels with adult programming.

"Our data support the recommendation that parents limit weekday television and video game time to less than one hour and restrict access to adult media by limiting exposure to cable movie channels and R-rated movies and videos," wrote study author Dr. Iman Sharif of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York.

Among students who watched no television during the week, half did excellent work at school, the study said. Among those who watched between four and seven hours per week, only 24 percent had excellent school performance.

Watching television over the weekend had no detrimental effect on schoolwork, a finding that emphasized the importance of not skipping weekday homework assignments to watch television, said the study published in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Sharif said the effect of adult content on young minds ought to be studied further.

He suggested that children exposed to adult content engaged in "higher levels of sensation seeking and rebelliousness, (and) poor school performance.