Through a survey conducted in the United States, we confirm data that we already knew and that give much to think about. The survey has been conducted on 4-year-old American children, and the results indicate that they pass too much time in front of the television or the computer and they don't devote enough time to play.
According to these surveys, whose results we could transfer to the majority of advanced societies, almost 37% of children aged 4 to 11 who played actively, say "traditional", did so less than 7 times a week, while 65% spent more than two hours per day on the screen.
Some worrisome data if we consider how beneficial is the creative game, individual or group and not the passive reception of content or games that hypnotize before a screen.
And, as we saw, excess television can generate up to 15 negative effects on children, quite the opposite of games. And when we talk about games, of playing, of course we are not talking about video games, for which there are many different alternatives, but active, traditional games, in company, outdoors, sports ...
And let's not forget that we we are responsible of the good use that is given to the television or computer at home, and that we can decide to save a few moments to play each day with our children.
This study was carried out by a team of researchers from the Ohio State University School of Public Health, in Columbus (USA) and has been published in its version on-line in BMC Public Health magazine. The conclusions were drawn from the data of a national survey conducted in the period 2001-2004, which included a representative national sample of 2,964 children between 4 and 11 years old.
