Jun 12, 2006, 7:17 GMT
Helsinki - Unmonitored television viewing can seriously disturb young children's sleep, a new Finnish study showed.
Exposure to programming aimed at an adult audiences including current affairs programmes or crime series 'markedly increases the risk of sleeping difficulties,' researchers at Helsinski University said.
They have studied the effects of television programmes on pre- school children aged five to six by compiling questionnaires sent to 321 parents in three Finnish university cities.
All the families owned at least one television set. One fifth of the families also had a television set in the children's room. On average, the television was switched on roughly four hours a day.
Children actively watched television for 1.4 hours a day and were passively exposed to the same period.
The researchers concluded that both active and passive television viewing caused shorter sleep problems, and noted an increase in high high passive exposure of more than 2.1 hours a day.
However, children's programmes did not appear to trigger sleep problems.
Children who watched television alone also experienced problems going to sleep, and those who watched television at bedtime experienced 'various sleeping problems, especially sleep-wake transition disorders and daytime somnolence.'
Parents were advised to reduce children's exposure to passive television viewing and limit access to adult-targeted programming, and discourage children from watching television at bedtime.
The full study by Juulia E. Paavonen, Marjo Pennonen, Mira Roine, Satu Valkonen and Anja Riita Lahikainen Anja Riitta was published in the Journal of Sleep Research.
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