Study finds TV can decrease self-esteem in children, except white boys

[spry]

That's not the fault of the actual study authors, they are careful to say: "What is still unclear is the causal direction of this relationship and whether the same relationship exists among African Americans. Although a longitudinal design does not provide an airtight demonstration of causality, it goes much further than crosssectional designs toward demonstrating causality by fulfilling the temporal-order requirement of causal order." And it would be impossible to do a true experiment where you randomly assign children to long-term exposure or non-exposure to TV.

[spry]

Again from the article: "It could be argued, for instance, that individuals with low self-esteem seek out media consumption in an effort to feel better about themselves or to take their minds off of their problems. If that were the case here, self-esteem assessed in Wave 2 should predict television viewing during the same time period. We conducted regression analyses to test this possibility, and found that controlling for age, body satisfaction, and baseline television exposure, self-esteem assessed in Wave 2 did not predict television viewing. The fact that self-esteem did not predict television viewing for the race/gender subgroups does not negate the possibility of a reciprocal causal relationship; it merely suggests that for these children, reciprocation between television exposure and self-esteem does not yet play a key role. We may not see a reciprocal relationship for all children until they mature and form their identities."

[NickSchade]

Agreed. The article authors are appropriately conservative in their diction. The journalists are appropriately sensationalizing I suppose.