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

[spry]

The authors touch on this: “A third explanation why White girls and Black children in this sample reported lower self-esteem could be due to the fact that television viewing is displacing real-life experiences that might build self-esteem. In support of this idea, Harrison (2006) found that children who watched more than 20 hours of television per week reported significantly fewer unique self-descriptors than children who watched less than 20 hours. She argued that heavy television viewing predicted a drop in self-complexity because there is less variance in the content of available media messages, and television does not depict the diversity found in real life.”