UK children who spend more time in front of TV or computer are more materialistic; children who are more materialistic have lower self-esteem and generally think their mums and dads are boring and un-cool and therefore argue with them more.

These are some of the findings of a landmark new National Consumer Council report, which attempts to examine the links between watching, wanting and wellbeing in UK children and addresses the growing
public concern on the links between exposure to media and children’s well-being.

The school summer holidays may have passed, but before long, half-term will arrive and children will have more time to watch television and surf the net. The NCC’s new report, Watching, Wanting and Wellbeing: Exploring the Links, takes a pioneering look at whether this affects children’s wellbeing and offers a more sophisticated look at their viewing habits than has been available to date.

The report highlights the rich complexity of children’s lives where those who spend lots of time in front of the TV and computer screen are more materialistic. These materialistic children argue more with their family; have a lower opinion of their parents and lower self-esteem.

“Today’s children are now ‘screen kids’. In some streets, every bedroom has a television for children and many have a computer. With many children watching or surfing when they wake up, at breakfast, after school, during dinner and in bed before sleep, we need to ask whether the electronic screen has now become the electronic babysitter,” explains Ed Mayo, NCC chief executive.

The report uncovers a divided society where commercial influence is exerted unevenly across different groups – with different communities displaying very different attitudes to media use and levels of materialism. The authors found that deprived children are more likely to watch commercial TV, TV programmes made for an older audience and twice as many say they believe adverts when compared to their affluent counterparts.

It shows - in terms of wellbeing – that most children feel good about themselves, but underneath this is a complex picture which reveals striking variations and consistent differences between different socio-economic groups.

Notably, children living in disadvantaged areas were found to have greater levels of unsupervised access to television and the internet compared to their affluent counterparts. Moreover, children’s television appears to be losing its appeal with youngsters as findings show they are not just watching programmes targeted at them. Fewer than half of 12 to 13 year-olds list any children’s programme in their ‘top three’ while children as young as nine pick out other programmes as favorites, including soaps, reality television and horror.

These stark variations show that in some households the screen appears to be ever-present, particularly during mealtimes. In disadvantaged areas, for example, children are six times more likely to watch TV during the weekday evening meal. Furthermore, around one in four in disadvantaged areas say they have the TV on at lunchtime on Sunday – compared to only one in thirty from the better off neighbourhoods.

Significantly, the findings show that children who spend more time in front of the TV and computer, the greater their exposure to media and marketing becomes and the more materialistic they tend to be. Just over half of children (51%) from disadvantaged areas think that ‘when you grow up, the more money you have, the happier you are’ compared with less than a quarter of children (23%) in affluent areas.