There's a lot going on behind closed doors, according to a new survey from Lloyds TSB. British children are now estimated to own a staggering 28bn worth of electronic equipment in their rooms, and the age at which they are becoming hooked on solitary screen pursuits appears to be getting younger.
The implications of the survey go beyond Lloyds' desire to boost the amount of home insurance its customers take out. Its findings compound fears that family life is becoming less cohesive and that children are becoming anti-social, spending long periods in their bedrooms engaged in activities that their parents know little about.
If children are spending so many hours in their rooms on screen time, what is happening to communal family life? Are these children also missing out on other, more beneficial activities, such as reading and playing out of doors?
Early years consultant Jennie Lindon believes it is a worrying trend. She says, 'If children play computer games for excessive amounts of time or watch television, then they are likely to spend that much less time in physically active outdoor play, in conversation and in enjoyable joint activities like cooking with parents.'
She adds, 'There are many positive programmes and uses of technology that can be directly linked with real life hands-on experiences, but alert adults have to make this happen.'
No expense spared
Entitled 'British kids are toying with a fortune,' the Lloyds survey sampled 1,300 families and covered children up to the age of 18.
It found that more than seven in ten children had TVs in their bedrooms and almost six in ten owned a games console. Half also owned a DVD player/recorder.
Acquiring these expensive pieces of kit does not appear to be a problem for young children. Over 80 per cent of them were given high-tech items as gifts and half of parents felt their children deserved or needed them, while almost a quarter felt that these items kept them out of trouble. A significant number also said that children's bedrooms now held more valuables than any other room in the house.
Research carried out at the London School of Economics by Professor Sonia Livingstone and Moira Bovill (see further information) corroborates the trends contained in the Lloyds report and highlights that it is not just older children who prefer to spend their leisure time alone in their rooms.
Their European study surveyed 11,000 children in five countries and showed that even among six- to seven- year-olds, just over half had their own bedrooms which were well equipped with media.
Professor Livingstone says, 'This media-rich bedroom culture represents a vital, yet largely taken for granted, aspect of their daily lives which enriches the variety of leisure opportunities that are open to them.'
She points out that from a commercial viewpoint, these developments represent a new opportunity for targeted advertising and marketing, 'as the media-rich child's bedroom is both a site of reception for commercial messages and a location for the display and use of leisure goods.'
While few children under the age of nine watched TV in their rooms in the mornings, a third of the sample did so when they got home from school.
Professor Livingstone adds, 'At this age it appears children are still keen to spend time with their families and bedroom culture is less established.
However, in the UK there is a slightly larger proportion of younger children watching alone if they have their own set.'
Children in the UK also spend more time than their European counterparts in pursuing private screen activities, at an estimated average of five hours a day. This finding appears to link with parents' fears about letting children out of doors on their own.
Interestingly, the survey showed that British children are the most likely to say there is not enough for someone their age to do in the area where they live. In line with this, the report suggests the meaning of bedroom culture in individual countries depends on the leisure context in which it develops.
Real time
Some might argue that many computer and electronic resources provide materials that promote creativity and imaginative play, but Jennie Lindon emphasises that children need to play 'pretend' in real time, with real objects and with real other children.
'There is good reason to be concerned that in many cases a screen and even sophisticated technology does not deliver these experiences,' she says.
Liz Attenborough, manager of the Talk to Your Baby campaign at the National Literacy Trust, believes that our burgeoning bedroom leisure culture is partly due to mounting family conflicts over the remote control, with multiple TVs often seen as a way of keeping the peace.
'We need to be braver about saying no to TVs in the rooms of children under ten,' she says.
However, she is keen to point out that a lot of British programming is of a very high standard.
'CBBC's website is particularly popular with fathers of children aged between six and seven and is identified as a useful tool for interacting and playing with their children,' she says.
Unsociable children
As far as practitioners are concerned, it can be easy to spot a child who spends too much time on screen activities in their bedroom.
At Netherton Children's Centre in Dudley, deputy head Nikki Shaw says, 'There can be extreme examples when a child is very unsociable and is unable to chat to others. Sometimes a child is unable to play with toys or amuse themselves in any way.'
Ms Shaw believes screen habits are symptomatic of modern family life.
'Everyone is always very busy and it is hard for families to find time to sit down with each other and do things together,' she says. 'But TVs can be turned off and it can be empowering to do this. At the same time, we have to be very careful about how, as practitioners, we talk to parents about this.'
Children don't watch TV at the children's centre, but sometimes characters from soaps such as 'EastEnders' will be used to develop a discussion, as many children are familiar with them.
'However, we are opening a debate with parents about whether we should have TVs here for the children's use, because the aim is to make the environment as close to being like home as possible,' Ms Shaw says.
When it comes to computers, children are encouraged to start using them at the centre at a very young age with tasks such as finding objects and clicking on them. 'We also use them a lot for photographs of the children which they find very exciting,' she says.
Ms Shaw would like to see a lot more dialogue about screen habits generally. 'Not all of it is negative,' she says. 'There is some fantastic programming and it is this which needs to be tapped into. It's all about balance and choice.'
While Lloyds TSB will be using its survey as a lever to get parents to update their insurance, Professor Iram Siraj-Blatchford of London University's Institute of Education remains sceptical about the extent to which nursery- age children have a lot of computer equipment in their rooms.
She says, 'Our research suggests that many children in this age range do have access to computers, but they are not primarily purchased for their use, but for parents and older siblings.
'My research also suggests that many or most non-violent and gender-neutral screen applications have educational potential when adults or older siblings actively support these. Problems occur when children spend excessive time on repetitive, arcade-type games or drill and practice programmes.'
For Jennie Lindon, the 'in their own bedroom' is an issue but not the only point. 'Children need their important adults to set safe limits on screen time of any kind, even when the equipment is in a communal family space.'
NW
Further information
* Bovill, M and Livingstone, S 'Bedroom Culture and the Privatization of Media Use.' In Children and their Changing Media Environment: A European Comparative Study. Edited by Livingstone, S and Bovill, M. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001
* Lloyds TSB Survey www.mediacentre.lloydtsb.com
