Testimony

Written Testimony Before the Senate Commerce Committee: Rethinking the Children's Television Act for a Digital Media Age

Jul 2009 🇺🇸 U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

Six years after founding Common Sense Media, Jim Steyer testified to the Senate Commerce Committee that the 1990 Children's Television Act needed updating for an on-demand, internet-connected media environment, and asked Congress to fund media-literacy education and support independent, third-party content ratings alongside industry self-regulation. He cited a Common Sense-commissioned analysis of more than 170 studies conducted by researchers at Yale, the NIH, and California Pacific Medical Center, which found the large majority linked heavier media exposure to negative outcomes such as childhood obesity and lower academic achievement, without claiming media as the sole cause. He also described a Common Sense review finding frequent alcohol, violence, and erectile-dysfunction advertising during NFL broadcasts watched by millions of children weekly. TechKids Foundation includes this as an early record of Steyer's advocacy for media-literacy funding and independent ratings.

~80% of 170 reviewed studies linked heavier media exposure to worse child health outcomes

Steyer's testimony cited a Common Sense Media-commissioned meta-analysis of more than 170 quantitative studies, conducted by researchers at Yale University School of Medicine, the National Institutes of Health, and California Pacific Medical Center, finding that roughly 80% associated greater media exposure with negative outcomes such as obesity, lower academic achievement, and other risk factors.

44.5 hours per week average media use, ages 8-18

The testimony cited data indicating the average 8- to 18-year-old spent at least 44.5 hours per week consuming media, not counting time spent on screens for school or homework.

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CITATION

Steyer, James P. Written Testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, hearing on "Rethinking the Children's Television Act for a Digital Media Age." July 22, 2009.

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