The night-walkers of Uganda

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Life through a lens: How Britain’s 
children eat, sleep and breathe TV 
Lucy Ward, social affairs correspondent
January 16, 2008
A survey has shown that in modern-day Britain 
many children spend a lot of their daily lives 
watching television. They watch TV before they 
go to school, when they return home, as they 
eat their evening meal and then (63% of them 
– a much higher percentage than read a book 
each day) in bed at night. The survey of five to 
16-year-olds shows that four out of every five 
children now have a TV set in their bedroom.
Many children now do other things while they 
watch television, including social networking 
on the Internet, looking from their laptop to the 
TV screen and back again. Even if they are 
concentrating on the television, young people 
often do not watch just one programme. Boys 
in particular often switch from one channel 
to another and back again to watch two 
programmes at the same time. The survey, from 
the market research agency Childwise, will make 
many people worried that childhood is now more 
about private space and sedentary activities than 
about play, social interaction or the child’s
own imagination.
The survey also shows that children are watching 
more television than before. The amount of 
television-watching decreased over the last three 
years but is now increasing again. This is mainly 
the result of more girls watching soaps.
Children’s use of the Internet is also increasing 
rapidly. This means British children spend an 
average of five hours and 20 minutes in front of a 
screen every day, compared with four hours and 
40 minutes five years ago. But children do not 
read for pleasure as much as they did in the past. 
Four out of five children read books in their own 
time but only one out of four read books every 
day and only 53% at least once a week.
The survey interviewed 1,147 children in 60 
schools around England, Scotland and Wales. It 
found that children aged 5 to 16 watch television 
for an average 2.6 hours a day, and one in 10 
say they watch more than four hours a day. The 
survey also asked if children watched television 
while eating dinner or in bed before going to 
sleep. It found that 58% watch during their 
evening meal, while 63% lie in bed watching 
TV (rising to almost 75% of 13 to 16-year-olds). 
66% – particularly the youngest children – watch 
before school, and 83% turn on the television 
after returning home.
Rosemary Duff, the research director of 
Childwise, said television was now “a part of 
children’s lives”. She said that children watch 
it in a different way now. “In the past they paid 
a lot of attention when they watched television 
but now it is everywhere, at home and 
everywhere you go.”
“Children now multitask. They have one eye 
on the television while they read magazines or 
use the computer,” Duff said. When Childwise 
asked boys to choose between programmes 
on different channels they often didn’t want to 
choose and said they wanted to ‘watch both’. 
“They switch from one programme to another 
and cannot imagine that they need to make a 
decision. They are surprised when you ask them 
to make a choice.”
Computers are also now a key part of children’s 
private worlds. “The Internet is now an important