Sleep Disturbance and Media — a Kaiser Report
Posted on June 10, 2008 at 5:00 pm
“American children get too little sleep, with major adverse implications for their cognitive ability, judgment, behavior and physical health,” according to new study from the Kaiser foundation. There are many factors, but one of them is media. Children and adults often watch television or DVDs before going to sleep. But media use — computers, television, DVDs, cell phones, iPods, etc. — all of which have sharply increased, can disrupt sleep. 
The report notes that children, especially very young children, have much more access to technology than even in the recent past. Some believe that media use has directly displaced sleep. Children stay up later and get up earlier to use media. Many teens and even younger children take their cell phones to bed and stay up late sending text messages. The amount of television time correlates to irregular bedtimes and naptimes. Media use also displaces physical activity which is important for sleep quality. The exciting and dramatic content of programs, even those intended for children, can be disturbing and lead to increase in sleeplessness and nightmares. Surprisingly, passive viewing (having the television on in the background while they do other things) can correlate even more highly to sleep disturbance than active viewing (watching without other distractions).
This result may have arisen because the passive viewing to which the children were exposed was more stressful than the content that they were watching actively, which was presumably children’s fare. This result clearly warrants further research, particularly given the
amount of adult viewing that happens in the presence of children.
Kaiser recommends more research on this important topic.
are being released in one DVD and both are worth watching. The 1967 original, directed by Stanley Donen (“Singin’ in the Rain”) and starring British comedy duo Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, is the story of a short order cook (Moore) who sells his soul to the devil (Cook, who also wrote the screenplay) for the chance to be noticed by a beautiful waitress. He is certain that his seven wishes will give him all the opportunities he needs to persuade her to fall in love with him. But each one goes hilariously wrong. And of course the devil has more than one trick up his sleeve. The story is fine but what makes this movie memorable is what goes on around the edges — like the portrayal of the seven deadly sins (Raquel Welch appears briefly as Lust). The devil keeps busy — watch him scratching record and tearing the last page out of mystery novels as he chats with Moore’s character. And his answer to the question of how he became the devil is very well done.
Take away the sumptuous settings and Hollywood glamour and what you have here is like Henry VIII for Dummies enacted by the cast of the OC.
part two, or it tries to be. It has voiceover narration by Morgan Freeman. It has an inspiring and life-affirming friendship — featuring Morgan Freeman. It just is not very good.