ABSTRACT
Whether television harms, helps, or has no effect on academic achievement is a question of long-standing scholarly and popular debate. Television is different from other media in some important ways. The television set is on in the average American home more than six and a half hours a day. Children are born into a new symbolic environment and grow up absorbing thousands of stories told by television each year. There is no longer any need to go outside of the home—to church, to school—or to learn to read in order to encounter the broader culture. Research on television's effect on school achievement dates back to the earliest days of television. In addition to the work done by academic researchers, the Departments of Education in various states have attempted to determine whether amount of television viewing relates systematically to students' achievement scores.
