Interesting news... and certainly interesting that it is being taken note of:
Saudi Children Spend 3 Hours a Day Watching Television
Javid Hassan, Arab News Staff
RIYADH, 6 January 2004 — Saudi children spend an average of 3.1 hours a day on weekdays and 4.9 hours at the weekend watching TV, a survey reveals.
The survey, conducted by Merlin, an American consumer research firm, involved 800 Saudi children in the 5-12 age group and 400 parents. The findings have been released in the latest issue of the Gulf Marketing Review.
While 74 percent of the respondents said they watch the programs regularly with their brothers or sisters in the 5-6 age group, the percentage declined to 62 in the 11-12 age group. This compares with 60 percent for the first category that watches TV programs with the entire family as against 55 percent for the 11-12 age group.
“Interestingly, the percentage watching TV regularly with brothers and sisters and with the whole family declines with age ... the striking thing is that only 19 percent said that they regularly watch TV on their own. For the great majority watching TV is usually a shared experience,” Merlin’s study said.
Boys watch fractionally more television during the week (3.2 hours versus 3.0), while the average for girls is higher at the weekend (5.1 hours versus 4.6). Saudi families, with an average between six and seven members, have two or more TV sets. This allows parents and children to watch programs separately.
This trend among Saudi families has serious implications, according to other independent studies, which say children are significantly influenced by the programs they watch.
“The influence is noticeable in the younger generation, particularly among teenage boys, who often prefer baseball caps and baggy jeans to the traditional long gowns and headgear of their elders. Tattoos and nose rings are even making their way into Saudi culture,” says Dave Montgomery of Knight Ridder Newspapers, who conducted a study during his visit to Riyadh last month.
He adds that while Saudi children watch the Disney channel, their “mom and dad flip through contemporary American movies with Arabic subtitles.”
A study conducted by Wajeha Al-Huwaider, a reading management specialist at Saudi Aramco, highlighted the fact that more than 41 percent of Saudi women during a training program in Jeddah never borrowed books and 70 percent read only textbooks and other assigned material.
She concludes: “I will never forget the comment of an American college after reading my findings; she said that at one time during their history, the Arabs were reading to learn, but in the present day, they were simply learning to read. I was further shocked by a recent Lebanese newspaper report that Arabs read an average of seven minutes in a year.”
arabnews.com
Now unlike myself, they apparently can't multi-task... I'm sitting here watching TV, reading the latest and greatest, and thinking deep thoughts... ;0)
Hawk |
