New Zealand studies child TV habits.

Too much television watching raises the risk of children becoming school dropouts. This was the conclusion reached in a study conducted by Otago University (Dunedin), New Zealand's oldest university.

The study sample size was 1,037 and consisted of people born in 1972 and 1973. The study monitored subjects TV viewing habits and then when subjects were 26 years of age the study checked on their educational attainment.

The study found that the subjects who watched television less than one hour a day were the group most likely to go on to college.

Surprisingly, while teenage television viewing was associated with a higher dropout rate, early childhood television viewing was much more strongly associated with whether or not a subject would go on to earn a college degree.

The Otago researchers concluded that television had its adverse effect on educational attainment by displacing homework.