Revisiting the Association Between Television Viewing in Adolescence and Contact With the Criminal Justice System in Adulthood

Abstract

A substantial number of previous studies have reported significant associations between television viewing habits and a host of detrimental outcomes including increased contact with the criminal justice system. However, it remains unclear whether the results flowing from this literature are generalizable to other samples and whether previously observed associations are confounded due to uncontrolled genetic influences. The current study addresses these limitations using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). The results of the preliminary models, which do not include controls for genetic influences, produced a pattern of results similar to those previously reported in the extant literature. The results of the genetically informed models revealed that the associations between television viewing and antisocial outcomes are not causal, but rather are driven by uncontrolled genetic influences. Further replication is required, but these findings suggest that results drawn from the extant literature may not be trustworthy.

Learning to blast a way into crime, or just good clean fun? Examining aggressive play with toy weapons and its relation with crime

“…We also suggest that policymakers, scholars and child advocates exert great caution in asserting conclusive links between war theme toys and behavioural problems, as evidence does not support such contentions. The apparent absence of association between playing with war toys and later real aggression is in line with recent data questioning the long‐term harmfulness of similarly themed television (Schwartz & Beaver, ), movies (Markey et al, ) or video games (Przybylski & Mishkin, ). Attraction to some aggressive themes in play and media may be developmentally normal (Olson, ), and restricting such play may have more detrimental impact than positive.…”

13 Reasons Why Not: A Methodological and Meta‐Analytic Review of Evidence Regarding Suicide Contagion by Fictional Media

“…Other variables related to personality, such as neuroticism, family environment, and even genetics (e.g. Schwartz & Beaver, ), could be important to consider.…”

Personalized Media: A Genetically Informative Investigation of Individual Differences in Online Media Use

“…In some cases, such as the influence of violent media [1] and media depicting sexualized content [2]—influences appear to be minimal. In other areas such as sleep disturbances [3], sedentary behavior [4] or antisocial behavior [5, 6], correlations appear to exist, although causality can be difficult to determine.…”

“…This development calls for an investigation of the origin of individual differences in online media use, especially as all previous studies in this area focused on clinical samples and on problematic or pathological internet use [5, 6, 8–10] or were based on small sample sizes [11]. …”

“…Genetic mediation of the association between media use and later adult outcomes has been demonstrated in two independent samples [5, 6] both of which focussed on television viewing and later adult criminal or antisocial behavior. Together, these works suggest that unmeasured genetic factors can account for the observed associations between media use and behavioral outcomes.…”