[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 71 (Wednesday, May 19, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5803-S5806]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. LIEBERMAN (for himself, Mr. Brownback, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. 
        Santorum, and Ms. Landrieu):
  S. 2447. A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to authorize 
funding for the establishment of a program on children and the media 
within the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to 
study the role and impact of electronic media in the development of 
children; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to introduce, along with 
Senators Brownback, Clinton, Santorum and Landrieu, the Children and 
Media Research Advancement Act, or CAMRA Act. Mr. President, we believe 
there is an urgent need to establish a Federal role for targeting 
research on the impact of media on children. Almost 5 years ago, the 
American Academy of Pediatrics recommended no television viewing for 
children under the age of 2. They subsequently recommended limiting all 
screen time exposure, including television, videos, computer and video 
games, to 1-2 hours per day for

[[Page S5804]]

older children. The Academy based these decisions on their best sense 
of how to facilitate the healthy development of children. However, not 
enough research had been conducted in this area to know if these 
particular recommendations were good advice or not. Five years later, 
we still have very limited information about the role of media, 
particularly the role of digital media, in very early development. Why 
not? None of our Federal agencies are charged with ensuring an ongoing 
funding base for a coherent research agenda about the role of media in 
children's lives.
  From the cradle to the grave, we now live and develop in a world of 
media--a world that is increasingly digital, and a world where access 
is at our fingertips. This emerging digital world is well known to our 
children, but its effects on their development are not well understood. 
From ages 2-18, children are spending an average of 5 and a half hours 
with media each day. For those who are under age 6, 2 hours of exposure 
to screen media each day is common, even for those who are under age 2. 
That is about as much time as children under age 6 spend playing 
outdoors, and it is much more time than they spend reading or being 
read to by their parents. How does this investment of time affect their 
development? We have all wondered about the answer to this question.
  Take the Columbine incident. After two adolescent boys shot and 
killed some of their teachers, classmates, and then turned their guns 
on themselves at Columbine High School, we asked ourselves if media 
played some role in this tragedy. Did these boys learn to kill in part 
from playing first-person shooter video games like Doom where they 
acted as a killer? Were they rehearsing criminal activities when 
playing this game? We looked to the research community for an answer. 
In the violence and media area, we had invested in research more so 
than in any other area, and as a result, we knew more. Therefore, some 
answers were forthcoming about how this tragedy could have taken place 
as well as steps that could be taken, such as media education programs, 
which could prevent similar events from happening in the future. Even 
so, there is still a considerable amount of speculation about the more 
complex questions. Why did these particular boys, for example, pull the 
trigger in real life while others who played Doom confine their 
aggressive acts to the gaming context?
  Consider the national health problem of childhood obesity. Does time 
spent viewing screens and its accompanying sedentary life styles 
contribute to childhood obesity? Or is the constant bombardment of 
advertisements for sugar-coated cereals, snack foods, and candy that 
pervade children's television advertisements the culprit? What will 
happen when pop-up advertisements begin to appear on children's cell 
phones that specifically target them for the junk food that they like 
best? The answer to the obesity and media question is also complex. We 
need more answers.
  A recent report linked very early television viewing with later 
symptoms that are common in children who have attention deficit 
disorders. Does television viewing cause attention deficits, or do 
children who have attention deficits find television viewing 
experiences more engaging than kids who don't have attention problems? 
Or do parents whose children have difficulty sustaining attention let 
them watch more television to encourage more sitting and less 
hyperactive behavior? How will Internet experiences, particularly those 
where children move rapidly across different windows, influence 
attention patterns and attention problems? Once again, we don't know 
the answer.
  Many of us find that our children are becoming increasingly 
materialistic. Does exposure to commercial advertising and even the 
``good life'' experienced by media characters partly explain 
materialistic attitudes? We're not sure. What will happen when our 
children will be able to click on their television screen and go 
directly to sites that advertise the products that they see in those 
favorite programs?
  Many of us believe that time spent with computers is good for our 
children, teaching them the skills that they will need for success in 
the 21st century. Are we right?
  How is time spent with computers different from time spent with 
television? Is the time spent with media the key to success, or is the 
content?
  The questions about how media affect the development of our children 
are clearly important, abundant, and complex. Unfortunately, the 
answers to these questions are in short supply. Such gaps in our 
knowledge base limit our ability to make informed decisions about media 
policy.
  We know that media are important. Over the years, we have held 
numerous hearings in these chambers about how exposure to media 
violence affects childhood aggression. We have passed legislation to 
maximize the documented benefits of exposure to educational media, such 
as the Children's Television Act which requires broadcasters to provide 
educational and informational television programs for children. We 
acted to protect our children from harm by passing the Children's 
Online Privacy Protection Act which provides safeguards from commercial 
exploitation for our youth as they explore the Internet, a popular 
pastime for them. But there are many areas where our understanding is 
preliminary at best, particularly those that involve the effect of our 
newer digital media. For example, we have passed numerous laws about 
sexually explicit content, such as the Communications Decency Act, the 
Child Online Protection Act, and the Children's Internet Protection Act 
to shield children from exposure to online content that is deemed 
harmful to minors. However, we know very little about how this kind of 
exposure affects children's development or about how to prevent 
children from falling prey to adult strangers who approach them online.
  In order to ensure that we are doing our very best for our children, 
the behavioral and health recommendations and public policy decisions 
we make should be based on objective behavioral, social, and scientific 
research. Yet no Federal research agency has responsibility for 
overseeing and setting a coherent media research agenda that can guide 
these policy decisions. Instead, Federal agencies fund media research 
in a piece meal fashion, resulting in a patch work quilt of findings. 
We can do better than that.
  The bill we are introducing today would remedy this problem. The 
CAMRA Act will provide an overarching view of media effects by 
establishing a program on Children and Media within the National 
Institute of Child Health and Human Development. This program of 
research, to be vetted by the National Academy of Sciences, will fund 
and energize a coherent program of research that illuminates the role 
of media in children's cognitive, social, emotional, physical, and 
behavioral development. The research will cover all forms of electronic 
media, including television, movies, DVDs, interactive video games, and 
the Internet and will encourage research with children of all ages--
even babies and toddlers. The bill also calls for a report to Congress 
about the effectiveness of this research program in filling this void 
in our knowledge base. In order to accomplish these goals, we are 
authorizing $90 million dollars to be phased in gradually across the 
next five years. The cost to our budget is minimal. The benefits to our 
youth and our nation's families are immeasurable.
  Our children live in the information age. Our nation has one of the 
most powerful and sophisticated information technology systems in the 
world. While this system entertains us, it is not harmless 
entertainment. Media have the potential to facilitate the healthy 
growth of our children. They also have the potential to harm. We have a 
stake in finding out exactly what that role is. Access to that 
knowledge requires us to make an investment: an investment in research, 
an investment in and for our children, an investment in our collective 
future.
  By passing the Children and Media Research Advancement Act, we can 
advance knowledge and enhance the constructive effects of media while 
minimizing the negative ones. We can make future media policies that 
are grounded in a solid knowledge base. We can be proactive, rather 
than reactive. In so doing, we build a better nation for our youth, and 
we create a better foundation to guide future media policies about the 
digital experiences that pervade our children's daily lives.

[[Page S5805]]

  I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                S. 2447

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Children and Media Research 
     Advancement Act'' or the ``CAMRA Act''.

     SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.

       (a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
       (1) Congress has recognized the important role of 
     electronic media in children's lives when it passed the 
     Children's Television Act of 1990 (Public Law 101-437) and 
     the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-104), both 
     of which documented public concerns about how electronic 
     media products influence children's development.
       (2) Congress has held hearings over the past several 
     decades to examine the impact of specific types of media 
     products such as violent television, movies, and video games 
     on children's health and development. These hearings and 
     other public discussions about the role of media in 
     children's development require behavioral and social science 
     research to inform the policy deliberations.
       (3) There are important gaps in our knowledge about the 
     role of electronic media and in particular, the newer 
     interactive digital media, in children's healthy development. 
     The consequences of very early screen usage by babies and 
     toddlers on children's cognitive growth are not yet 
     understood, nor has a research base been established on the 
     psychological consequences of high definition interactive 
     media and other format differences for child viewers.
       (4) Studies have shown that children who primarily watch 
     educational shows on television during their preschool years 
     are significantly more successful in school 10 years later 
     even when critical contributors to the child's environment 
     are factored in, including their household income, parents 
     education, and intelligence.
       (5) The early stages of child development are a critical 
     formative period. Virtually every aspect of human development 
     is affected by the environments and experiences that one 
     encounters during his or her early childhood years, and media 
     exposure is an increasing part of every child's social and 
     physical environment.
       (6) As of the late 1990's, just before the National 
     Institute of Child Health and Human Development funded 5 
     studies on the role of sexual messages in the media on 
     children and adolescents sexual attitudes and sexual 
     practices, a review of research in this area found only 15 
     studies ever conducted in the United States on this topic, 
     even during a time of growing concerns about HIV infection.
       (7) In 2001, a National Academy of Sciences study group 
     charged with finding solutions to Internet pornography 
     exposure on youth found virtually no literature about how 
     much children and adolescents were exposed to Internet 
     pornography or how such content impacts youth.
       (8) In order to develop strategies that maximize the 
     positive and minimize the negative effects of each medium on 
     children's physical, cognitive, social, and emotional 
     development, it would be beneficial to develop a research 
     program that can track the media habits of young children and 
     their families over time using valid and reliable research 
     methods.
       (9) Research about the impact of the media on children is 
     not presently supported through one primary programmatic 
     effort. The responsibility for directing the research is 
     distributed across disparate agencies in an uncoordinated 
     fashion, or is overlooked entirely. The lack of any 
     centralized organization for research minimizes the value of 
     the knowledge produced by individual studies. A more 
     productive approach for generating valuable findings about 
     the impact of the media on children would be to establish a 
     single, well-coordinated research effort with primary 
     responsibility for directing the research agenda.
       (10) Due to the paucity of research about electronic media, 
     educators and others interested in implementing electronic 
     media literacy initiatives do not have the evidence needed to 
     design, implement, or assess the value of these efforts.
       (b) Purpose.--It is the purpose of this Act to enable the 
     National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to--
       (1) examine the role and impact of electronic media in 
     children's cognitive, social, emotional, physical, and 
     behavioral development; and
       (2) provide for a report to Congress containing the 
     empirical evidence and other results produced by the research 
     funded through grants under this Act.

     SEC. 3. RESEARCH ON THE ROLE AND IMPACT OF ELECTRONIC MEDIA 
                   IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN.

       Subpart 7 of part C of title IV of the Public Health 
     Service Act (42 U.S.C. 285g et seq.) is amended by adding at 
     the end the following:

     ``SEC. 452H. RESEARCH ON THE ROLE AND IMPACT OF ELECTRONIC 
                   MEDIA IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN.

       ``(a) In General.--The Director of the Institute shall 
     enter into appropriate arrangements with the National Academy 
     of Science in collaboration with the Institute of Medicine to 
     establish an independent panel of experts to review, 
     synthesize and report on research, theory, and applications 
     in the social, behavioral, and biological sciences and to 
     establish research priorities regarding the positive and 
     negative roles and impact of electronic media use, including 
     television, motion pictures, DVD's, interactive video games, 
     and the Internet, and exposure to that content and medium on 
     youth in the following core areas of child development:
       ``(1) Cognitive.--The role and impact of media use and 
     exposure in the development of children within such cognitive 
     areas as language development, attention span, problem 
     solving skills (such as the ability to conduct multiple tasks 
     or `multitask'), visual and spatial skills, reading, and 
     other learning abilities.
       ``(2) Physical.--The role and impact of media use and 
     exposure on children's physical coordination, diet, exercise, 
     sleeping and eating routines, and other areas of physical 
     development.
       ``(3) Socio-behavioral.--The influence of interactive media 
     on childhood and family activities and peer relationships, 
     including indoor and outdoor play time, interaction with 
     parents, consumption habits, social relationships, 
     aggression, prosocial behavior, and other patterns of 
     development.
       ``(b) Pilot Projects.--During the first year in which the 
     National Academy of Sciences panel is summarizing the data 
     and creating a comprehensive research agenda in the children 
     and media area under subsection (a), the Secretary shall 
     provide for the conduct of initial pilot projects to 
     supplement and inform the panel in its work. Such pilot 
     projects shall consider the role of media exposure on--
       ``(1) cognitive and social development during infancy and 
     early childhood; and
       ``(2) the development of childhood obesity, particularly as 
     a function of media advertising and sedentary lifestyles that 
     may co-occur with heavy media diets.
       ``(c) Research Program.--Upon completion of the review 
     under subsection (a), the Director of the National Institute 
     of Child Health and Human Development shall develop and 
     implement a program that funds additional research determined 
     to be necessary by the panel under subsection (a) concerning 
     the role and impact of electronic media in the cognitive, 
     physical, and socio-behavioral development of children and 
     adolescents with a particular focus on the impact of factors 
     such as media content, format, length of exposure, age of 
     child, and nature of parental involvement. Such program shall 
     include extramural and intramural research and shall support 
     collaborative efforts to link such research to other National 
     Institutes of Health research investigations on early child 
     health and development.
       ``(d) Eligible Entities.--To be eligible to receive a grant 
     under this section, an entity shall--
       ``(1) prepare and submit to the Director of the Institute 
     an application at such time, in such manner, and containing 
     such information as the Director may require; and
       ``(2) agree to use amounts received under the grant to 
     carry out activities that establish or implement a research 
     program relating to the effects of media on children pursuant 
     to guidelines developed by the Director relating to 
     consultations with experts in the area of study.
       ``(e) Use of Funds Relating to the Media's Role in the Life 
     of a Child.--An entity shall use amounts received under a 
     grant under this section to conduct research concerning the 
     social, cognitive, emotional, physical, and behavioral 
     development of children as related to electronic mass media, 
     including the areas of--
       ``(1) television;
       ``(2) motion pictures;
       ``(3) DVD's;
       ``(4) interactive video games; and
       ``(5) the Internet.
       ``(f) Reports.--
       ``(1) Report to director.--Not later than 12 months after 
     the date of enactment of this section, the panel under 
     subsection (a) shall submit the report required under such 
     subsection to the Director of the Institute.
       ``(2) Report to congress.--Not later than December 31, 
     2010, the Director of the Institute shall prepare and submit 
     to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions of 
     the Senate, and Committee on Education and the Workforce of 
     the House of Representatives a report that--
       ``(A) summarizes the empirical evidence and other results 
     produced by the research under this section in a manner that 
     can be understood by the general public;
       ``(B) places the evidence in context with other evidence 
     and knowledge generated by the scientific community that 
     address the same or related topics; and
       ``(C) discusses the implications of the collective body of 
     scientific evidence and knowledge regarding the role and 
     impact of the media on children, and makes recommendations on 
     how scientific evidence and knowledge may be used to improve 
     the healthy developmental and learning capacities of 
     children.
       ``(g) Authorization of Appropriations.--There are 
     authorized to be appropriated to carry out this section--
       ``(1) $10,000,000 for fiscal year 2005;
       ``(2) $15,000,000 for fiscal year 2006;
       ``(3) $15,000,000 for fiscal year 2007;
       ``(4) $25,000,000 for fiscal year 2008; and
       ``(5) $25,000,000 for fiscal year 2009.''.


[[Page S5806]]


  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I am pleased to rise today to join my 
colleagues and support the Children and Media Research Advancement Act 
or CAMRA. The development of our Nation's children is vital and the way 
in which media impacts their ability to grow and develop is imperative. 
For many years, I have been concerned about the impact media has on our 
children.
  The Kaiser Family Foundation recently released their report on 
electronic media in the lives of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers--
ages 0 to 6 years old. Not surprisingly, the study found that children 
today are reared in a media saturated environment.
  According to the study, 99 percent of all children live in a home 
with a TV set and 50 percent of these children live in a home with 
three or more TVs of which 36 percent have a TV in their bedroom.
  Perhaps even more startling, 30 percent of children ages zero to 
three years and 43 percent of four to six year olds have a TV in their 
bedroom. Additionally, 27 percent of children have their own VCR or DVD 
player in their rooms and 10 percent have their own video game console 
in their room as well.
  Further, 73 percent of children ages 0 to 6 have a computer at home, 
and 49 percent of these young people have a video game player.
  Even more concerning is that the American Academy of Pediatrics 
recommends that children under two do not watch any television. The 
Academy further states that all children over two should be limited to 
one or two hours of educational screen media a day.
  However, despite this recommendation, the Kaiser study found that in 
a typical day, 68 percent of all children under two use screen media--
59 percent watch TV, 42 percent watch a video or DVD, five percent use 
computers and three percent play video games. The study also found that 
74 percent of all infants and toddlers have watched TV before the age 
of two.
  Unfortunately, there is a lack of comprehensive research that 
provides detailed data on the relationship between media and brain 
development in children. That is why I am pleased to support the 
Children and Media Research Advancement Act. This will not only 
encourage much needed research in this area, but will also serve to 
coordinate such research.
  Providing parents and guardians with the most accurate information 
regarding the impact media has on their children is essential--to do 
anything less would be reprehensible.
  Already many studies--including ones that followed children from age 
8 until mid-adulthood (age 30 plus years)--have demonstrated a link 
between early exposure to entertainment violence and aggressive 
attitudes, values and behaviors, including increased levels of violent 
crime against others.
  There are three main effects on children of viewing entertainment 
violence: aggression more likely to think and behave aggressively, and 
hold attitudes and values favorable to the use of aggression to resolve 
conflicts; desensitization decreased sensitivity to violence and a 
greater willingness to tolerate increasing levels of violence in 
society; fear viewers may develop the ``mean world syndrome'' in which 
they overestimate their risk of becoming victims of violence.
  Even in the Kaiser study I referenced earlier, among all parents 
whose zero to six year olds watched TV, 81 percent said that they saw 
their children imitate behaviors from television--36 percent of parents 
reported that their children mimicked aggressive behavior, 78 percent 
mimicked positive behavior. When focusing on the four to six year age 
group, mimicking aggressive behaviors increase to nearly half or 47 
percent, with aggressive behavior being imitated more frequently with 
boys, 59 percent than with girls at 35 percent.
  Clearly, we must continue to encourage and fund studies that will 
show the effects media has on the development of the adolescent brain. 
I am pleased that CAMRA will encourage this much-needed research in 
such a crucial area.
  Protecting our nation's children and ensuring that parents have the 
most accurate and complete information on the effects of media on their 
children should remain our top priority. I look forward to working with 
Senators Lieberman and Clinton on an issue that is vital to our 
society.
  Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I rise to join with my colleagues 
Senators Lieberman and Brownback in introducing the Children and Media 
Research Advancement Act (CAMRA).
  Children today are living in an environment that is saturated with 
electronic media. Even in the last few years, we've seen a dramatic 
increase in media targeted directly at children. There's now a booming 
market of DVDs and videos for infants and the first TV show 
specifically for children as young as 12 months was launched a few 
years back. Kids today even have their own cable TV network.
  Researchers estimate that children spend an average of five-and-a-
half hours a day using these media--this works out to more than they 
spend doing anything besides sleeping. Even kids under six spend as 
much time watching TV and videos, playing video games, and using 
computers as they do playing outside. Unfortunately, we don't really 
know how this trend affects our children. But we do know that a child's 
early years affect every aspect of his or her development--physical, 
emotional, and cognitive. And therefore, we know that ignorance is not 
bliss.
  The longer we wait to understand the full impact of media on our 
children, the bigger risk we take. And we are gambling with our 
children's future. Parents need to know how television, movies, 
advertisements, video games, and the Internet affect their children so 
that they can make informed decisions about how much and what kind of 
media their children should be exposed to.
  As parents, we know intuitively that our young children shouldn't be 
watching television shows with extreme violence or age-inappropriate 
content. But there are other issues we aren't so sure about. How much 
video game playing is too much? Do advertisements for cereals and junk 
foods contribute to childhood obesity? How are our very young children 
and infants impacted by media? Right now we have little idea of what it 
means for infant development to put babies in front of TVs for hours at 
a time, but we know that sometimes popping in a video is the best and 
only way to calm our children down.
  Our bill, The Children and Media Research Advancement Act, will help 
answer these questions by establishing a single, coordinated research 
program at the National Institute of Child Health and Human 
Development. This program will study the impact of electronic media on 
children's--particularly very young children and infant's--cognitive, 
social and physical development.
  One of the first things the program will do will be to work with the 
National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine to establish 
an independent panel of experts to review and synthesize existing 
research and to establish research priorities on the impact of the 
media on child development. They'll then award grants for research that 
addresses the panel's priorities.
  If we are truly going to make children a priority, we have to pay 
attention to and take seriously the activities they're engaged in on a 
daily basis. Watching television, playing video games, and surfing the 
Internet are the things that children are doing more than anything 
else. We need to invest in research that will help us understand how 
this is affecting our children so that parents can make informed 
decisions about the positive effects and negative effects of these 
media on children.
                                 ______