Television Leads to Increase in Parent Adolescent Conflict

The study explored the link between Indian adolescents' television viewing and parent adolescent conflict. The sample consisted of male and female children (N=400) aged 12-15 years. It was hypothesized that heavy viewers of TV (watching >3 h of television) would be significantly higher on intensity and frequency of conflicts with their parents. The respondents were divided in to heavy (>3 h/day) and light viewers (<3 h/day) on the basis of the reported daily television viewing time in the questionnaire by Nanglu and Banth (2006) and Prinz et al. checklist was used to measure the intensity and frequency of conflict. Data was analyzed by t-ratio and regression analysis. Heavy viewers reported a significantly higher intensity and greater frequency of conflict with their parents as compared to the light viewers. The intensity and frequency of parents-adolescents' conflict reported a significant positive correlation with viewing of informative, entertainment, and horror/violent programs. This is indicative of the fact that the extent of television viewing and content of television viewing influences the parent adolescents' relationship quality.