Young children of working parents watch more television every day than previous reports have found, especially kids in home-based day-care settings.

Researchers surveyed day-care directors to find out how much television viewing was available and then added on the estimated two or three hours a day of home viewing done by many preschoolers. For the study, the researchers interviewed directors of 168 licensed child-care programmes in four American states - Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan and Washington. They asked the directors how many hours of television was usually watched. In all, the directors of 94 home-based programs and 74 center-based programs participated.

It was found that preschool-age children watched more TV - 2.4 hours a day on average - at home-based day care centres as compared to 0.4 hours in centre-based settings. The differences were less significant with toddlers and infants in home care who viewed 1.6 hours and 0.2 hours, respectively, compared with 0.1 hours for toddlers and none for infants in the centres. Those in home-based programmes watched, on average, double the amount viewed in centre-based programmes.

The findings are alarming considering that too much screen time, especially at day care, may mean that preschoolers miss out on opportunities to interact, socialise and learn language and other skills.