According to the NYTimes and some researchers at the University of Washington, giving your kid a warning before turning off the TV doesn’t help the transition go smoothly. Except that’s not what the study found. They had parents keep diaries of children’s screen time, and found that transitions that were preceded by warnings don’t go any more smoothly that those that were not.

Nobody seems to have asked why those transitions were preceded by a warning. It seems very likely that maybe kids who have a difficult time turning off the TV are the ones who get warnings from their parents.

And thus we conclude today’s episode of Bad Science in the Media.