The Effects of Background Television on the Toy Play Behavior of Very Young Children

This experiment tests the hypothesis that background, adult television is a disruptive influence on very young children's behavior. Fifty 12-, 24-, and 36-month-olds played with a variety of toys for 1 hr. For half of the hour, a game show played in the background on a monaural TV set. During t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Child development 2008-07, Vol.79 (4), p.1137-1151
Main Authors: Schmidt, Marie Evans, Pempek, Tiffany A., Kirkorian, Heather L., Lund, Anne Frankenfield, Anderson, Daniel R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attention
Behavior
Biological and medical sciences
Child
Child Behavior
Child care
Child Development
Child, Preschool
Children
Children & youth
Cognition
Cognitive Development
Developmental psychology
Empirical Articles
Family studies
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Games
Humans
Infant
Infants
Male
Musical intervals
Newborn. Infant
Noise
Play and Playthings
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Social Behavior
Television
Television programs
Television Research
Television studies
Television Viewing
Toddlers
Toys
Young children
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Summary:This experiment tests the hypothesis that background, adult television is a disruptive influence on very young children's behavior. Fifty 12-, 24-, and 36-month-olds played with a variety of toys for 1 hr. For half of the hour, a game show played in the background on a monaural TV set. During the other half hour, the TV was off. The children looked at the TV for only a few seconds at a time and less than once per minute. Nevertheless, background TV significantly reduced toy play episode length as well as focused attention during play. Thus, background television disrupts very young children's play behavior even when they pay little overt attention to it. These findings have implications for subsequent cognitive development.
ISSN:0009-3920
1467-8624
DOI:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01180.x