Turning Off TV

TerryS · Joined: 16 Oct 2006 Posts: 93 Location: California

Parents Should Limit Young Children's Exposure To Background TV

ScienceDaily (July 15, 2008) —

Despite the fact that pediatricians recommend no screen media
exposure for children under age 2, three-quarters of very young
children in America live in homes where the television is on
most of the time, according to research. A new study has found
that leaving your TV set on disrupts young children while they
are playing, even if the channel is tuned to adult shows. This
means that simply having the TV on, even in the background,
may be detrimental to children's development.

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of
Massachusetts. The researchers looked at 50 children ages
1, 2, and 3. Each child came to a lab with a parent and was
invited to play for an hour with a variety of age-appropriate
toys. For half the time, a television was on in the room,
showing an episode of the adult game show Jeopardy!, with
commercials; during the other half hour, the TV was turned off.

Researchers observed the children as they played to determine
whether background TV--defined as adult-oriented television
that is on and may be watched by older members of the family,
but which very young children don't understand and to which
they pay little attention--affected the children's behavior
during play.

Background TV was found to disrupt the toy play of the children
at every age, even when they paid little attention to it. When
the television was on, the children played for significantly
shorter periods of time and the time they spent focused on their
play was shorter, compared to when the TV was off.

"Background TV, as an ever-changing audiovisual distractor,
disrupts children's efforts to sustain attention to ongoing
play behaviors," according to Marie Evans Schmidt, who is
now a research associate at the Center on Media and Child
Health at Children's Hospital Boston and is the lead author
of the study. "Background TV is potentially a chronic
environmental risk factor affecting most American children.
Parents should limit their young children's exposure to
background television."

The study was funded by the National Science Foundation.