The effect 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 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 onceperminute.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. Consider a 2-year-old child playing with toys in the living room. The television is playing a program designed for adult viewers. Mother is in the kitchen making dinner while listening to the TV. The child intermittently looks at the television for brief periods of time. Is television having an effect on the child? In this article, we test the hypothesis that background television is a disruptive influence on very youn