The Effect of TV on Toy Play

Abstract

The article “The Effects of Background Television on Toy Play Behavior of Very Young Children” by Schmidt, Pempek, Kirkortian, Lund, and Anderson (2008) describes a study done in which children had their interactions with toys observed. A television was the factor that changed in this experiment, and the ways that the children interacted with toys was hypothesized to change. This study brings up many questions regarding the way that people interact with technology and proposes alternate methods of doing so.

Introduction

The authors of “The Effects of Background Television on the Toy Play Behavior of Very Young Children” are trying to find evidence to support their hypothesis that adult oriented television programs being left on in the presence of infants and toddlers has a negative effect on their cognitive development (Schmidt, Pempek, Kirkortian, Lund, and Anderson, 2008, p. 1148). It is suggested that the length of a child's interactions with a toy suggests at higher levels of cognition and that television likely distracts children from their own imaginations by distracting them from what are referred to as play episodes (2008). The authors sought to show that television shortens play episodes.

The conclusions drawn from this study were that television shortens the amount of time that a child focuses its attention on the manipulation of a toy. When a child combines multiple toys together into a play episode it adds to the “maturity” of the activity – thus resulting in higher levels of cognitive development. Television shortens the amount of attention that a child puts on its play episodes and lowers the number of objects that the child involves in them. The study determined that it does not matter how long a child looks at the television because any look whatsoever at the TV results in a loss of concentration on playing. With every look at the television ongoing play schemes were interrupted due to a displacement of the children's attention from their activities to the screen. This was particularly true the younger the children being studied were, older children being less susceptible to the distraction of television and more capable of focusing on their own tasks instead (p. 1147). No definite conclusions were made other than that television shortens play episodes, but the implications of this seem to disturb the authors and lead them to believe that "background television, as a chronic influence, is by itself an environmental risk factor in children's development" (p. 1148). However, a distinction is made between background television and television intentionally aimed at entertaining or educating young children. Children's programming is made to be comprehensible to children and is in many ways beneficial. Adult programming is simply for entertainment and is purposefully jarring in order to grab its audience's attention. Small children may as a result be having their attentions drawn to televisions and thus stunting their growth in the long run.

It is alternately suggested by this article that the attention displacement demonstrated by the children is categorical with any noisy environment. It's entirely possible that early exposure to the distraction of television might better prepare children for coping with environments where televisions and other distractions are present. "It is possible, of course, that background television does not induce effects that are necessarily negative but instead induced a characteristic style of attention deployment, a style that may be appropriate in some situations but not in others,” says a study by Correa-Chavez, Rogoff, and Arauz (as cited by Schmidt, et al., 2008, p. 1148). The article also cites another study done by Ruff and Capozilli (2003) that concluded that children become progressively less susceptible to distraction after being exposed to one for a while. However, it is likely that since television is constantly changing it may be harder to become entirely resistant to it. It is also more important for a child to have fully developed cognitive skills than for the child to be able to ignore a television in the background.

This study seems to have been crafted with the studies of Lev Vygotsky in mind. Vygotsky proposed that the culture that surrounds a growing child has a significant influence on that child's development. This article definitely takes the “nurture” over “nature” side of the argument, putting emphasis on the settings and environments of the children being observed to explain their behaviors and play episodes. These researchers based much of their conclusions on their claim that when a child's thoughts are uninterrupted they can expand and become more mature, much in the way that Vygotsky emphasizes the importance of thought in development. Both the researchers and Vygotsky feel that the first few years of a child's life should be spent exploring the possibilities of thought and of attention. If bad Elementary Mental Functions are picked up at an early age then it is likely that they will be difficult to unlearn later on in life. A more constructive influence would make all of the difference in the early development of a child and therefore give them the abilities that they will need in order to function in society effectively. This is where the discussion had in class about how educational children's programming can be beneficial to a child's development. Mixing elements of learning with the attention-grabbing quality of the television helps prepare children for school by introducing concepts such as letters and numbers to them at an early age. They will not be ready for Jeopardy! for quite a while though, so they might be better off elsewhere while the adults are watching it.

This article is very eye opening because it might provide an explanation for why so many young people are being diagnosed with attention deficit or hyperactive disorders. Perhaps instead of being chemically imbalanced these youths have merely had their cognitive abilities hindered by chronic television exposure during an important time in their development. Playtime doesn't initially sound like a very important part of child's development, but it may be something that might be taken more seriously after the findings of this study are either made either more popular or certain. People leave their televisions on nonstop for something to listen to but it's doubtlessly rare for them to think that it may in some way hinder their own child's ability to function later on in life. For those who might want to have children someday this article should be required reading so that they will be conscious of the distraction to their child's very first thoughts that their television is presenting. In the future parents might make a point of turning the television off and approaching their children with activities that will engage their attention and expand their mind. At the same time, it ought to cause many to pause and consider what it is that they give their attention to daily. This study puts the greatest developmental importance on the amount of time that a child holds and pays attention to one object. Therefore, it is possible that the objects we pick up as adults are in many ways just as important to our continued development throughout our lives.

This article could be very important for the public to be aware of. If there is truth to the fact that television is stunting the mental growth of America's youth then it may have serious consequences on the country's future. In the event that this is the case the public would need to be warned of this hazard and be made aware of the importance of letting children think to themselves without being distracted by television programs that they are not old enough to comprehend yet. Television has been in the homes of most Americans since the fifties. If there is a possibility that multiple generations of Americans have been in some way affected by the negative effects of background television then this matter would need to be addressed as soon as possible in order to make the public aware of background television's effects on their children and to prevent future damage from being done.

It does not appear that there were any ethical violations carried out in this study. Children were not put in the way of harm during this study. They were merely put in a room to play and had a television turned on for half of the time that they did so. The only way of deciding if this in and of itself was unethical is exactly the thing that this study was aiming to find. No existing evidence would suggest that to put a small child in the same room with an episode of Jeopardy! could be considered unethical.

This study relates primarily to cultures in which television is a large part. American culture definitely fits into such a category due to the fact that an American television is, on average, turned on eight hours every day, according to an article in The New York Times by Gertner (as cited by Schmidt, et al., 2008, p. 1138). As far as involving different ethnic groups, this study is lacking in such information. Among the fifty children who were involved in this study forty-seven of them were white. As far as whether or not this is relevant to the results cannot be determined from the information presented in this report. Perhaps next time a greater effort towards representing all races of children can be taken by the developers of this study.

This article did not necessarily teach me that television is distracting. I myself find it almost impossible to focus on anything other than the television when it is on. It is probably good that my parents always closely monitored any television that I watched. I've always noticed other peoples' preoccupation with television and I myself have never really seen the fascination in much television other than Breaking Bad and Workaholics. I suppose that means I'm lucky in some ways that I haven't had “chronic exposure” to television over my life, which is interesting to think about.

Reference

Evans Schmidt, M., et al. (2008). “The Effects of Background Television on the Toy Play Behavior of Very Young Children.” Child Development, 79(4), 1137-1151.