The Dangers of Second-Hand TV: What You Watch Can Affect Your Kids shares some interesting findings on children and television:
Dr. Anderson compared toddler play habits in a quiet setting and while a television played “Jeopardy!” nearby. Even though the toddlers didn’t watch the game show, turning the TV on changed their playtime, prompting them to spend half as much time with a toy before moving on to another toy.The study suggests that background television can be a subtle distraction and might interfere with concentration and focus. It’s also likely that parents watching TV are more distracted and interacting less with kids.
Other research shows that some TV can actually be good for children. Studies show that preschoolers who watched “Sesame Street” ended up later reading more books than kids who didn’t watch the show. Preschoolers who regularly watched “Gullah Gullah Island” and “Blue’s Clues” developed better problem-solving skills and more patience than kids who weren’t exposed to the shows.
“They had learned ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try another way,’ ” says Jennings Bryant, director of the Institute for Communications Research at the University of Alabama, who has authored several studies on children’s programs. “The kids learned a more patient style of problem solving — the antithesis of the kinds of attention-disorder problems people are talking about.”