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

  1. Marie Evans Schmidt†,
  2. Tiffany A. Pempek‡,
  3. Heather L. Kirkorian,
  4. Anne Frankenfield Lund,
  5. Daniel R. Anderson*

Article first published online: 14 JUL 2008

DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01180.x

Issue

Child Development

Child Development

Volume 79, Issue 4, pages 1137–1151, July/August 2008

Additional Information

How to Cite

Schmidt, M. E., Pempek, T. A., Kirkorian, H. L., Lund, A. F. and Anderson, D. R. (2008), The Effects of Background Television on the Toy Play Behavior of Very Young Children. Child Development, 79: 1137–1151. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01180.x

Author Information

  1. University of Massachusetts at Amherst

    Marie Evans Schmidt is now at the Center on Media and Child Health, Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA.Tiffany A. Pempek is now at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

* concerning this article should be addressed to Daniel R. Anderson, Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003. Electronic mail may be sent to anderson@psych.umass.edu.

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 14 JUL 2008
  2. Article first published online: 14 JUL 2008

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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.

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