Dangers of Background Television

The Danger of Background Television

            Does television, in the home, cause problems for the young children of the United States? This is a question that has been debated for several decades with various opinions and results. Television plays such a prominent and powerful role in the lives of individuals as well as families. In fact, the average American family is made up of 2.5 people and has 2.86 television sets, according to The Nielsen Company’s 2009’s findings. (Nielsen Company). If there are negative effects, what might they be and how do they come about?

            One of the negative effects of television in the home is the result of background television. Our main focus, as it should be, is on what children are watching during direct exposure. However, while the young child is playing, it has been discovered, they are also impacted by the television that is playing in the background. This is called indirect exposure. Many homes have the television(s) on most of the time throughout the day and the night. The play of the young child is interrupted by the changes of sound, light and picture on the television. This causes the child to stop playing and to turn to the television, then return to play. These constant interruptions are believed to have an adverse effect on the child’s cognitive ability as well as their attention span. This is a great concern to the American Academy of Pediatrics as well as many others involved in Child Development.

            It was found “In a study, done by Pierroutsakos, Hanna, Self, Lewis and Brewer in 2004, they asked one hundred upper-middle-class parents to keep dairies of their two and a half to twenty-four month old infants’ television exposure each day. The children were exposed to an average of one-hundred-twenty minutes of television each day. Forty-nine percent of that exposure was adult and preteen programming” (Schmidt, M., Pempek, T., Kirkorian, H., Lund, A., & Anderson, p. 1138, 2008). M. Lapierre, J. Piotrowski, and D. Lineberger shared in their article, “Background Television in the Homes of US Children,” which appeared in Pediatrics Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, October 2012, “The average child is exposed to 232.2 minutes of background television on a typical day.” They went on to explain, “Leaving the television on while no one is viewing and children’s bedroom television ownership were associated with increased background television” (p. 839). That is close to four hours of background television that the average young child is exposed to each day.

  

(washparkchiro.com)

 Because it is part of everyday life, most people do not realize how much the television is on while it is not being watched. Nor do they realize the possible impact the background television might be having on the infant that is in the home. In an article for Child Development in August 2008, M. Schmidt stated, “Television exposure for children aged 30 months and younger is associated with poorer cognitive and language development.” They also pointed out, “Parents’ estimates of their children’s television viewing at eighteen and forty-two months were positively associated with parental reports of attention disorder symptoms at age seven.”

Cognitive development is important as it has to do with our ability to remember, to make judgments, to reason and how to use knowledge. Language development is learning to talk. Some of the reasons for both of these difficulties could also have to do with the quality of parent-child interactions, which is also affected by not only the child’s  being distracted by the background television, but the parent being distracted as well. So rather than the parent and child spending quality time interacting together, they are both distracted by the background television.

  

(californiaschildren.typepad.com)

A very sobering discovery in the research of the effects of background television was the children with the greatest exposure to background television are those from the poorest families. African American children, younger children and children with parents with lower education levels were found to be exposed to greater amounts of background television, up to six hours a day. (Lapierre, et al, p. 842, 2012) This would make one wonder if there are greater problems with language and cognitive development among these groups. Are there other problems that are related to the background television exposure? Lapierre and crew found, “Background television exposure has been linked to lower sustained attention during playtime, lower quality parent-child interactions and reduced performance of cognitive tasks” (p. 840, 2012)

            Play is often thought to just be something that children do. However, play is very important to the development of the child both cognitively and socially. Playing helps the child to develop motor skills, and to learn about objects. They are able, through playing, to learn about cause and effect. While playing they are able to stretch their imaginations and step into different roles to imitate the fireman or a princess. It is believed that the constant presence of background television can be an interruption to children’s play and has a role in the negative relationship between early exposure to television and cognitive development (Schmidt, et al, p. 1138, 2008).

            The study done in 2012 stated, “Our results indicate that children are exposed to a tremendous amount of background television. The average US child under eight years is exposed to four hours (232.2 minutes) of background television on a typical day. This is far greater than direct exposure” (Lapierre, et al, p. 842, 2012). They added to this statement, “The American Academy of Pediatrics renewed their recommendation that children two years and under should not be exposed to any television content,” (p.843).

            Television, indirectly or directly, seems to have a negative influence on our young children. If we were to also take into account the programing content as well as advertising, our findings could be staggering. We would do well to take into careful consideration removing the offender from our home or at least limiting when it is on.

     

References:

Lapierre, M.S., Piotrowski, J.T., & Lineberger, D.L. (2012). Background television in the homes of US children. Pediatrics, Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Volume 130, Number 5, pages 839-843. Doi:10.1542/peds.2011-2581

Schmidt, M.E., Pempek, T.A., Kirkorian, H.L., Lund, A.F., & Anderson, D.R. (2008). The effects of background television on the toy play behavior of very young children. Child Development, Volume 79, Number 6, pages 1137-1151.

The Nielsen Company (2009). http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2009/more-than-half-the-homes-in-us-have-three-or-more-tvs.html