Just Having the TV on can Distract Kids, Cut Down on Playtime

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

Pediatricians have long said children younger than 2 shouldn't watch any television. But in new findings from a small-scale study, researchers say that even having a TV on in the background could be "an environmental hazard" for children.

For the study, released today, researchers observed 50 children, ages 1 to 3, for an hour at a time as they played alone in a small room with a variety of toys. Parents sat nearby, and for half of each session (starting either at the beginning or 30 minutes in), a small TV broadcast a taped episode of Jeopardy.

After videotaping and carefully analyzing the children's reactions, researchers found that kids watched the TV only in snippets but that it modestly shortened their playtime. TV decreased play's intensity and cut by half the amount of time children focused on a given toy.

The researchers chose Jeopardy on the theory that it would be "nearly incomprehensible" to toddlers.

Prior research has suggested that very young children don't pay attention to TV they can't understand, and recent surveys show that as many as two-thirds of children up to 6 years old live in homes where the TV is on at least half the time, even if no one is watching.

In one survey, 14% of parents said the TV is always on.

In the new study, researchers say the disruptive effects were "real but small," amounting to a few seconds in many cases. For instance, kids played about 90 seconds less in the half hour with the TV on — they looked momentarily at the screen, then went back to their toys.

But researcher Daniel Anderson, a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, says he's concerned the effects could be cumulative.

"It's that situation that I'm most concerned about, when you look at TV as being a disruptive influence hour after hour, day after day, week after week, year after year," he says.

Perhaps most significant: When the TV was on, kids of all ages played with a given toy — a jack-in-the-box, a baby doll, blocks, a toy telephone, a school bus with toy passengers — for about 30 seconds, on average. Without TV, it was 60 seconds.

Researchers say solitary play, especially with toys, offers many benefits. It allows children to practice planning ahead and develop cognitive skills.

"A lot of that gets practiced in the form of toy play," Anderson says. "And that requires sustained attention."

He says parents should take a look at how much the TV is on — and make sure children have "substantial" quiet time.

The study appears today in the journal Child Development.