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Many parents watch the news or other shows as children play nearby. But new research shows that even when the television is just background noise, it may be disruptive to a child’s normal development.
It’s estimated that 75 percent of very young children in the United States live in homes where the television is on most of the time, even though the kids often aren’t watching it. University of Massachusetts researchers recently studied how TV background noise might affect young children. The study, published in the current issue of the journal Child Development, looked at 50 1-, 2- and 3-year-olds. Each child came to a lab with a parent and was allowed to play for an hour with various toys. For half the time, a television was on in the room, showing an episode of the adult game show Jeopardy! as well as commercials. During the other half hour, the TV was turned off.
As expected, the children paid little attention to the adult television show, glancing at it for less than a few seconds at a time, and less than once a minute. Even so, the distraction of the background noise had a significant effect on how children at every age played. When the television was on, the children played for significantly shorter periods of time, and focused play was also shorter compared to how they played when the TV was off.
Researchers said that even though the children weren’t interested in the show, background TV is an “ever-changing audiovisual distractor'’ that disrupts their ability to sustain various types of play. The finding is important because many well-meaning parents who wouldn’t let their young children watch television may not realize that even adult programs that don’t interest children still can have an effect.
“Background TV is potentially a chronic environmental risk factor affecting most American children,'’ said Marie Evans Schmidt, a research associate at the Center on Media and Child Health at Children’s Hospital in Boston and lead author of the study. “Parents should limit their young children’s exposure.”