Background television and distractibility in young children: Does program content matter?

Abstract

Background television distracts and disrupts the productivity of young children's play, but little is known about how different types of television programming affect attentional control and task performance in this age group. This was the goal of the current project. 115 preschoolers were given tasks to complete while an adult- or child-directed television program played in the periphery, and no program played in the control condition. The child-directed distractor had stronger attention-getting and -holding properties than the adult-directed distractor, and across conditions, it was the most detrimental to children's on-task attention and task performance. The adult-directed distractor also disrupted on-task attention. Additionally, changes in children's frequency of looking and latency to turn to both distractors over the session revealed a decrease in orienting, but average length of individual looks did not change over time. Results are consistent with prior work that suggests parents limit their children's exposure to background television.