Television and Temporal Development

Abstract

Children view large amounts of television from very early on, and television's effects permeate our culture and society. In areas of temporal development, proponents of Piaget would argue that children under the age of eight or nine lack the operations that permit logical structuring of temporal relationships and are thus more easily distracted by other information and cues. Television viewing may distract or maintain a child's attention, and may also guide attention into extremely structured, regimented time frames. The major objectives of the present investigation were to determine whether childrens' short term temporal judgments were related to: (a) viewing hours in preschool years, (b) speed of the action being viewed and (c) age and gender. One hundred eight children were grouped by ages 4-0 to 5-11, 6-0 to 7-11, and 8-0 to 9-11. All subjects viewed short television segments of varying length and action and were asked to estimate the length of time of each segment. Parents of children in the study completed a developmental questionnaire specifying the television hours viewed by their children while in the preschool years. Significant age differences in temporal judgment accuracy were found. The older the children were, the more accurately they performed. Significant effects were also found in accuracy when the action levels varied, from a no TV condition to slow, moderate and fast presentation of the TV segments. When the TV was not on, judgment improved on the estimation task. A third area of significance was found in total hours of viewing in the child's preschool years: children who watched less television showed improved interval estimation skills. Children's age and amount of television viewing in the preschool years are major factors in the development of temporal judgment abilities.