Abstract
The present study examined the relations between preschoolers’ television exposure and executive functions (EF). One hundred and nineteen 3- to 6-year-old children and their parents participated. Parents filled in a questionnaire regarding children’s television viewing time, television content and parental mediation behaviors about their child’s television viewing. The children were asked to finish six EF tasks, including the backward digit span task, the spatial span task, the boy–girl Stroop, the Simon task, the flanker task and the Tower of Hanoi task that assessed working memory, inhibition and planning, respectively. Children’s vocabulary was tested using Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, and included as control variables in addition to socioeconomic status of the participated families. The results showed that television viewing time and child-directed educational programs were positively associated with EF. In addition, television content fully mediated the effect of television viewing time on EF and parental restrictive approach strategies moderated the effect of television viewing time on EF.
Highlights
With the development and widespread use of electronic media, children are using electronic media more and more, often at a very early age
We extended Christakis’ (2009) model by proposing that television content would mediate the effect between television viewing time and executive functions (EF)
The results showed that the only indirect effect estimate for television viewing time on EF through classic cartoons viewing and live educational children’s programs viewing were significant because both 95% bias corrected confidence intervals (CIs) did not contain zero
Summary
With the development and widespread use of electronic media, children are using electronic media more and more, often at a very early age. Electronic media may be especially influential to children during periods of rapid brain development and plasticity (Christakis et al, 2012; Bush and Boyce, 2014) and may have powerful impacts on the development of social emotional competencies (e.g., Babaroglu, 2013) and cognitive capacities including executive function (EF) (e.g., Lillard and Peterson, 2011; Nathanson et al, 2014). Many studies have addressed the possible effects of television exposure on children’s EF (e.g., Barr et al, 2010; Wartella et al, 2010; Lillard and Peterson, 2011; Nathanson et al, 2014) because television is the most prominent media in the lives of young children. The results of these many studies have been contradictory: Some have reported negative effects of television viewing on children’s
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