THEORETICAL ISSUES IN THE STUDY OF CHILDREN'S ATTENTION TO TELEVISION

Abstract

This article is a critical analysis of three issues that are central to the study of children's attention patterns to television. These issues are: (1) the meaning of the term “attention”; (2) the various types of stimulus attributes subsumed under the term “television”; and (3) the implications the child's level of intellectual development may have for the way he or she attends to the screen. Analysis of these issues yielded some of the following implications for TV attention research: (1) Differences in children's information processing abilities may not necessarily predict differences in children's attention patterns, because only certain conditions appear to be optimal for attention patterns to differ as a function of the child's level of intellectual development. (2) The term “television” subsumes a wide array of program variables, both with respect to form and content. Form variables are typically used to predict changes in children's attention behavior, whereas content variables are typically used to predict changes in children's social behavior. It is conceivable, however, that form variables might account for changes in children's attention behavior. The failure to make these linkages reflects a limitation of the current state of theory concerning the effects of television on children's behavior.