Background Television - Even Worse Than Common Sense Suggests
Over one third of American pre-schoolers live in homes where the television is on most of the time, even if no one's watching, and a new study says the effect of background TV on interactions between parents and young children is definitely negative. The researchers studied about 50 1-, 2-, and 3-year-olds, each of whom was with one parent, at a university child study center. Half of the one-hour session, parents and children were in a playroom without TV; in the other half-hour, parents chose an adult-directed program to watch , like Jeopardy. The researchers observed how often parents and children talked with each other, how actively involved the parents were in their children's play, and whether parents and children responded to each other's questions and suggestions. read more