Among their other charges, critics have often accused television of being a negative influence on the development of children’s cognitive skills. Much of the debate about theeffect of television on cognition concerns the development of attention. The most common hypothesis has been that frequent changes in scenes and content disrupt young children’s
ability to sustain attention.31 One reanalysis of longitudinal data collected during the 1980s found a small correlation between early television exposure at ages one and three years and subsequent symptoms of attention problems at age seven.32 Findings from studies since then have been mixed.33 One possible mediating factor in the link between early television viewing and attention skills is program content. Most correlational studies do not measure the types of programs
to which children are exposed, making it impossible to draw any conclusions regarding content effects. However, a recent correlational study suggested that content is an important mediator of the relation between exposure to television before age three and subsequent attentional problems. Specifically, early exposure to violent and non-educational entertainment programming was positively associated with later symptoms of attention deficit but exposure to educational television was not related to attentional problems.34 One early study of the effects of television on behavior in preschoolers experimentally varied the type of content children viewed. The study compared preschoolers who were exposed to prosocial programs (Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood), neutral films, and violent cartoons (Batman, Superman).35 Children
were observed first for a baseline period of three weeks, then for a four-week television viewing period, and finally for two weeks after the viewing period. Findings from this study suggest that the link between television viewing and children’s attentional skills is mediated by content. Children who viewed the violent cartoons showed decreases in measures of self-regulation, whereas those who viewed the prosocial programs showed higher levels of task persistence, rule obedience, and tolerance of delay relative to baseline measures and to children in the neutral viewing condition. It is important to note that the three categories of programs likely differed not only in content but with respect to formal features such as format (animation versus live-action) and pace. It is difficult within the context of this study to isolate the links between content and self-regulatory skills, but the findings clearly indicate that television as a medium does not have an indiscriminate negative effect on attentional skills. In fact, several experiments have found that television can teach specific attention skills and strategies.