Background TV "Like Secondhand Smoke," Distracting Kids Who Aren't Watching

Studies have shown time and time again that excessive television-viewing inhibits children's ability to focus. But, according to a new study, the TV can have harmful affects, even if kids aren't obviously paying attention.

According to the Washington Post, a recent study at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst took a look at children's playing habits with and without TV. The study, published in the July/August issue of Child Development magazine, placed 50 toddlers, from ages 12 to 36 months, in a family-room environment for an hour. For the first thirty minutes, half the children played with a television tuned to adult programming, and half with the TV set off. Then the roles were switched.

Even though they seemed to ignore the TV, the kids with the television on played for 5 percent less time than a TV-less control group. Moreover, their "play episodes" were shorter and less focused than those of their TV-free counterparts.

"Parents think it [background TV] doesn't matter because the programs aren't directed at children, but just because a child isn't paying active attention doesn't mean it doesn't have a disruptive effect," said study senior author Daniel Anderson, a professor of psychology.

From viewing the video footage, Anderson says the differences between the two groups were obvious. Visual and auditory stimuli change about every six seconds on a television screen, and the flashing lights and noises proved disruptive to children's ability to concentrate on other things.

"Our evidence is that TV keeps the children from sustaining their attention at a time when developmentally, they're beginning to organize their attention skills and sequencing behaviors," Anderson said. "Children's play episodes were shorter -- about half as long -- if the TV was on, compared to when it wasn't, [and] children were more likely to move from toy to toy during the time TV was on."

Background TV is the "equivalent of secondhand smoke," said Dr. Daniel Bronfin, a pediatrician with the Ochsner Health System in New Orleans, adding that it may be a factor in the rising number of attention-deficit disorder cases among children.

"All of the concerns we have with children watching programming for children still apply to secondhand viewing. It distracts from the work of childhood, from play," he said.