When the villain remains unpunished: Unintended effects of the social mediation of young children’s TV viewing

Abstract

Television viewing is a regular everyday activity for most children in the modern world. Despite the steady rise of new media, television has remained the most dominant medium in an increasingly media-rich environment among preschool children for whom watching TV is the most time-consuming activity other than sleep (Vandewater et al. 2007). According to a widely accepted theoretical view within the media effects research tradition, time spent in front of the television influences children’s emotional and cognitive development. On the positive side, TV viewing is related to improved creative ability, better school-readiness and higher ambitions (Anderson et al. 2001), greater interest in books, wider vocabulary and language-learning (Krcmar 2007), and pro-social attitudes and positive moral lessons (Hardy and Claborne 2007). On the negative side, studies have linked excessive TV viewing with poor fitness and overweight (Hancox 2004), sleeping disorders (Feiss and Hoges 2000), and immorality, aggression and diminished social skills (Lemish 2007; Vandewater et al. 2007). Television is 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.