Children and Television Consumption in the Digital Era: Use, Impact and Regulation 9781003035039

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Children and Television Consumption in the Digital Era

Children and Television Consumption in the Digital Era provides a comprehensive analysis of contemporary research on the developmental impact of children’s screen engagement in modern society. Barrie Gunter explores how the world of television has evolved to become almost unrecognisable from the broadcast landscapes present over the last years of the 20th century. This key text considers how screen-based entertainment has become increasingly interactive, and how children have become accustomed to creating their own television schedules through streamed services. It explores key topics including screen experiences and the manifestation of prosocial and antisocial behaviour, advertising and the development of consumerism, and the evidence of screen time on a child’s health and school performance. Gunter insightfully assesses television content that children are exposed to and its impact on cognitive and behavioural development. Featuring commentary on the challenges regulators face to keep up with rapidly developing screen technologies and suggestions on how parents can mediate their children’s screen behaviour, this text is an essential read for researchers and students taking courses in child development, family studies, broadcasting and communication. Barrie Gunter is a psychologist by training who worked in the broadcasting industry before moving to the academic world. He has specialised in the study of the psychological impacts of television and the Internet. He has produced 70 books and more than five hundred other publications on media, marketing and business topics. He is Emeritus Professor in Media at the University of Leicester.

Children and Television Consumption in the Digital Era Use, Impact and Regulation

Barrie Gunter

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Barrie Gunter The right of Barrie Gunter to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in- Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in- Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978 - 0 -367- 47345-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978 - 0 -367- 47349-5 (pbk) ISBN: 978 -1- 003- 03503-9 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by codeMantra

Contents



Chapter 1

Children’s viewing behaviour

This book is about the effects of television and related screen technologies on children, through which television and video entertainment and information content can be conveyed. Before turning to the screen technologies that have evolved significantly in the 21st century, it is probably useful to say something, briefly, about “children” and “childhood”. These are population classifier concepts that are largely taken for granted today, but they are also social constructs that have evolved over time. Even as recently as the 18th century, children and adults were not differentiated into separate categories of people, as they tend to be today. Children were seen more as miniature adults. Of course, as infants, they were dependent on older people for their early care. As soon as they were physically able enough to work, however, they did. Children, then, were not protected from experiences in the way they are now. In debates about television and other screen technologies, there have been regular discussions and disagreements about protecting children from exposure to “unsuitable” content. Yet, 200 years ago, parents took their children to town and city centres where they witnessed drunken debauchery, open sexual conduct, and capital punishments being meted out publicly to criminals (Aries, 1962). It was during the 18th and 19th centuries that things began to change. Philosophers such as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote about very young people (i.e. children) as vulnerable individuals in need of special protection by society. Furthermore, it was recognised that children needed to be educated in more formal ways than simply through natural life experiences. The cultivation of wider child literacy and numeracy were core aspects of this new social orientation. As well as protecting the youngest in society from potentially upsetting real-life experiences, however, there was a need to police and censure mediated experiences, received in those historical periods, for example, through texts and printed images (Musgrove, 1966). Attitudes about the status and vulnerability of children have fluctuated across different periods. The child protectionism, which prevailed from the 19th century and through the first half of the 20th century, was relaxed during the 1960s and 1970s when a different viewpoint surfaced that it might

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be beneficial for children to be exposed to some potentially risky experiences. As values concerning sexuality, divorce and family life, and the role of women in society were re-set, a mindset emerged that children should learn about “adult” things even before they had fully reached adulthood themselves. By the 1980s, some social commentators pushed back against this trend and believed that by exposing children prematurely to adult themes, childhood itself was being eroded. This was a criticism that was levelled especially at television because it frequently embraced the most sensitive subjects and controversial of topics, most especially in the so-called “niche” channels such as Channel 4 in the UK (Elkind, 1981; Postman, 1983; Meyrowitz, 1985). Moving into the 21st century, the types of television content that featured in many of these older debates would now seem relatively tame. Mainstream television programmes routinely deal with topics and depict scenes that would once have been prohibited or limited to the late-night margins of the schedules. The 1990s phenomenon of the Internet funnelled an even greater amount of problematic and often unregulated video content into public visibility, which was accessible by children as well as adults, and that would once have been available only in specially licensed premises. Ordinary consumers can become producers and upload their own sometimes highly sensitive and controversial content that can be widely seen even when they might originally have made it solely for private consumption. Very often such content is sexual in nature; on many other occasions it is violent. Hence, many new questions about the regulation of screen media have been debated with regulatory extensions being planned which apply far beyond traditional broadcast organisations (Hern, 2020).

Television and children Television has been placed under close scrutiny by governments, regulators, educational and medical professionals, academic researchers especially in the social sciences, and the wider public since its inception. The most acute and persistent concerns have focussed on the way children engage with the medium from babyhood. Many of its early investigators and critics worried that television would prove so attractive that it would pull children away from doing other things, such as socialising with their friends, taking exercise, playing games and sports, reading, doing their homework, and sleeping properly. In consequence cognitive development would be disrupted or delayed, eventually impeding school performance. Additional concerns revolved around children’s exposure to images that could prove to be instantly disturbing and to depictions that might encourage antisocial behaviour. Sometimes these fears were prescient and sometimes not (Himmelweit, Oppenheim & Vince, 1958; Schramm, Lyle & Parker, 1961; Brown, Cramond & Wilde, 1974; Williams, 1986).

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The early empirical research studies yielded mixed evidence of such effects, and it was apparent that how much children were influenced by television depended a great deal on how they used it, or just as importantly, how they were allowed to use it by their parents (Coffin, 1955; Himmelweit et al., 1958; Schramm et al., 1961; Murray & Kippax, 1978). In the early days, television viewing was identified as “tavern” behaviour, with many people introduced to it in public spaces such as bars and clubs, often gathering to watch major televised events such as big sports competitions. There was only limited private ownership (Bogart, 1958). Over time, as private ownership evolved, television became a key factor in the communications dynamics of families. Many families watched television together around popular drama, comedy, and variety shows; and then other programming attracted more niche audiences (Steiner, 1963). Programmes emerged for adults and for children, but as most households possessed only a single television set, there might be disputes or negotiations within families over who used the set and what was watched (Wade, 1973; Chaffee & Tims, 1976; Hedinsson, 1981). Sometimes families watched together, but on other occasions one person might dominate the set (Bower, 1973; Lull, 1978, 1982). Some degree of time-sharing also emerged with different family members dominating set usage and viewing choices at specific times of day (Niven, 1960; Smith, 1961).

Evolution of viewing experiences Over time, television services have grown and broadcasting reception technologies and formats have evolved. Initial developments saw colour pictures displace black and white, followed by video-recording technologies that allowed people to watch programmes after they had been transmitted, then an explosion in the number of television channels viewers could choose between, and then during the 21st century, a movement away from watching “channels” to selecting programmes from massive libraries or repositories of content on-demand. Screen technology, once limited to a single household television set, has diversified across a number of different types of devices, some of fixed location and many others, such as smartphones and tablets, that are mobile. The amount and range of content that can be accessed via these technologies have also grown massively. Children can watch television in the main living room as has always been the tradition, but increasingly they also view it through their own devices in their bedrooms. The evolution of broadband telecommunications and wireless mobile communications systems were key technological drivers together with continued advances in computing that enabled whole new “virtual realities” to open up for public entertainment and interpersonal communications purposes. Wider adoption of the Internet enabled more people around the

4 Viewing behaviour

world to become connected to burgeoning web sites on the “World Wide Web” (Valkenburg & Piotrowski, 2017). All this technology has created more opportunities for children to watch screen-based content and has expanded the amount of time they devote to this kind of activity (Ofcom, 2019a, b, c). The term “activity” has a loose definition here because conventional screen watching tends to be a sedentary behaviour. The other big shift in screen-related behaviour is the fact that it has become increasingly interactive. Children can now use screen technologies to send as well as receive content. Content is also no longer ephemeral, being held for fleeting moments. Instead, it can be downloaded into storage systems at home and elsewhere and held indefinitely if need be (Mullan, 2017; Ofcom, 2019b). Screen viewing experiences have evolved to include many new technologies other than television sets, interactive engagement with screens, massive home video storage capacity, movement away from “linear” to “non-linear” viewing, and video consumers evolving into “prosumers” who make their own screen entertainment. Yet, despite all these changes, mainstream broadcasters have remained prominent in the screen content production and distribution marketplace. Their audience shares may have dropped by significant margins for screen content, but they still have reached most people. Among children, however, and despite considerable loyalty still to major broadcasters, substantial shifts in viewing behaviour occurred with non-traditional sources commanding ever-growing amounts of their viewing diets. Not only was there a behavioural shift in the nature of viewing, but the significance of conventional broadcast brands to young viewers also fell. Youngsters’ viewing loyalties have increasingly flowed towards new content creators and suppliers, many of which may not even be known to older generations of media users. All these changes in technology type, availability, and functionality have raised questions about how children’s lives are affected by television. Have new screen technologies re-shaped children’s lives or simply extended what they had before? Has new technology left them exposed to new kinds of screen-mediated influences? Are these developments psychologically beneficial or damaging to them? The old debates about the potential “harms” of television to children have not abated. There remain concerns about children’s exposure to violent and sexual content on mainstream television, but these concerns have now migrated to content received through other technologies, and especially from the less-regulated content obtained via online video repositories such as YouTube as well as the interactive screen content found in video games. These services have been conceived as more insidious influences than conventional television because of their interactive nature and because they regularly contain direct appeals to young people to adopt harmful behavioural practices (Gunter, 2016; Bridge, 2019). Such observations have backed calls

Viewing behaviour 5

for parents to avoid letting their children watch television alone as infants. While, as we will see, television can bring many enjoyable experiences into children’s lives, it should not be over-used at the expense of other real-world activities (Furness, 2013). The problem with these kinds of arguments is that it is not always easy to determine how much television viewing, whether through television sets, computer consoles, or smartphones, is “optimal” to be healthy. For one thing, not all children watch the same things, even if they watch similar amounts. One child may have a more diverse viewing diet than another, even though they watch the same amounts. If two children each watch three hours of television per day but one also reads for two hours a day, whereas the other does not read much at all, their cognitive development patterns may follow different trajectories. Hence, we must be careful not to take, at face value, any research findings purporting to show that amount of screen use per se impedes cognitive performance. There could be other factors at play that mediate or mitigate the impact of any screen experiences. The first few years of a child’s life after birth represent a critical developmental period. Children’s brains are especially malleable at this time. The brain grows faster than the rest of the body, and the way it develops is significantly influenced by early environmental experiences of the child during infancy (Huttenlocher, 2002). All kinds of influences can potentially have an impact at this stage of development, both good and bad. Against this technology backdrop, therefore, it is important for parents, educators, and governments to understand how children are affected by their initial screen experiences and how the early wiring of their brains can be shaped by these experiences. Screen watching, whether it entails sitting in front of a television set or using a desktop, laptop, or tablet computer, is a mostly sedentary activity. The only exception to this rule might be watching a smartphone screen while walking along or when watching television programmes or videos in which on-screen exercise movements are copied or viewers interact with on-screen games. Understandably, therefore, there have been concerns that when children spend a lot of time viewing television sets (or other screen devices), their lack of physical movement can affect their overall physical fitness and general state of health (Pagani, Fitzpatrick, Barnett & Dubow, 2010). As evidence reviewed in this book will reveal, too much early exposure to screen-based entertainment can affect cognitive development, as well as physical fitness, and it can, in particular, slow down a child’s language development. This is a serious outcome because much human learning in formal educational settings is dependent on linguistic skills. An optimal level of exposure to the right kinds of content could enhance language development, while over-exposure to the wrong kinds of content can have the opposite effect (Summers, 2014).

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Evidence has emerged also that when a child becomes dependent on their use of screen technology as a primary channel through which to communicate with others their emotional and social development could be affected. Children’s abilities to get along with other people can be impeded if they are unable to recognise emotions, which, in turn, affects their ability to develop empathy with or sympathy for others under appropriate social circumstances. This outcome can occur if children substitute mediated interactions for face-to-face interactions (Walton, 2018).

Early conditioning of viewing Early viewing can establish later screen behaviour patterns. One major review of studies conducted between 1949 and 2004 that featured more than 500 samples of children and adolescents showed that while there were major variances in screen behaviour amounts and patterns, there was evidence that early patterns of screen use shaped later patterns. Hence, youngsters who became dependent on screen technologies and used them a lot in their early childhood years were the most likely to be heaviest users in later childhood years. There might be some switching around between screen technologies, with television viewing gradually losing popularity in teen years and use of computers and video games gaining ground (Marshall, Gorely & Biddle, 2006). One telephone survey with over 1,000 parents of infants aged two to 24 months found that by three months of age, around four in ten (40%) of these children were watching television and/or video regularly. By the age of 24 months, this figure had grown to nine in ten (90%). On average, very young children watched around one hour a day, but this had increased by 50% at the age of 24 months. Parents claimed they used television and video to entertain their children and as a babysitter. Some claimed that it also had educational purposes (Zimmerman, Christakis & Meltzoff, 2007). A longitudinal study of early viewing in Taiwan collected data from over 18,000 youngsters at ages 18, 36, and 66 months, and from their parents. At age 18 months, 91% of the children had had some television exposure, with 40% being exposed to at least two hours per day. Children watched more television when each of their parents was a heavier viewer. Boys were also more likely than girls to exhibit increased viewing over time. Children from households with better educated parents (especially mothers) were less likely to exhibit increased television viewing over time. The researchers suggested that if parents wanted to bring their children’s viewing under control, they should reflect on their on-screen behaviours (Chiu, Wu & Chiang, 2017). Young children in Canada, aged three to five years, were found to spend an average of two hours a day watching screens. The Canadian Sedentary Behaviour Guidelines recommended no more than one hour a day of screen time for this age group (Active Healthy Kids, 2014). Early viewing habits depend very much on the viewing behaviour exhibited by

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parents. This observation has been confirmed around the world (Anderson, Huston, Schmitt, Linebarger & Wright, 2001; Linebarger, Barr, Lapierre & Piotrowski, 2014; Lerner & Barr, 2017). In the UK, evidence emerged, based on official television viewing statistics, that children’s daily viewing was in decline. From 2010 to 2018, children of all ages exhibited a decline in the amount of time they spent on average each day in front of the television. For the four to 15s, average daily viewing in 2018 was one hour and 17 minutes compared to two hours and 11 minutes in 2010. In 2010, those aged four to six years and seven to nine years watched for an average of two hours and 30 minutes, and this fell to one hour and 29 minutes and one hour and 21 minutes, respectively, by 2018. Those aged 10–12 years saw their daily viewing fall over this period from two hours and 26 minutes to one hour and 12 minutes, and the 13–15s saw a fall from two hours and 11 minutes to one hour and three minutes (Ofcom, 2019d).

Television remains prominent in increasingly diverse screen world Despite the growing diversity of screen technologies, a major survey of children in the UK, by Ofcom (2019a), illustrated that television remained an important medium for the youngest of viewers. Few pre-schoolers used a smartphone (1%), while by primary school years between 8 and 11, over one in three (35%) reportedly had access to this technology, and by adolescence most youngsters (83%) did. Similarly, with tablet computers, prevalence increased with age, although it did not achieve the reach of smartphones among the oldest children. With those aged three to four years, one in five (19%) had a tablet. This figure grew most dramatically among the next age group, the 5–7s, among whom over four in ten (42%) said they had a tablet. Further growth in prevalence of this technology was more gradual among the older age groups: 8–11s (47%) and 12–15s (50%). Most children, across all child age-bands, watched television and did so for at least 14 hours a week on average. The oldest children aged 12–15 years were slightly less likely to watch this amount of television than the youngest two age groups of three to four years and five to seven years (97% versus 90%). This did not mean that older children turned away from video content. There was a reversal of this trend when it came to the prevalence of watching television through devices other than a television set. This behaviour was reported by three in ten children aged three to four years (30%) and by more than four in ten 5-7s (44%) and 8-11s (45%). With advancing age, children were also more likely to report playing with electronic games: 3–4s (36%), 5–7s (63%), 8–11s (74%), and 12–15s (76%). Children were highly likely to go online, and this could benefit the patronage of conventional television as well as other content. Among the youngest aged three to four years, over half (52%) reportedly went online and were

8 Viewing behaviour

joined by overwhelming majorities of 5–7s (82%) and 8–11s (93%) and virtually all 12–15s (99%). One major Internet-linked area of activity online is social media. Few children under eight (3%) reported having a social media profile, but this changed as children grew older and especially once they had reached their teen years. Nearly one in five of those aged 8–11 (18%) years were active on social media sites, and most of those aged 12–15 (69%) years used these sites. Another growth area was viewing of the so-called “over-the-top” television. This refers to the streaming services such as Amazon Prime and Netflix. Even one in three (32%) 3–4s reportedly watched programmes from these services. This figure was higher among the early school years children (44%) and highest of all among secondary schoolers (58%). Another major source of video content was YouTube. Over four in five pre-schoolers (45%) reportedly watched material on YouTube. This figure increased dramatically across 5–7s (70%), 8–11s (77%), and 12–15 (89%). Children’s lives are therefore filled with different types of digital media. Ofcom’s research showed, among British children, that viewing was on a downward trajectory as new technologies commanded their attention more often. The five to 15s had also become non-linear viewers. They were no longer tied to preordained schedules of programmes where they must make themselves available at one specific time to watch the programme of their choice. Over-the-top services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Now TV gave young viewers more flexible viewing options. A small-scale qualitative study of the way digital media fit into the lives of children in the UK confirmed this observation. In the 21st century, children want to create their own screen schedules (Ofcom, 2019b). Children also often gained gratification from short-form video content on services such as YouTube than they did from programmes on mainstream television (Ofcom, 2019a). Children exhibited a growing preference for watching YouTube over regular television. Among those aged eight to 11 years, the prevalence of preference for YouTube grew from 40% to 49% from 2017 to 2018. The figures for preferring television dropped for this age group from 18% to 14%. Among those aged 12–15 years, YouTube preference increased from 46% to 49% and preference for watching television instead was largely unchanged (15% and 16%).

The availability factor One factor that drives children’s use of television and other screen technologies is their availability. Households where there are more of these technologies available tend to generate the largest amounts of child consumption. The presence of sets and other technologies in a child’s bedroom is an especially pertinent factor (Dennison, Erb & Jenkins, 2002; Saelens, Sallis, Nader, Broyles, Berry & Taras, 2002; Christakis, Ebel, Rivara & Zimmerman, 2004).

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In a study of 169 families with children aged six to 12 years television viewing time increased with age, as did the availability of television sets and video cassette recorders. The propensity to eat meals while watching television was also associated with greater amounts of viewing overall (Saelens et al., 2002). Elsewhere, the presence of a television set in a child’s bedroom was associated with greater amounts of overall viewing, and this was linked, in turn, to a greater likelihood of a child being overweight (Dennison et al., 2002). Having a television set in a child’s bedroom was linked to the child watching more television and more video material and playing more computer games. Higher parental education was associated with smaller overall amounts of viewing but not of computer game playing (Christakis et al., 2004). Following multiple observations that television sets are commonplace in children’s bedrooms, out of sight of their parents, the challenge of getting accurate viewing measures when dependent on parental estimates of child viewing has become more acute. This phenomenon is also a challenge for parents themselves when it comes to monitoring their children’s use of screen technologies (Roberts, Foehr, Rideout & Brodie, 1999; Rideout, Vandewater & Wartella, 2003; Ofcom, 2019a, b). In one study, when pre-teenage American children (aged 12 years) were placed in a nature camp and deprived of all screen technology for five days, their abilities to recognise emotional cues in the faces of others improved compared to matched children who carried on using screen technologies as usual (Uhls, Michikyan, Morris, Garcia, Small & Greenfield, 2014). Less screen time can result in more interpersonal activity in the physical world, better sleep patterns, enhanced cognitive development, and improved social skills. More screen time among very young children, in the early stages of their development, especially when there is limited parental or caregiver direction of content to be viewed, has been associated with poorer language development (Duch, Fisher, Ensari, Font, Harrington, Taromina, Yip & Rodriguez, 2013).

Multi-screen access The 21st century has witnessed substantial re-shaping of children’s viewing behaviours (see Livingstone & Bovill, 2001). Newer screen technologies became increasingly available for television/video viewing. In parallel, television sets evolved and were used as playback devices for computer games or interfaces to the Internet. New interactive screen technologies not only provided access to traditional broadcast content but also introduced a wide variety of other content and also the functionality to enable content receivers to become content creators and senders (Buckingham & Willett, 2006). The Pew Research Center found that over eight in ten (83%) of American 18- to 49-year-olds had access to these technologies – the age group also most likely to be carers of young children (Anderson, 2015). A similar

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figure was produced by a survey of low-income minority families in Philadelphia that had children aged six months to four years (Kabali, Irigoyen, Nunez-Davis, Budacki, Mohanty, Leister & Bonne, 2015). By 2017, children in 98% of all homes in the United States had a mobile touchscreen device compared with 52% in 2011 (Rideout, 2017). Meanwhile, over a fifth of British children aged three to four years were reported to own tablet in 2017 (Ofcom, 2017). Mobile touchscreen devices accounted for 35% of all screen behaviour among children aged zero to eight years in the United States (Rideout, 2017). In South East Asian countries, two-thirds of children aged three to eight years were reported by their parents to use touchscreen devices (Unatenne, 2014). In France, 90% of children aged two years had used a touchscreen device (Cristia & Seidl, 2015). Use of touchscreen averaged just over 14 hours a week for infants up to two and over 25 hours per week among pre-schoolers aged two to five years (Rhodes, 2017). American evidence showed that over one in three parents were somewhat or very likely to give their children aged up to eight years a mobile device to keep them occupied in a restaurant, although reported use of mobile devices at home was lower than this (Wartella, Rideout, Lauricella & Connell, 2013). What this evidence indicates is that mobile devices are used as behaviour controlling tools by parents with their children especially outside the home. It might also mean that parents interact less directly and less often with their children while this technology is in use (Turkle, 2012). A review of research published between 2009 and 2015 indicated that the use of mobile devices increased with age. The use was also greater among children with greater access to mobile devices, who felt more competent to use them, and whose parents were also heavy users (Vandewater, Rideout, Wartella, Huang, Lee & Shim, 2007). Touchscreen devices were found easily to attract youngsters’ attention, and many pre-schoolers have been found to use them daily (Cristia & Seidl, 2015; Paudel, Leavy & Jancey, 2016; Paudel, Jancey, Subedi & Leavy, 2017). British research confirmed that screen technologies have become intertwined with children’s daily activities. Furthermore, children are frequently using two screens simultaneously. Television viewing and other screen use are also often combined with other activities such as doing homework, eating a meal, and interacting with friends or family members. Researchers found that between 2000 and 2015, British children spent 10 minutes less time watching television, but their use of video games and computers increased by 40 minutes. Hence, there was an overall increase in screen-related behaviour of 30 minutes per day on average. Over time, portable devices became increasingly prevalent and occupied more of screen time. Tablets and smartphones were the principal technologies here. Time spent on other activities such as going to school, studying, eating, and playing sports did not change much over time. Thus, even though screen time increased, especially with the growth in ownership of portable technologies, screen activity

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did not significantly eat into the time spent doing other things. Despite popular folklore that children are spending all their time glued to screen technologies, this research indicates a different scenario. Children still engage in a wide range of non-screen activities and despite increased screen time, youngsters still devote as much time as ever to other things (Mullan, 2017).

Non-linear viewing Audiences, in general, have grown accustomed to having more choice and control over their viewing behaviour (Castelman & Podrazik, 2003; Gillian, 2011). Children, as enthusiastic early adopters of these changes, have switched away from traditional linear viewing, even when using the conventional television set to view, and have moved towards video streaming services such as Amazon Prime and Netflix and the diverse source content available on YouTube (Barker, 2015). The growing popularity of online video content and over-the-top television content illustrates the gradual shift away from appointment-to-view behaviour (“linear viewing”) of regular television channels towards “non-linear viewing” of video-on-demand content. Children clearly prefer to choose for themselves exactly what to watch and when (Ofcom, 2019c).

Binge viewing The availability of box-sets has driven another viewing phenomenon – binge viewing, whereby viewers watch three or more episodes from a television serial or series in a single viewing session. Significant proportions of viewers have been found to indulge in this way around the world (ARRIS, 2015). It is especially widespread among teens and young adults (Deloitte Development LLC, 2015). Binge watching of programmes has become defined as a distinctive kind of cultural event. The series involved tend to be exclusively available on specific streaming services, and advance publicity or a highly successful earlier series can drive massive demand to see what comes next and to be among the first to know what happens at the end, by watching an entire new season as quickly as possible (Pittman & Tefertiller, 2015; Conlin, Billings & Averset, 2016).

The Netflix effect Netflix has been a particularly significant factor. As an online video streaming service that originally started as a service comprising re-runs of old television series before becoming the biggest producer of original films and television dramas in the world, it has played a big part in changing the viewing habits of people around the world. It has had a particularly pronounced

12 Viewing behaviour

effect on shaping the viewing patterns of young people – the so-called Generations Y (born after 1980) and Z (born after 2005). Netflix has changed viewers’ expectations. New television series are released in full as box sets and viewers can then binge view an entire series within a few days. They are not forced to wait by scheduling patterns determined by broadcasters (Matrix, 2014). Not everyone has welcomed this shift. Critics have argued that watching television according to highly personalised patterns of programme consumption can undermine the “water cooler” moments when people chat together about the last episode of a television serial/series they have jointly watched just the night before. This wider social and cultural context of fixed-schedule, “appointment to view” viewing is dissolved by the box set phenomenon when one person may have seen the entire season before another has even begun to watch it. Yet the emergence of on-demand “non-linear” viewing options does not mean that traditional linear channel viewing has been completely cannibalised. Quite the reverse. Evidence has emerged that the introduction of some forms of entertainment via on-demand service can also boost audiences for linear appointment-to-view television channels. Each type of television service can feed off and benefit from one another (Zimmerman et al., 2007; Vandewater & Lee, 2009; Matrix, 2014).

Shared screen viewing The rise of multiple screen technologies that convey television pictures to users has given rise to shared-screen viewing among children. Hence, the viewer continues to interact with a tablet or smartphone while watching a television set. Using more than one media technology at the same time has become an increasingly widespread feature of media consumption (Pilotta, Schultz, Drenik & Rist, 2004; Cohen, 2014; Deloitte, 2016). This style of viewing can also occur with a single device if it has a split-screen facility (Yeykelis, Cummings & Reeves, 2014). These changes in the nature of screen viewing raise questions about its psychological impact on children. Most early theories about media behaviour have traditionally had to contend with just one media stream at a time. Media consumption involves sequential attention, and this characterises much media consumption. The rapid evolution of media technologies in the 21st century has changed this practice. Sequential media processing of single media streams now occurs alongside, and for many people has been supplanted by, parallel processing of two or more streams simultaneously. Another feature of this multi-screen world is its “always-on” nature. There is screen content available to children 24 hours a day. The mobile nature of new screen technologies means that children are always connected to screen content sources. These might comprise broadcast TV content, interactive

Viewing behaviour 13

gaming content, social media influencers, or content they produce themselves and exchange with their friends (Jeong & Fishbein, 2007; Chang, 2016; Chowdhury, 2016). Young people engage in media multitasking for a variety of reasons, but often they seek to satisfy a number of important media application needs in parallel. Hence, while seeking to relax with entertainment content, they may also want to keep in touch with friends via online networking to satisfy social needs. Screen technologies conveniently provide for each of these needs and enable the individual to deal with more than one task at once (Chang, 2016). Children have been found to enjoy watching more than one screen at the same time (Jago, Sebire, Gorely, Cillero & Biddle, 2011). Such divided attention between screens, however, can reduce the impact of one or both streams of content if attention to either is compromised by the presence of the second stream (van Cauwenberge, Schaap & van Roy, 2014). Children may learn to use more than one screen simultaneously or to combine screen use with other activities very early in life by copying examples set by their parents or carers. Mothers can be especially powerful role models in this context (Jago, Stamatakis, Gama, Marques, Noqueira, Mourao & Padez, 2012). Parents that are heavy users of TV tend, often unwittingly, to cultivate similar habits in their children. One study found that children whose parents watched television for at least two hours per day were around eight times more likely to exceed the two hours a day threshold themselves. Children with parents who engaged in at least an hour per day of multiscreen viewing were 38 times more likely to do this themselves (Jago, Sebire, Lucas, Turner, Bentley, Goodred, Stewart-Brown & Fox, 2013). Parents have an important influence over their children’s use of all screen technologies – including television sets, games consoles, laptops, tablets, and smartphones – simply by making these technologies available and visible in the home. Heavier use of screen technologies among pre-schoolers has been linked to having more relevant technologies available (Jago, Sebire, Edwards & Thompson, 2013). The more difficult parents found limiting their own screen-related experiences in the home, the more their children used these technologies from an early age (Jago, Thompson, Sebire, Wood, Pool, Zehra & Lawlor, 2014). The role played by parents in children’s use of TV and other screens will be revisited in Chapter 11.

Viewing measurement challenges As television systems and screen reception technologies have evolved, the challenge of measuring their use has increased. This chapter has reported evidence that screen technology can command a lot of children’s time. We can only know this type of fact through audience measurement methodologies that provide accurate accounts of screen technology use. Scrutiny of

14 Viewing behaviour

relevant published research reveals that television and screen technology consumption and use estimates can vary a great deal. This is not just because children’s use of screen technology can differ in different locations and populations but also because different methodologies provide different estimates of viewing behaviour. Measurements of children’s screen-related behaviour can be based on children’s own reports, estimates made by parents or carers, direct observations by researchers, and automatic monitoring devices that detect viewing in real time (Gunter, 2000). The most accurate estimates are derived from direct observations of viewing behaviour. Some studies have used photographic and video evidence of householders’ viewing behaviour, but these are generally feasible only with small and largely unrepresentative samples (Bechtel, Achelpohl & Akers, 1972; Anderson, Field, Collins, Lorch & Nathan, 1985). Their data are therefore impressionistic rather than normative and generalisable to an entire population (Gunter, 2000). Most studies are reliant on individuals’ self-reports of their television viewing and other screen use using somewhat crude measurements of frequency of viewing or amounts of time spent with a screen listed in questionnaires or the use of viewing diaries to identify specific time segments when viewing occurred or specific broadcasts in a television schedule that were watched. Given their limited psychological abilities, young children are unable to cope with these methodologies and need someone else (usually a parent) to complete data records for them. In many studies, researchers have therefore been dependent on parental estimates of their children’s viewing. This data source is especially pertinent with samples of very young children that are incapable of responding to such questions themselves. There are important questions of validity and reliability that can be asked about these representations of children’s viewing habits. Although parents might have a general idea about when their children usually watch TV, this subjective estimate can become increasingly fuzzy as the children grow older and act more independently of their parents. It can also be more difficult for parents to monitor their children’s screen-related behaviour if they are allowed to have their own television set in their bedroom. In this private space, children can indulge in viewing without their parents necessarily knowing when and what they are watching (Anderson et al., 1985). There are many other screen technologies, such as laptop and tablet computers, games consoles, and smartphones through which children can also watch audio-visual content and so discreetly away from the attention of parents. Parental monitoring of these technologies is therefore even more challenging, and the accuracy of any such self-report data must be treated with caution. The television industry, at the time of writing, has used fairly standard electronic monitoring systems based on the “people meter” technology. This has two components. The first of these is a meter that is attached to each television set in a household. A designated “main television set” is identified

Viewing behaviour 15

and all other set meters around a household feed their data into the meter attached to that set. The main set meter is plugged into a telephone socket and data can be pulled from it overnight and downloaded to a central computer for large-scale audience analysis. The meter system identifies the channel to which a television set is tuned in any given moment as well as the length of viewing durations for different members of the household. The second component is a remote-control device associated with each set meter which householders use to register their own physical presence in front of a specific television set when it is switched on. The remote has numbered buttons each of which is allocated to a member of the household. By pressing their own button, the system is able to register which householder is present at any moment while the television set was switched on (Gunter, 2000; Nielsen Company AC, 2000). Comparisons have confirmed that different types of viewing measurement yield different results. When simple questionnaire-style estimates of hours of viewing per day or per week have been compared to diary estimates, the former can result in significant child viewing overestimates. Diary measures, in turn, were found to provide exaggerated indications of child viewing compared with direct visual observations of viewing behaviour. Parents have been found to produce underestimates of their children’s television viewing compared with broadcasting industry measures of audience viewing using combined set meter and diary systems. Indeed, parental estimates were found to show only half as much viewing for their children as industry measures in one comparison. An American study compared parental estimates of their children’s television viewing over three weeks with objective measures of television time obtained from a meter system attached to participants’ television sets. The results showed that parents overestimated their children’s television viewing by around four hours per week when there was no television present in the child’s bedroom. When there was a television set in the child’s bedroom, parental reports overestimated their children’s viewing by three hours a week. There was further evidence from objective measures that children with a television set in their bedroom viewed on average about eight hours a week more on average than did children with no set in their bedroom (Robinson, Winiewicz, Fuerch, Roemmich & Epstein, 2006). The big challenge for the future therefore is accurate measurement of children’s use of screen technologies. The television industry has been making significant developments in measurement of live and streamed and self-recorded video content via television sets, and in some markets experiments have also begun to combine the measurement of online viewing with broadcast consumption. These developments will be crucial since accurate measures of media consumption play such an important part in enquiries designed to understand the role played by television and other screen technologies in children’s lives.

16 Viewing behaviour

References Active Healthy Kids. (2014) Report on physical activity: Is Canada in the running? 10th ed., 43. Available at: www.participation.com/sites/default/files/downloads/ Participation-2014FullReportCard-CanadainTheRunning_0.pdf. Anderson, D. R., Field, D. E., Collins, P. A., Lorch, E. P., & Nathan, J. G. (1985) Estimates of young children’s time with television: A methodological comparison of parent reports with time-lapse video home observation. Child Development, 56, 1345–1357. Anderson, D. R., Huston, A. C., Schmitt, K. L., Linebarger, D. L., & Wright, J. C. (2001) Early childhood television viewing and adolescent behaviour: The recontact study. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 66(1), i–viii, 1–147. Anderson, M. (2015) Technology Device Ownership: 2015. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Aries, P. (1962) Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life. New York, NY: Robert Baldrick. ARRIS International. (2015) ARRIS investors 2015 report. Available at: http:// www.arris.com. Accessed 21st August 2019. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2013) Australian Health Survey: Physical Activity 2011–2012. Canberra, Australia: Australian Bureau of Statistics. Barker, J. (2015, 26th January) Netflix and YouTube dominate children’s viewing habits. Boardbandchoices. Available at: https://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/ news/tv/netflix-and-youtube-dominate-childrens-viewing-habits-00189. Accessed 2nd April 2019. Bechtel, R. B., Achelpohl, C., & Akers, R. (1972) Correlates between observed behavior and questionnaire responses on television viewing. In E. A. Rubinstein, G. A. Comstock & J. P. Murray (Eds.). Television and Social Behavior, Vol. 4. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. Bogart, L. (1958) The Age of Television. London, UK: Crosby Lockwood. Bower, R. T. (1973) Television and the Public. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Bridge, M. (2019) YouTube ‘directed girl, 10, to harmful videos.’ The Times. October 17th, p. 26. Brown, J. B., Cramond, J. K., & Wilde, R. (1974) Displacement effects of television and the child’s functional orientation to media. In E. Katz & J. Blumler (Eds.). The Use of Mass Communication: Current Perspectives on Gratifications Research, pp. 93–112. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Buckingham, D., & Willett, R. (Eds.) (2006) Digital Generations: Children, Young People and New Media. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Castleman, H., & Podrazik, W. J. (2003) Watching TV: Six Decades of American Television (2nd ed.). Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Chaffee, S. H., & Tims, A. R. (1976) Interpersonal factors in adolescent TV use. Journal of Social Issues, 32, 98–115. Chang, Y. (2016) Why do young people multitask with multiple media? Explicating the relationships among sensation seeking, needs, and media multitasking behaviour. Media Psychology, 20(4), 685–703.

Viewing behaviour 17 Chiu, Y. C., Wu, W. C., & Chiang, T. I. (2017) The amount of television that infants and their parents watched influenced children’s viewing habits when they got older. Acta Paediatrica, 106(6), 984–990. Chowdhury, T. A. (2016) Media preferences among young consumers in Bangladesh: A multidimensional approach. Journal of Marketing Communications, 24(5), 486–505. Christakis, D. A., Ebel, B. E., Rivara, F. P., & Zimmerman, F. J. (2004) Television, video and computer game usage in children under 11 years of age. Journal of Pediatrics, 145, 652–656. Coffin, T. (1955) Television’s impact on society. American Psychologist, 10, 630–641. Conlin, L., Billings, A. C., & Averset, L. (2016) Time-shifting vs appointment viewing: The role of fear of missing out within TV consumption behaviors. Communication & Society, 29(4), 151–164. Cristia, A., & Seidl, A. (2015) Parental reports on touch screen use in early childhood. PLoS One, 10, e0128338. Deloitte Development LLC. (2015) Digital democracy survey. Available at: https:// www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/se/Documents/technology-mediatelecommunications/Digital-Democracy-Survey-DDS_Executive_Summary_ Report_Final_2015-04-20-tmt.pdf. Dennison, B. A., Erb, T. A., & Jenkins, P. L. (2002) Television viewing and television in bedroom associated with overweight risk among low-income preschool children. Pediatrics, 109, 1028–1035. Duch, H., Fisher, E. M., Ensari, I., Font, M., Harrington, A., Taromina, C., Yip, J., & Rodriguez, C. (2013) Association of screen time and language development in Hispanic toddlers: A cross-sectional and longitudinal study. Clinical Pediatrics, 52(9), 857–865. Elkind, D. (1981) The Hurried Child: Growing Up Too Fast Too Soon. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Furness, H. (2013, 1st February) Children under 5 should not watch TV alone, Jackanory creator argues. The Telegraph. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ culture/tvandradio/9840832/Children-under-5-should-not-watch-TV-aloneJackanory-creator-argues.html. Accessed 3rd April 2019. Gillian, J. (2011) Television and New Media: Must-Click TV. New York, NY: Routledge. Gunter, B. (2000) Media Research Methods; Measuring Audiences, Reaction and Impact. London, UK: Sage. Gunter, B. (2016) Does Playing Video Games Make Players More Violent? London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Hedinsson, E. (1981) TV, Family and Society: The Social Origins and Effects if Adolescents’ TV Use. Stockholm, Sweden: Almquist & Wiksell International. Hern, A. (2020) What powers will Ofcom have to regulate the internet. The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/feb/12/what-powers-ofcomhave-regulate-internet-uk. Himmelweit, H. T., Oppenheim, A. N., & Vince, P. (1958) Television and the Child: An Empirical Study of the Effects of Television on the Young. London, UK: Oxford University Press. Huttenlocher, P. (2002) Neural Plasticity: The Effects of the Environment on the Development of the Cerebral Cortex. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

18 Viewing behaviour Jago, R., Sebire, S. J., Edwards, M. J., & Thompson, J. (2013) Parental TV viewing, parental self-efficacy, media equipment and TV viewing among preschool children. European Journal of Pediatrics, 11, 1543–1545. Jago, R., Sebire, S. J., Gorely, T., Cillero, I. H., & Biddle, S. J. H. (2011) “I’m on it 24/7 at the moment”: A qualitative examination of multi-screen viewing behaviours among UK 10–11 year olds. International Journal of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity, 8, 85. Jago, R., Sebire, S. J., Lucas, P. J., Turner, K. M., Bentley, G. F., Goodred, J. K., Stewart-Brown, S., & Fox, K. R. (2013) Parental modelling, media equipment and screen-viewing among young children: Cross-sectional study. BMJ Open, 3(4), e002593. Jago, R., Stamatakis, E., Gama, A., Marques, V., Noqueira, H., Mourao, I., & Padez, C. (2012) Parental and child screen-viewing time and home media environment. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 43(2), 150–158. Jago, R., Thompson, J. L., Sebire, S. J., Wood, L., Pool, L., Zehra, J., & Lawlor, D. A. (2014) Cross-sectional associations between screen-time and young children: Differences by parent and child gender and day of the week. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 11, 54. Jeong, S. H., & Fishbein, M. (2007) Predictors of multitasking with media: Media factors and audience factors. Media Psychology, 10(3), 364–384. Kabali, H. K., Irigoyen, M. M., Nunez-Davis, R., Budacki, J. G., Mohanty, S. H., Leister, K. P., & Bonner, R. L. (2015) Exposure and use of mobile media devices by young children. Pediatrics, 136, 1044–1050. Lerner, C., & Barr, R. (2017) Screen sense: Setting the record straight: Research-based guidelines for screen use for children under 3 years old. Zero to three, 2014. Available at: www.zerotothree.org/resources/series/screen-sense-setting-therecord-straight. Linebarger, D. L., Barr, R., Lapierre, M. A., & Piotrowski, J. T. (2014) Association between parenting, media use, cumulative risk, and children’s executive functioning. Journal of Development and Behavioural Pediatrics, 35(6), 367–377. Livingstone, S., & Bovill, M. (Eds.) (2001) Children and Their Changing Media Environment. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Lull, J. (1978) Choosing television programmes by family vote. Communication Quarterly, 26, 53–57. Lull, J. (1982) How families select television programmes: A mass observational study. Journal of Broadcasting, 26, 801–811. Marshall, S. J., Gorely, T., & Biddle, S. J. (2006) A descriptive epidemiology of screen-based media in youth: A review and critique. Journal of Adolescence, 29(3), 333–349. Matrix, S. (2014) The Netflix effect: Teens, binge watching, and on-demand digital media trends. Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Culture, 6(1), 119–138. Meyrowitz, J. (1985) No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Mullan, K. (2017) Technology and children’s screen-based activities in the UK: The story of the millennium so far. Child Indicators Research. doi:10.1007/ s12187-017-9509-0. Murray, J. P., & Kippax, S. (1978) Children’s social behaviour in three towns with differing television experience. Journal of Communication, 28, 19029.

Viewing behaviour 19 Musgrove, F. (1966) The Family, Education and Society. London, UK: Routledge & Kegan. Nielsen Company AC. (2000) Report on Television. New York, NY: Nielsen Media Research. Niven, H. (1960) Who in the family selects the TV programmes? Journalism Quarterly, 37, 110–111. Ofcom. (2017) Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report 2017. London, UK: Office of Communications. Ofcom. (2019a, 29th January) Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report 2018. London, UK: Office of Communications. Available at: https://www.ofcom. org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/134907/Children-and-Parents-Media-Useand-Attitudes-2018.pdf. Accessed 31st May 2019. Ofcom. (2019b, 29th January) Children’s Media Lives – Wave 5: A Report for Ofcom. London, UK: Office of Communications. Available at: https://www.ofcom. org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0029/134795/Childrens-media-lives-Wave-5.pdf. Accessed 31st May 2019. Ofcom. (2019c, 4th July) Communications Market Report – 2019. London, UK: Office of Communications. Available at: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-anddata/multi-sector-research/cmr/cmr-2019. Accessed 9th September 2019. Ofcom. (2019d, 7th August) Media Nations 2019. London, UK: Office of Communications. Available at: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-data/tv-radio-andon-demand/media-nations-2019. Accessed 4th October 2019. Pagani, L. S., Fitzpatrick, V., Barnett, T. S., & Dubow, E. (2010) Prospective associations between early childhood television exposure and academic, psychosocial and physical well-being by middle childhood. Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine, 164(5), 425–431. Paudel, S., Jancey, J., Subedi, N., & Leavy, J. (2017) Correlates of mobile screen use among children aged 0–8: A systematic review. BMJ Open, 7(10), e014585. Paudel, S., Leavy, J., & Jancey, J. (2016) Correlates of mobile screen use among children aged 0–8: Protocol for a systematic review. Systematic Review, 5, 91. Pilotta, J. J., Schiltz, D. E., Drenik, G., & Rist, P. (2004) Simultaneous media usage: A critical consumer orientation to media planning. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 3(3), 285–292. Pittman, M., & Tefertiller, A. C. (2015) With or without you: Connected viewing and co-viewing and asynchronous broadcast television models. First Monday, 20(7). Available at: http://firstmonday.org/article/view/5935/4663. Accessed 21st August 2019. Postman, N. (1983) The Disappearance of Childhood. London, UK: Allen. Rhodes, A. (2017) Screen Time and Kids: What’s Happening in Our Homes. Melbourne, VIC: The Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne. Rideout, V. (2017) The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Kids Aged Zero to Eight. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense Media. Rideout, V. J., Vandewater, E. A., & Wartella, E. A. (2003) Zero to Six: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers. Menlo Park, CA: Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation. Roberts, D. F., Foehr, U. G., Rideout, V. J., & Brodie, M. (1999) Kids and Media at the New Millennium. Menlo Park, CS: The Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation. Robinson, J. L., Winiewicz, D. D., Fuerch, J. H., Roemmich, J. N., & Epstein, L. H. (2006) Relationship between parental estimate and an objective measure of child

20 Viewing behaviour television watching. International Journal of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity, 3, 43. Saelens, B. E., Sallis, J. F., Nader, P. T., Broyles, S. L., Berry, V. C., & Taras, H. L. (2002) Home environmental influences on children’s television watching from early to middle childhood. Journal of Development and Behavioural Pediatrics, 23, 127–132. Schramm, W., Lyle, J., & Parker, E. B. Television the Lives of Our Children. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Smith, D. C. (1961) The selection of television programmes. Journal of Broadcasting, 6, 35–44. Steiner, G. A. (1963) The People Look at Television. New York, NY: A. Knopf. Summers, J. (2014, 28th August) Kids and screen time: What does the research say? Available at: https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2014/08/28/343735856/kids-andscreen-time-what-does-the-research-say. Accessed 23rd March 2019. Turkle, S. (2012) Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. New York, NY: Basic Books. Uhls, Y. T., Michikyan, M., Morris, J., Garcia, D., Small, G. W., & Greenfield, P. M. (2014) Five days at outdoor education camp without screens improves preteen skills with nonverbal emotion cues. Computers in Human Behaviour, 39, 387–392. Unatenne, N. (2014) Mobile Device Usage Among Young Kids; A Southeast Asia Study. Singapore: The Asian Parent and Samsung Parents Time. Valkenburg, P. M., & Piotrowski, J. T. (2017) Plugged In: How Media Attract and Affect Youth. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Van Cauwenberge, A., Schaap, G., & van Roy, R. (2014) “TV no longer commands our full attention”: Effects of second-screen viewing and task relevance on cognitive load and learning from news. Computers in Human Behavior, 38, 100–109. Vandewater, E. A., Bickham, D. S., & Lee, J. H. (2006) Time well spent? Relating television use to children’s free-time activities. Pediatrics, 29, 997–1003. Vandewater, E. A., & Lee, S. J. (2009) Measuring children’s media use in the digital age: Issues and challenges. American Behavioral Scientist, 52, 1152–1176. Vandewater, E. A., Rideout, V. J., Wartella, E. A., Huang, X., Lee, J. H., & Shim, M. S. (2007) Digital childhood: Electronic media and technology use among infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers. Pediatrics, 119(5), e1006–e1015. Wade, S. E. (1973) Interpersonal discussions: A critical predictor of leisure activity. Journal of Communication, 23, 426–445. Walton, A. G. (2018, 18th September) Less screen time linked to better cognition in kids: Study. Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2018/09/30/less-screen-time-linked-to-better-cognition-in-kids-study/#13ad6f5321ee. Accessed 23rd March 2019. Wartella, E. A., Rideout, V., Lauricella, A. R., & Connell, S. (2013) Parenting in the Age of Digital Technology. Report for the Center on Media and Human Development, School of Communication. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University. Williams, T. M. (Ed.) (1986) The Impact of Television. London, UK: Academic Press. Zimmerman, F. J., Christakis, D. A., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2007) Television and DVD/ video viewing in children younger than 2 years. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 161(5), 475–479.

Chapter 2

Children’s attention to the screen

Despite an explosion of new technologies, television remains a prominent part of the media landscape even among young people. Technology developments have created competition for television for children’s attention and, as we saw in Chapter 1, they have, in some instances, represented enhancements to conventional broadcast services. Television has become more interactive and the viewing of it has become more “computer-assisted” with easy-to-use home recording systems, split-screen and multiscreen viewing opportunities, and empowered self-scheduling facilities. Much of our understanding about the ways in which children respond to screen experiences derives from research into their television viewing. In the digital era, however, children have adopted with great enthusiasm many other screen technologies, and questions have been asked about the relevance of understanding about television’s influences based on pre- digital broadcasting formats and systems. Screen use has become much more proactive, rather than being simply reactive. The interactive qualities of new communications technologies might have extended the nature of the psychological experiences television now provides to its users. Screen technologies are also more mobile which creates opportunities for viewing that were not available to children in the pre-digital, pre-Internet era. In the pre-digital era, television viewing was found to command pre-schoolers’ attention, on average, by the age of four. In the digital era, children as young as two have regularly been observed playing with smartphones and tablets (Christakis, 2009). If there are new forms of psychological experiences generated by new technologies, are there different kinds of developmental effects on young users of these technologies? Meanwhile, do the television effects of old also remain pertinent in the modern era? If parents allow their children open access to all these technologies, all kinds of consequences can follow on (Lauricella, Wartella & Rideout, 2015; Hamilton, Sinks, White, Kavanagh & Walsh, 2016). Observations from around the world have confirmed that children start to use screen technologies within the first two years of their lives (Hoyos Cillero & Jago, 2010; Duch, Fisher, Ensari & Harrington, 2013; Paudel,

22 Attention to the screen

Leavy & Jancey, 2016). It is not unusual to see very young children, who are still unsteady on their feet, being perfectly comfortable playing with games on a screen device, demonstrating manual dexterity with a touchscreen keyboard and able to work out how their own actions can control the things they can see happening on the screen (Radesky, Schumacher & Zuckerman, 2015; Canadian Paediatric Society, 2017). Their level of processing of “meaning” at this stage of their development is constrained, however, by their level of cognitive development (Wartella, Richert & Robb, 2010; Wartella & Laurciella, 2012). Limited comprehension of screen content means that their attention is therefore driven mostly by the sensory stimulation of physical changes they can see and hear emanating from the screen itself. Hence, “watching” in infants has a different meaning from what we refer to when older, more cognitively mature individuals are viewing television (Courage & Setliff, 2010). For very young children, changing picture sequences can command and retain their visual attention, but any meaningful connections that may exist between these images are not apprehended by the infant brain. Chapter 3 will examine children’s developing abilities to comprehend screen content. Such understanding drives attention internally by motivating the viewer to continue watching to find out what might happen next. This anticipation of what is to come is not present among most infants because they have not yet learned to read the “grammar” of screen productions that enable them to identify clues about what might occur next and perhaps enables them to express a preference about what they would like to happen next (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2001; Anderson & Hansen, 2010; Courage & Howe, 2010). The nature of children’s attention to television has also been modified by the availability of video on-demand streaming services from which viewers can schedule their own viewing selection for each viewing period. Services such as Amazon Prime and Netflix have grown substantial, international subscriber bases. These services monitor viewers’ past choices using computer algorithms and make personalised future viewing recommendations. Netflix even introduced a new feature that allowed viewers to speed up programmes. Digital interventions mean that soundtracks and dialogues retain their usual pitch even though speeded up (Moore, 2019; Stevens, 2019).

Attention to screen technology In the past, there has been much debate about whether children’s use of television was active or passive (see Biocca, 1988; Gunter, 1988; Lindlof, 1988). In other words, do children simply react to the physical stimulation of events on screen – changes to visual images and screen shots or sound effects and how far into their development do they do this? Since television programmes present a stream of audio and visual stimuli, they can constantly re-orient a child’s attention to the screen even when the youngster does not necessarily

Attention to the screen 23

understand fully what is being shown. This purely “passive” impression of television viewing among children was challenged by an alternative conception that television viewing could be “active” – in the sense that can be deliberate and driven by specific motives or needs. Not only that, the act of viewing itself was “cognitively active” and meant that the child was intellectually engaged making judgements about the content being viewed (Singer, 1980; Gunter, 1988). Observational research indicated that children did not usually pay undivided visual attention to the screen while watching television. It was more normal for children to look away and the return their gaze to the screen again periodically. It seems that even when looking away, auditory attention to the programme was still present and kicked in from time to time to pull the child’s visual gaze back again (Anderson & Levin, 1976). Where gaze away become gaze towards the screen, we can impute some degree of understanding of the spoken narrative which signals also when it might be appropriate or necessary to look back again to see what is happening.

The beginning of attention to screen technology Children start to pay attention to television at around six months of age. Early attention can be fleeting and sporadic and is driven by physical stimuli such as changes in pictures and sounds. More sustained attention tends to follow later by four or five years. Content comprehension emerges from two years (Anderson, Lorch, Field, Collins & Nathan, 1986; Courage & Setliff, 2010; Hoyos-Cillero & Jago, 2010; Paudel et al., 2016). As to whether television has cognitive benefit for children, the evidence is more varied. Certainly, youngsters can learn things from watching television. Some television content can exercise specific cognitive skills. Yet, there is also a phenomenon that researchers have called a “video deficit” with screen technologies whereby learning in a mediated space is less effective than learning from real-life presentations (Anderson & Pempek, 2005). There is evidence that excessive amounts of television watching among preschool children, during the early stages of their cognitive development, can impede the development of their abilities to focus attention in other settings (Obel, Henriksen, Dalsgaard, Linnet, Skajaa, Thomsen & Olson, 2004). Similar findings have emerged for playing with interactive screen technologies such as computer /video games. Furthermore, the links between greater screen use and subsequent attention problems occurred among middleschool-age and teenage children (Christakis, Zimmerman, DiGuiseppe & McCarty, 2004; Swing, Gentile, Anderson & Walsh, 2010). Children have access to many different screen technologies, but during their pre-school years, television is the most-used medium. Infants, nonetheless, progressively experiment with touchscreen interactive technologies,

24 Attention to the screen

assuming these are made available to them (Diener, Pierroutsakos, Troseth & Roberts, 2008; Courage & Setliff, 2009; Paudel et al., 2016). Television programmes have been produced especially for children of different ages and stages of development since the 1950s. These programmes target specific niche child-markets with content that is tailored to the tastes and developmental needs and abilities of young viewers. Some of these programmes are designed purely to entertain, but many that are aimed at the youngest viewers (i.e. pre-schoolers) have educational imperatives (Wartella et al., 2010). Supporters have claimed that such age-appropriate programmes and videos can be beneficial educationally for pre-school children (Courage  & Howe, 2010; Courage & Setliff, 2010). Yet, where viewing dominates a child’s local living environment by being “on” all the time, negative side effects on intellectual development can occur (Vandewater, Bickham, Lee, Cummings, Wartella & Rideout, 2005). In initial studies of children’s attention to television, there were two opposing schools of thought that conceived of viewing as “reactive” or as “active”. Reactive viewing was deemed to occur when children’s attention to the screen was controlled by the level of physical stimulation generated by onscreen action. Visual scene changes, sound effects, new voices, background music and other production variables can re-orient a child’s attention to the screen and maintain it (Zimmerman & Christakis, 2007; Courage & Howe, 2010). These early attentional experiences with television can cultivate different styles of executive function in children that is central to how they process and store new information (Lillard, Li & Boguszewski, 2015). When watching television, researchers found that children’s attention to the screen was rarely undivided. One study of young children watching the educational programme Sesame Street found that children were constantly shifting their gaze and looking towards and away from the screen (Anderson  & Lorch, 1976). We need to understand why this occurs and what are the factors that control such behaviour. One explanation of this phenomenon is that physical stimulus features in programmes trigger “orienting responses” in children (Singer, 1980). This level of response to crude sensory stimulation from the television screen is most important among infants that have not yet achieved a level of cognitive development that enables them to process story narratives or other symbolic features in programmes. Children’s attention to television also depends on how rich their household is in terms of other activities (Hollenbeck & Slaby, 1979). Children’s changing patterns of screen attention are underpinned by general developmental changes which relate to evolving systems of attentional control during the first few years of their lives. Initially, infants in their first year are attracted by brightly coloured objects with clear contours and can exhibit difficulties disengaging their attention once it has been captured. From 18 months of age, a second system of attentional control emerges whereby youngsters can more readily orient their attention in different

Attention to the screen 25

directions to different stimuli as one stimulus becomes more centre-stage than another (Ruff & Rothbart, 1996). Eye-movement-tracking research in infants while watching a video display showed that with increased age, children become more responsive to production-attribute changes and display longer looks at the screen after reacting to these features (Kirkorian, Anderson & Keen, 2012). Over the following few years of childhood, children’s attention to television is driven more by specific stimuli that have meaning for them (Carew, 1980). Once they reach school-age, children position themselves physically towards the set and they look at it more frequently. Their visual attention increases as they enter primary school years (Alwitt, Anderson, Lorch & Levin, 1980; Calvert, Huston, Watkins & Wright, 1982). Up to school age, youngsters focus mostly on physical action sequences and changes in sound, such as characters’ voices and background music. As they advance through their school years, they develop the abilities that enable them to follow story narratives and become more sensitive to significant plot shifts (Collins, 1979). Despite their growing sophistication, fast-paced story-telling and programmes packed with special production effects can overwhelm young viewers and impede their ability to follow a story narrative and remember key details (Tower, Singer, Singer & Biggs, 1979; Singer & Singer, 1981). Before the age of two, any simple physical sensory-stimulating changes on screen will cause children to re-orient their attention, whereas older children focus on whether the sequence of events makes some kind of sense, with one event meaningfully following on from the next (Pempek, Kirkorian, Richards, Anderson, Lund & Stevens, 2010; Kirkorian & Anderson, 2018). Children orient themselves physically towards the set when settling down in front of it and engage in longer “looks” at the screen (Alwitt et al., 1980; Calvert et al., 1982; Kirkorian & Anderson, 2017). Children also make judgements about events and incidents on the television screen that signal important changes in direction or developments in a story or plot (Collins, 1979, Tower et al., 1979; Singer, 1980; Anderson, Lorch, Field & Saunders, 1981; Singer & Singer, 1981; Huston & Wright, 1983; Sanderson & Lorch, 1983; Schiff & Bensch, 1989; Phillips & Wellman, 2005). When they are familiar with a television or video story, because they have seen it before, children’s attention to the screen increased (Barr, Zack, Garcia & Muentener, 2008).

Attention to different types of screen content Further research from the relatively early days of television also showed that over time as children learn more about the formatting of programmes and structures of story narratives, young viewers become more strategic in how they allocate attention to the screen. Children learn how to switch attention from, say, playing with toys or games in the room in which they are also watching television back and forth to the screen. Children develop the

26 Attention to the screen

ability to recognise when something important is occurring in a programme and needs their full attention and when what is happening on screen is redundant or not so crucial to story-telling (Anderson et al., 1981; Troseth, 2003; Troseth, Saylor & Archer, 2006). As they approach school-age and then beyond, children learn how to organise the content of television programmes to establish coherent and meaningful memories that focus on the key elements of the topic or story being covered (Anderson & Lorch, 1983). To do this, young viewers must be able to separate the core aspects of a plot from peripheral elements that are not central to the story. They can identify cues within the on-screen action that reveal when critical moments are happening. They might do this by spotting visual changes in action sequences or by hearing audio cues in the soundtrack, for example, as signalled by changes to background music or in the dialogue between on-screen actors (Huston & Wright, 1983; Kirkorian & Anderson, 2018). These interpretative abilities that can drive attention to the screen and control the shape of viewing behaviour progressively evolve as the child ages. By the years immediately preceding adolescence (i.e. around 11 or 12) most children can exhibit a much greater depth of understanding of programme genres, formats and narrative sequences and structures than those at the beginning of their school years (Wright & Huston, 1982; Anderson & Lorch, 1983; Huston & Wright, 1983; Kirkorian et al., 2012). Attention to the screen or attention away from the screen can also exhibit a certain kind of inertia. This means that once a child has started looking at the screen, and once attention has been maintained for a few, there is an increased likelihood that it will continue for at least a few seconds more. Once a child starts to look away from the screen, after a few seconds, a momentum of attentional distraction is established which keeps the child looking away for a few seconds more. Then after a further period, this “attentional inertia” diminishes (Anderson, Alwitt, Lorch & Levin, 1979; Anderson & Pempek, 2005).

Attention, cognition, and learning As we have seen, early child viewing tends to be “reactive” to screen events that physically shift a child’s attention. Later viewing can be more strategic in nature and is controlled increasingly by the child deciding whether specific production treatments or narrative shifts represent sufficiently significant events to warrant additional attention (Anderson et al., 1981). Pre-school children It is not simply enough for children to watch television for it to have an impact on their lives, they must also be able to understand the things it shows or says. Comprehension of television programmes is a complex matter. This

Attention to the screen 27

process begins early in life. Some researchers have claimed initial comprehension of screen contents starts to materialise in a crude sense from the age of six months. By this age, infants can begin to process simple actions in programmes. Within two years, they can join up actions into sequences and thereafter start to develop an ability to understand narratives. As the child’s understanding of television content improves, they begin to pay more attention to the screen even when distracted by toys in the viewing environment (Lorch, Anderson & Levin, 1979; Anderson et al., 1981). Even so, if the local environment is distracting enough, their attention might be pulled away from the screen and they might then fail to notice important programme developments. Higher levels of comprehension ability can drive young viewers’ attention, enabling them to retain focus on the screen even in the presence of other distractions in their local environment (Anderson et al., 1981). Leaving aside the impact on attention to the screen of distracting stimuli in the viewing environment, it is also known that paying attention to what is happening on screen is also critically determined by the extent to which the child understands what they are watching. If screen content makes no sense, the child will look away. One test of this finding was to monitor the heart rates of infants aged six, 12, 18, and 23 months while they watched different versions of a popular television show made for their age range, Teletubbies). The heart rate measure signalled attention level. In one version, the original version of the programme was shown while in other versions the original order of visual scenes was mixed up or the spoken dialogue was played backwards. Children’s attention was much less likely to be held when the content made little or no sense to them, but this distinction only started to emerge by 18 months. Before then there was a little difference in attention levels of normal and nonsense versions (Pempek et al., 2010). Evidence that attention is driven by more than just physical stimulation changes on screen but also by an ability to understand what these changes means has derived from tracking the eye movements of infant and adult viewers when watching a screen where they are scene changes. One important sign that there is “understanding” taking place is when different individuals in the same age group exhibit similar shifts in their gaze following a scene cut. Adults demonstrate this similarity in gaze change and a tendency to exhibit it very quickly, whereas infants aged four and even as young as one-year-old tend to react more slowly and not always in a similar fashion (Kirkorian et al., 2012). Yet while overt responses such as eye movements exhibit similar patterns among older viewers than less mature ones, internally, neural activity tends to become more variable and complex with age. This was evidence from one study that measured brain activity of individuals aged between five and 44 years while watching simply home-made videos of classroom activity and

28 Attention to the screen

scenes from Hollywood movies. Thus, greater complexity of understanding was signalled by more complex patterns of neural activity (Petroni, Cohen, Langer, Henin, Vanderwal, Milham & Parra, 2018). Pre-teenage years As they progress through their school years, children’s abilities to understand television programmes improves. Their attention to the screen is no longer driven purely by simply sensory stimulation, but by a more sophisticated processing of programme narratives. Whether programmes are fictional or factual, children are able to follow what is happening. With their more advanced language skills they can understand more of on-screen actors’ dialogues and as they become more familiar with the conventions of story-telling they can follow plots and sub-plots (Lorch et al., 1979; Anderson et al., 1981). As they head towards adolescence, children develop the knowledge that characters in television shows are played by actors, and are not real people. This understanding progresses steadily from age five to ten and then has been observed to make a significant leap by age 12 (Dorr, 1983). During pre-teen years, children develop an increasingly sophisticated understanding that many television programmes fabricate their own versions of reality (Hawkins, 1977). This is not true of all programmes and children must be able to judge varying degrees of authenticity, credibility and reality in different programmes (Dorr, 1983). Valkenburg and Vroone (2004) examined how much attention children aged six months to 58 months paid to the television screen. They showed children short segments from different kinds of programmes and also advertising material. The youngest children paid the most attention to simple content (e.g. Teletubbies) and older children paid greater attention to more complex content. Segments from programmes designed mainly for adult viewers attracted and maintained little attention. Initially, children’s attention was driven mostly by format features but with increased age and psychological maturity, children paid more attention to content features. Hence, physical changes on screen triggered increased attention among youngsters not yet mature enough cognitively to understand programme narratives. Over time, this changed, and children, like adults, paid more attention to content meanings. Children’s understanding of what they are watching is an important factor that affects how much information they carry away with them from a viewing or interactive screen experience. Individuals with some degree of cognitive maturity and screen literacy can translate content received in a two-dimensional space (on screen) to a three-dimensional space (their real world). This ability is at best only crudely developed before the age of three (Schmitt & Anderson, 2002).

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Schmitt, Anderson & Collins (1999) observed 50 individuals watching television at home over a 10-day period. As well as an adult group, there were four children’s groups aged two years, five years, eight years, and 12 years. The participant’s viewing behaviour was recorded using time-lapse video cameras. Further analysis was carried out of format and content features of the programmes being watched. This included noting the presence of men, women, and children on screen, as well as animation, camera cuts, and movement. Cuts, movement, and purposeful character movements on screen were significantly related to viewers looks at the screen. Following up on the above study. The researchers reported further data which revealed that the viewers, both adults and children, were engaged in other activity as well as watching the screen for 46% of the time the television set was switched on with them in front of it. Most often, there was some kind of social interaction going on with other people in the room. For children, eating and playing were other activities frequently conducted while watching television. When programmes contained fewer of the features found most often to attract children’s attention, these were the times when these other behaviours commanded most of their attention. One interesting finding was that, except for two-year-olds, other child age groups exhibited a greater drop-off in attention during advertising breaks than did adults (Schmitt, Woolf & Anderson, 2003). Elsewhere, Suddendorf (2003) found that two-year-old children could find a hidden object after being given clues to its whereabouts via photos or video footage. Other researchers confirmed this finding among similarly aged infants. This body of work indicated that even very young children can retain simple lessons from video instruction and convert into relevant actions in their own physical surroundings (Troseth & De Loach, 1998; Troseth, 2003). Despite the learning benefits that can accrue from watching television, this learning through a video modality can still result in poorer quality learning than that following live learning experiences. It was noted earlier that researchers have identified what has been called a “video deficit” as an expression of this weaker information processing (Anderson & Hansen, 2010). Other researchers have referred to “transfer deficit” to describe the poorer learning that occurs from video presentations of language or actions compared to witnessing live events or speaking to someone face to face (Barr, 2010; Hipp, Gerhardstein, Zimmerman, Moser, Taylor & Barr, 2016). Infants are exposed to a variety of media, including books, television, and computer screens. None of these media produce as much imitation of actions as does face-to-face interaction. Their abilities to learning from picture books, television, and touchscreen devices do improve with age (Barr, 2013). The video deficit can be reduced by extending the duration of the video presentation. Doubling exposure length reduced the video deficit to infants aged 12 months, but not so much for older infants aged 15 months or 18 months. Yet, younger infants still aged six months, performed as well

30 Attention to the screen

with video presentations as with live presentations (Barr, Muentener  & Garcia, 2007). Comparisons were made of infants’ learning from video and live presentations. The video deficit was confirmed among these 12- to 21-month-olds, but this could be reduced by doubling the duration of the video presentation compared with the live presentation. In this case, the learning comprised the ability of the children to imitate the actions of a human actor (Barr, Muentener, Garcia, Fulimoto & Chavez, 2007). Researchers have investigated whether children’s imitation of an adult’s actions whether live or on screen might be enhanced if the actions were also verbally labelled on the video presentation. Different video presentations presented actions with and without no labelling. Both were found to be effective in improving learning from video presentations whether the description was provided by a parent or by a mystery voice-over (Barr & Wyss, 2008). Many studies tested infants’ learning from television immediately after a presentation. Does this learning persist over time? This question was investigated with 18- and 24-month-olds who saw a demonstration of how to make a toy work and who were then tested after two weeks or after four weeks. Their performance was compared with that of same-age baseline groups who had not seen the demonstration. Among the younger children, memory survived two weeks but not four weeks. For the older children, they were able to demonstrate that they had retained the information even after four weeks (Brito, Barr, McIntyre & Simcock, 2012). Teenagers By adolescence, most young viewers have developed the cognitive abilities and experience to make adult-level judgements about what they see on screens. Adolescents’ attention to the screen while watching television is driven by the same variables that adults respond to. Their ability to follow storylines, make character assessments, and predict outcomes reaches a maturity that enables them to make complex and critical assessments of the things they are viewing. This does not mean that by their teens, all young viewers are immune to negative side-effects of watching television. Heavy diets of viewing, throughout childhood, have been associated to higher probabilities of later mental health problems, especially enhanced levels of anxiety and depression (Primack, Swainer, Georgiopoulos, Land & Fine, 2009; Bickham, Hswen & Rich, 2015; Rideout, 2015). More generally, the literature on these sideeffects of viewing remains limited (Teychenne, Costigan & Parker, 2015). Other researchers failed to find links between teens’ (or pre-teens’) attention to television and later developments of depressive symptoms (McNally, Young & Hancox, 2019). Visual attention to the television screen has been found to vary with age. Observations of families watching at home indicated that the percentage of

Attention to the screen 31

the time spent actually looking at the screen increased across pre-school and school years to around 70% and then declined after adolescence (Anderson et al., 1986). This initial increase probably reflected growing abilities to follow and understand programmes. As these abilities peaked, viewers could afford to attend to the screen more selectively as familiarity with story narratives and formats rendered more content redundant. Attention peaked instead at those moments when a story took a significantly new turn.

Interactive screen technology and young children From infancy, children respond to the sensory stimulation provided by screen technologies. They quickly learn how to use interactive technologies such as tablets and smartphones by watching their parents and other older users. They know how to swipe screens to control what they see and learn crude search behaviours given the appropriate learning opportunities even before they start school (Bauer, 2007; Anderson & Hanson, 2010; Pempek et al., 2010). While television watching and other screen use can bring educational benefits into children’s lives, screen stimulation can also distract youngsters’ attention from other activities that, in some instances, also have learning benefits. Hence, on some occasions, screen use can impede certain types of learning. Getting the balance right in teaching children to use screen experiences in moderation is therefore critically important in terms of the overall learning impact of television and other screen use (Setliff & Courage, 2011; Weisleder & Fernald, 2013; Christakis, 2014; Pempek, Kirkorian & Anderson, 2014). Mobile screen technologies have become immensely popular with children and research has indicated that these technologies and the many interactive screen applications that accompany them might represent more effective learning tools than the more usual and relatively passive screen experiences associated with television. Children can be engaged in specific screen tasks and use keyboard interfaces to manipulate on-screen events, solve puzzles, and make choices. The ability that some of these apps can give children to control what happens on screen renders them powerfully engaging to young users (Korat & Shamir, 2012; Parish-Morris, Mahajam, Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff & Collins, 2013; Tarasuik, Galligan & Kaufman, 2013; Cristia & Seidi, 2015; Radesky, Silverstein, Zuckerman, & Christakis, 2014; Takacs, Swart & Bus, 2015; Myers, LeWitt & Maselli, 2016). The emerging evidence indicates that passive viewing on their own might not deliver much learning benefit to young children. What really drives screen learning in the accompanying follow-up interactions with others about the content just viewed. As they grow older, children’s cognitive functioning becomes more sophisticated anyway as a result of their engaging with a range of environmental stimuli. As cognitive executive functions develop, their abilities to make more complex interpretations of screen experiences increase, and this, in turn, can result in deeper levels of learning taking

32 Attention to the screen

place from screen content (O’Doherty, Troseth, Shimpi, Goldenberg  & Akhtar, 2011; Diamond, 2013; Connell, Lauricella & Wartella, 2015; Troseth, Russo & Strouse, 2016). Simple features such as illuminated text can be used to focus a child’s attention on specific words or turns of phrase and the contexts in which they are used. The use of multimedia presentation styles can help to maintain the child’s attention by constantly re-orienting towards the text through onscreen presentation format changes. One critical factor is always to ensure that additional multimedia features are used that are relevant to the text in terms of meaning and substance. If images or sound effects are incorporated for the sake of it without being used as part of the central story-telling, they can cause unhelpful distractions that undermine a child’s ability to learn effectively from the text (de Jong & Bus, 2003; Korat & Shamir, 2004).

Concluding remarks Children both react to and actively engage with media content. Screen depictions represent physical stimuli that can trigger and control a child’s attention. Eventually this attention is held better if children understand what they are watching. The best way to keep a child’s attention to the screen as they mature is to provide an optimal level of stimulation. This means that a programme must neither be so simple or superficial in its construction that it loses their attention nor so complex that they simply cannot follow what is happening. A child must be able to place screen events in a meaningful frame of reference, often drawn from their own life. Hence, a programme must stretch the imagination and intelligence of children in the audience, if it is to command their attention and loyalty, but not be placed at a level that is beyond that frame (Valkenburg & Piotrowski, 2017). When children are very young, say, up to the age of two years, they are attracted by human faces and bright moving objects. At the outset, they can really only relate to physical sensations. Over time, objects and people with which they become familiar acquire special meaning and significance to them. These same principles apply to their life experiences and screen experiences. With continued exposure to screen entertainment formats, such as films, television shows, and computer games, children also begin to learn something about how they work and gradually move beyond simply reacting to physical on-screen movements and changes in sensory stimuli to anticipating events that follow on from one another. There are also some experiences that can exhibit a stronger pull on children’s attention than others because, in keeping with the predictions of the moderate discrepancy hypothesis, they keep a child optimally engaged over time. Hence, a child might be totally engrossed in playing with a toy until television is switched on in the background and then they begin to shift some of their attention to the screen (Setliff & Courage, 2011).

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34 Attention to the screen Bauer, P. J. (2007) Remembering the Times of Our Lives: Memory in Infancy and Beyond. Hove, UK: The Psychology Press. Bergland, C. (2013, 23rd November) One more reason to unplug your television. Psychology Today. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/ the-athletes-way/201311/one-more-reason-unplug-your-television. Accessed 4th March 2019. Bickham, D. S., Hswen, Y., & Rich, M. (2015) Media use and depression: Exposure, household rules, and symptoms among young adolescents in the USA. International Journal of Public Health, 60(2), 147–155. Biocca, F. A. (1988) Opposing conceptions of the audience: The active and passive hemispheres of mass communication theory. In J. A. Anderson (Ed.). Communication Yearbook 11, pp. 51–80. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Brito, N., Barr, R., McIntyre, P., & Simcock, G. (2012) Long-term transfer of learning from books and video during toddlerhood. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 111(1), 108–119. Brown, W. H., Pfeiffer, K. A., McIver, K. L., Dowda, M., Addy, C. L., & Pate, R. R. (2009) Social and environmental factors associated with pre-schoolers non-sedentary physical activity. Child Development, 80, 45–58. Calvert, S. K., Huston, A. C., Watkins, B. A., & Wright, J. C. (1982) The relation between selective attention to television forms and children’s comprehension of content. Child Development, 53, 601–610. Canadian Paediatric Society. (2017) Screen time and young children: Promoting health and development in a digital world. Pediatrics and Child Health, 22(8), 461–468. Carew, J. V. (1980) Experience and the development of intelligence in young children at home and in daycare. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 45, 1–89. Christakis, D. A. (2009) The effects of infant media usage: What do we know and what should we learn? Acta Pediatrica, 98, 8–16. Christakis, D. A. (2014) Interactive media use at younger than the age of 2 years. Pediatrics, 168(5), 399–400. Christakis, D. A., & Garrison, M. M. (2009) Preschool-aged children’s television viewing in child care settings. Pediatrics, 124, 1627–1632. Christakis, D. A., Garrison, M. M., & Zimmerman, F. J. (2006) Television viewing in child care programs: A national survey. Community Reports, 19, 111–120. Christakis, D. A., Zimmerman, F. J., DiGuiseppe, D. L., & McCarty, C. A. (2004) Early television exposure and subsequent attentional problems in children. Pediatrics, 113, 708–713. Collins, . W. A. (1979) Children’s comprehension of television content. In E. Wartella (Ed.). Children’s Communicating: Media and Development of Thought, Speech, Understanding, pp. 21–52. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Connell, S. L., Lauricella, A., & Wartella, E. (2015) Parental co-use of media with their young children in the USA. Journal of Children and Media, 9(1), 5–21. Courage, M., & Setliff, A. (2009) Debating the impact of television and video material on very young children: Attention, learning and the developing brain. Child Development Perspectives, 3(1), 72–78. Courage, M. L., & Howe, M. L. (2010) To watch or not to watch and toddlers in a brave new electronic world. Developmental Review, 30(2), 101–115.

Attention to the screen 35 Courage, M. L., & Setliff, A. E. (2010) When babies watch television: Attentiongetting, attention-holding, and the implications for learning from video material. Developmental Review, 30(2), 220–238. Cristia, A., & Seidi, A. (2015) Parental reports on touch screen use in early childhood. PLoS One, 10(6), e0128338. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0128338. de Jong, M. T., & Bus, A. G. (2003) How well suited are electronic books to supporting literacy? Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 3, 147–164. Diamond, A. (2013) Executive functions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 135–168. Diener, M., Pierroutsakos, S., Troseth, G., & Roberts, A. (2008) Video versus reality infants’ attention and affective responses to video and live presentations. Media Psychology, 11, 418–441. Dorr, A. (1983) No shortcuts to judging reality. In J. Bryant & D. R. Zillmann (Eds.). Children’s Understanding of Television: Research on Attention and Comprehension, pp. 199–220. New York, NY: Academic Press. Dowda, M., Pate, R. R., Trost, S. G., Almeida, M. J. C., & Sirard, J. R. (2004) Influences of preschool policies and practices on children’s physical activity. Journal of Community Health, 129, 183–196. Duch, H., Fisher, E. M., Ensari, I., & Harrington, A. (2013) Screen time use in children under 3 years old: A systematic review of correlates. International Journal of Behavior, Nutrition and Physical Activity, 10, 102. Gunter, B. (1988) The perceptive audience. In J. A. Anderson (Ed.). Communication Yearbook 11, pp. 522–550. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Hamilton, K., Spinks, T., White, K. M., Kavanagh, D. J., & Walsh, A. M. (2016) A psychosocial analysis of parents’ decisions for limiting their young children’s screen time: An examination of attitudes, social norms and roles, and control perceptions. British Journal of Health Psychology, 21(2), 285–301. Hawkins, R. P. (1977) The dimensional structure of children’s perceptions of television reality. Communication Research, 4(3), 99–120. Hipp, D., Gerhardstein, P., Zimmermann, L., Moser, A., Taylor, G., & Barr, R. (2016) The dimensional divide: Learning from TV and touchscreens during early childhood. In R. Barr & D. N. Linebarger (Eds.). Media Exposure during Infancy and Early Childhood, pp. 33–54. New York, NY: Springer. Hollenbeck, A. R., & Slaby, R. G. (1979) Infant visual responses to television. Child Development, 50, 41–45. Hoyos Cillero, I., & Jago, R. (2010) Systematic review of correlates of screen viewing among young children. Preventive Medicine, 51(1), 3–10. Huston, A. C., & Wright, J. C. (1983) Children’s processing of television: The informative functions of formal features. In J. Bryant & D. R. Anderson (Eds.). Children’s Understanding of Television: Research on Attention and Comprehension, pp. 35–68. New York, NY: Academic Press. Kirkorian, H. L., & Anderson, D. R. (2017) Anticipatory eye movements while watching continuous action across shots in video sequences: A developmental study. Child Development, 88(4), 1284–1301. Kirkorian, H. L., & Anderson, D. R. (2018) Effect of sequential video shot comprehensibility on attentional synchrony: A comparison of children and adults. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, USA, 115(4), 9867–9874. Kirkorian, H. L., Anderson, D. R., & Keen, R. (2012) Age differences in online processing of video: An eye movement study. Child Development, 83(2), 497–507.

36 Attention to the screen Korat, O., & Shamir, A. (2004) Are electronic books for young children appropriate to support literacy development? A comparison across languages. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 20, 257–268. Korat, O., & Shamir, A. (2012) Direct and indirect teaching: Using e-books for supporting vocabulary, word reading, and story comprehension for young children. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 46(2), 135–152. Lauricella, A. R., Wartella, E., & Rideout, V. J. (2015) Young children’s screen time: The complex role of parent and child factors. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 36, 11–17. Lillard, A. S., Li, H., & Boguszewski, K. (2015) Television and children’s executive function. Advances in Child Development and Behavior, 48, 119–148. Lin, L. Y., Cherng, R. J., & Chen, Y. J. (2017) Effect of touch screen tablet use on the fine motor development of young children. Physical and Occupational Therapy in Pediatrics, 37(5), 457–467. Lindlof, T. R. (1988) Media audiences as interpretive communities. In J. A. A nderson (Ed.). Communication Yearbook 11, pp. 81–107. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Lorch, E. P., Anderson, D. R., & Levin, S. R. (1979) The relationship of visual attention to children’s comprehension of television. Child Development, 50, 722–727. Lorch, E. P., & Levin, S. R. (1980) Pre-school children’s visual attention to television. Human Communication Research, 7, 52–67. McNally, H. M., Young, J., & Hancox, R. J. (2019) Childhood and adolescent television viewing and internalising disorders in adulthood. Preventive Medicine Reports, 131(3), 439–446. Moore, M. (2019, 30th October) Netflix speeds up TV for impatient viewers. The Times, p. 23. Myers, L. J., LeWitt, R. B., & Maselli, N. M. (2016, 14th July) Baby facetime: Can toddlers learn from online video chat? Developmental Science. doi:10.1111/desc.12430. Obel, C., Henriksen, T. B., Dalsgaard, S., Linnet, K. M., Skajaa, E., Thomsen, P. H., & Olson, J. (2004) Does children’s watching of television cause attention problems? Retesting the hypothesis in a Danish cohort. Pediatrics, 114(5), 1372–1373. O’Doherty, K., Troseth, G., Shimpi, P. M., Goldenberg, E., & Akhtar, N. (2011) Third-party social interaction and word learning from video. Child Development, 82(3), 902–915. Parish-Morris, J., Mahajam, N., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R. M., & Collins, M. F. (2013) Once upon a time: Parent-child dialogue and storybook reading in the electronic era. Mind, Brain, and Education, 7(3), 200–210. Paudel, S., Leavy, J., & Jancey, J. (2016) Correlates of mobile screen media use among children aged 0–8: Protocol for a systematic review. Systematic Reviews, 5, 91. doi:10.1186/s13643-016-0272-y. Pempek, T. A., Kirkorian, H. L., & Anderson, D. L. (2014) The effects of background television on the quantity and quality of child-directed speech by parents. Journal of Children and Media, 8(3), 211–222. Pempek, T. A., Kirkorian, H. L., Richards, J. E., Anderson, D. R., Lund, A. F., & Stevens, M. (2010) Video comprehensibility and attention in very young children. Developmental Psychology, 46(5), 1283–1293. Petroni, A., Cohen, S. S., Langer, N., Henin, S., Vanderwal, T., Milham, M. P., & Parra, L. C. (2018) The variability of neural responses to naturalistic videos change with age and sex. eNeuro, 27, 5(1). doi:10.1523/ENEURO.0244-17.2017.

Attention to the screen 37 Primack, B. A., Swanier, B., Georgiopoulos, A. M., Land, S. R., & Fine, M. J. (2009) Association between media use in adolescence and depression in young adulthood: A longitudinal study. Archives of General Psychiatry, 66(2), 181–188. Radesky, J. S., Schumacher, J., & Zuckerman, B. (2015) Mobile and interactive media use by young children: The good, the bad, and the unknown. Pediatrics, 135(1), 1–4. Radesky, J. S., Silverstein, M., Zuckerman, B., & Christakis, D. A. (2014) Infant self-regulation and early childhood media exposure. Pediatrics, 133(5), Available at: www.pediatrics.org/cgi/content/full/133/5/e1172pmid:24733868. Rideout, V. J. (2015) Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweets and Teens. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense Media. Ruff, H. A., & Rothbart, M. K. (1996) Attention in Early Development: Theories and Variations. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Schiff, W., Nensch, A. A., & Borndtein, M. H. (1989) Infant sensitivity to audiovisually coherent events. Psychological Research, 51, 102–106. Schmitt, K. L., & Anderson, D. R. (2002) Infants, toddlers and television: Toddlers’ use of visual information. Zero to Three, 22(2), 17–23. Schmitt, K. L., Anderson, D. R. & Collins, P. A. (1999) Form and content: Looking at visual features of television. Developmental Psychology, 35, 1156–1167. Schmitt, K. L., Woolf, K. D., & Anderson, D. R. (2003) Viewing the viewers: Viewing behaviors by children and adults during television programs and commercials. Journal of Communication, 53(2), 265–281. Science News. (2004, 6th April) Study finds link between television viewing and attention problems in children. Available at: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/04/040406090140.htm. Accessed 4th March 2019. Setliff, A. E., & Courage, M. L. (2011) Background television and infants’ allocation of their attention during toy play. Infancy, 16(6), 611–639. Singer, D. G., & Singer, J. L. (Eds.) (1981) Television, Imagination and Aggression: A Study of Preschoolers. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Singer, J. L. (1980) The power and limitations of television: A cognitive-affective analysis. In P. H. Tannenbaum (Ed.). The Entertainment Functions of Television, pp. 31–65. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Starnatakis, E., Hillsdon, M., Mishra, G., Harner, M., & Marmot, M. (2009) Television viewing and other screen-based entertainment in relation to multiple socioeconomic status indicators and real deprivation. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 63, 734–740. Stevens, C. (2019, 1st November) You lot really HAVE got a worse attention span than me. Daily Mail, p. 19. St. Peters, M., Fitch, M., Huston, A. C., Wright, J. C., & Eakins, D. (1991) Television and families: What do young children watch with their parents? Child Development, 62, 1409–1423. Suddendorf, T. (2003) Early representational insight: Twenty-four-month olds can use a photo to find an object in the world. Child Development, 74, 896–904. Swing, E. L., Gentile, D. A., Anderson, C. A., & Walsh, D. A. (2010) Television and video game exposure and the development of attention problems. Pediatrics, 126(2), 214–221. Takacs, Z. K., Swart, E. K., & Bus, A. G. (2015) Benefits and pitfalls of multimedia and interactive features in technology-enhanced storybooks: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 85(4), 698–739. doi:10.3102/0034654314566989.

38 Attention to the screen Tarasuik, J. C., Galligan, R., & Kaufman, J. (2013) Almost being there: Video communication with young children. PLoS One, 6(2), e17129. doi:10.1371/journal. pone.0017129. Teychenne, M., Costigan, S. A., & Parker, K. (2015) The association between sedentary behaviour and risk of anxiety: A systematic review. BMC Public Health, 15, 513. Tower, R. B., Singer, D. G., Singer, J. L., & Biggs, A. (1979) Differential effects of television programming on pre-schoolers’ cognition, imagination and social play. Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 49, 265–281. Troseth, G. L. (2003) TV guide: Two-year-old children learn to use video as a source of information. Developmental Psychology, 39, 140–150. Troseth, G. L., & DeLoach, J. (1998) The medium can obscure the message: Young children’s understanding of video. Child Development, 69, 950–965. Troseth, G. L., Russo, C. E., & Strouse, G. A. (2016) What’s next for research on young children’s interactive media? Journal of Children and Media, 10(1), 54–62. Troseth, G. L., Saylor, M. M., & Archer, A. H. (2006) Young children’s use of video as a source of socially relevant information. Child Development, 77, 789–799. Valkenburg, P. M., & Piotrowski, J. T. (2017) Plugged in: How Media Attract and Affect Youth. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Valkenberg, P. M., & Vroone, M. (2004) Developmental changes to infants’ and toddlers’ attention to television entertainment. Communication Research, 31, 288–311. Vandewater, E. A., Bickham, D. S., Lee, J. H., Cummings, H. M., Wartella, E., & Rideout, V. (2005) When the television is always on: Heavy television exposure and young development. American Behavioral Scientist, 48, 562–577. Verhallen, M. J., Bus, A. G., & de Jong, M. T. (2006) The promise of multimedia stories for kindergarten children at risk. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98, 410–419. Wartella, E., Richert, R. A., & Robb, M. B. (2010) Babies, television and videos: How did we get here? Developmental Review, 30(2), 116–127. Wartella, E. A., & Lauricella, A. R. (2012) Should babies be watching television and DVDs? Pediatric Clinics of North America, 59(3), 613–621. Weisleder, A., & Fernald, A. (2013) Talking to children matters: Early language experience strengthens processing and builds vocabulary. Psychological Science, 24(11), 2143–2152. Wright, J. C., & Huston, A. C. (1982, June) The information processing demands of television and ‘media library’ in young viewers. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York, NY. Zimmerman, F. J., & Christakis, D. A. (2007) Associations between content type of early media exposure and subsequent attentional problems. Pediatrics, 120(5), 986–992.

Chapter 3

Children’s understanding of their screen experiences

From attention to the screen, we turn in this chapter to the topic of understanding what is seen and heard. There are claims that children can learn a great deal through these technologies because they provide access to vast quantities of information about diverse topics and also confront children with interactive scenarios that exercise specific cognitive faculties. More sceptical opinion about media technologies have argued that even though they can help certain aspects of a child’s development, they can impede others (Wartella, Reichert & Robb, 2010; Wartella & Lauricella, 2012; Learner  & Barr, 2017). Whether television and other screen technologies that convey television pictures are beneficial to child development is contingent on patterns of use and factors such as parenting styles, involvement in other activities that exercise cognitive abilities, and the personalities of children themselves (Lin, Cherng, Chen, Chen & Yang, 2015). Screen-based technologies can present content to children of different ages that is capable of stimulating youngsters’ cognitive growth. It is known that children can learn new words from exposure to screen materials, including some well-known television series targeted at pre-schoolers, even when those materials were not originally designed to be educational (Richert, Robb, Fender & Wartella, 2010). Customised educational television programmes can represent useful adjuncts to more traditional educational activities to deliver specific subject matter to children (Hirsch-Pasek, Zosh, Golinkoff, Gray, Robb & Kaufman, 2015). When the cognitive experiences associated with traditional television content are extended via the more dynamic engagement typical of interactive screen technologies, new developmental benefits and costs arise (Rosin, 2013; Glaser, 2014; Honan, 2014).

Conventional television As we saw in Chapter 2, children’s attention to the television screen evolves as they grow older. Initially attention is driven by changes in the levels of physical sensory stimulation provided by on-screen events. At first, children have little internal control over the direction of their attention, but this

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quickly changes. Eventually, as children mature their cognitive attention to screen content is driven progressively by linguistic features that require some degree of symbolic comprehension. Attention is therefore underpinned by understanding. In the author’s earlier volume titled Children and Television: The One-Eyed Monster, four major headings were identified for examining children’s understanding of TV content (see Gunter & McAleer, 1990). These four categories comprised understanding of format features of programmes, understanding of narrative features, ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy material, and ability to reach judgements about the behaviour of actors or characters seen on screen. These headings continue to represent a relevant conceptual structure for considering the evolving research about children’s understanding of their television experiences. Format features Children’s attention to any screen display is driven in the first instance by physical production features that trigger auditory and visual sensory responses. Early research into youngsters’ viewing noted that when children are already looking at a screen, their attention to it, during their early stages of psychological development, can be maintained by changes to visual features of on-screen displays. When they look away, their attention can be retrieved by audio stimulation from the screen – that is by features such as voices, object-related or event-related sound effects or music (Anderson & Lorch, 1983; Anderson & Pempek, 2005) Very young viewers were found to be especially sensitive in terms of their attention to the screen to changes in sound volumes, lively instrumental music, unusual sounds, women’s voices and children’s voices. They were less responsive to men’s voices, singing or slow music (Alwitt, Anderson, Lorch & Levin, 1980). What children learn over time is that specific sound effects can signal meaningful changes in a narrative being played out on a screen. Hence, by listening for changes in on-screen characters’ voices, critical developments in story-telling were signalled which might require them to pay closer attention to what is going on. As children mature, therefore, their ability to go beyond the physical elements of screen representations and to be able to comprehend screen narratives becomes increasingly critical to their attention to the screen. In essence, just as their ability to understand the meanings conveyed by specific format features improves, so too their comprehension of screen content improves (Kirkorian, Anderson & Keen, 2012; Kirkorian & Anderson, 2017, 2018). External measures of eye movements and internal measures of brain activity have proved helpful in discovering the nature of these cognitive processing changes as the child ages (Kirkorian et al., 2012; Petroni, Cohen, Langer, Henin, Vanderwal, Milham & Parra, 2018).

Understanding of screen experiences 41

Narrative features Most screen content, whether it is principally entertainment-oriented or information-centred, is stitched into some kind of narrative or story, embellished with format features such as visual and sound effects and background music. Stories have specific structures and are characterised by different types of story-telling ingredients such as characters, relationships, actions and events, reasons for those events, settings and outcomes. In storybook settings, fiveyear-olds are capable of telling when pictures of events might be possible in real life, while three-year-olds have difficulty doing this (Samuels & Taylor, 2011). Early research showed that children initially process screen contents in terms of specific on-screen actions, events and incidents and then over time gain the ability to stitch these constituent elements together into connected narratives. For most children, this more advanced ability tends to emerge around the age of four or five years (Collins, 1970, 1975; Collins, Wellman, Keniston & Westby, 1978). What this means is that before they start school, most children have difficulty understanding plots and why one event is linked to another within a storyline. Once this ability is established children can learn facts and lessons about real life events and topics from television programmes (Rydin, 1976). It is usually by the age of seven or eight through to age 12 when children’s cognitive abilities develop to a point that enables them to follow complex stories on screen and draw conclusions about why specific events occurred and why specific characters perpetrated specific acts. Real advances in children’s understanding become apparent when in retelling stories they have experienced on screen they can recount what happened in their own words and not be restricted to simple verbatim recall (Collins et al., 1978; Newcomb & Collins, 1979). Even so, pre-teenage children still have not usually reached a level of cognitive development that enables them to remember as much detail about the story played out in a televised drama as the average adult viewer. Adult viewers are usually able to stitch together different elements of a story over time, for example, to identify character’s motives for specific actions. Up to the age of ten, the average child viewer might remember only half as much as an adult, but by their early teen years, their ability to recall central plot details might have reached 80–90% of the level normally attained by an adult viewer (Newcomb & Collins, 1979; Collins & Wellman, 1982; Clifford, Gunter & McAleer, 1995). Reality versus fantasy Children’s tastes in screen entertainment evolve as they develop. With greater cognitive development and social and emotional maturity children’s understanding of fictional story narratives grows. They make more comparisons between screen experiences and life experiences. They can identify and

42 Understanding of screen experiences

relate to characters and personalities on screen in fresh and evolving ways. They also learn to differentiate between different types of programming (by genre) and to associate varying degrees of realism with specific classes of programme. This means, in turn, that they benchmark televised representations of “reality” against their own real-world experiences (Clifford et al., 1995; Busselle & Greenberg, 2000). In general, children and adults are both able to engage in reality judgements and in fantasy thinking (Woolley, 1997). Although, children, in the early stages of their development, do not make judgements about reality in the same way as adults, over time youngster gradually shift their perspectives towards a more adult-like worldview (Woolley & Ghossaimy, 2013). Very young infants may believe there are people living inside the TV set. If they see something spilled in a TV show, they may think they need to clean it up. By the age of two, many children start to snap out of this confusion and realise that the world in which they liv and the world shown on screen are two different (Lemish, 1987). Children’s abilities to know when the things they are witnessing on screen are “real” or “true to life” develops gradually with age. When infants and toddlers aged six months to nearly five years were shown segments of televised news, Sesame Street, Teletubbies and Lion King 2, observations of their screen behaviour indicated that they reacted best to content that was only moderately discrepant from objects, actions and settings they were familiar with in their own lives. Up to the age of two, visual and audio changes to scenes on screen triggered renewed attention, but by the time they had reached four or five years they were attracted more by the actions of specific characters with which they identified (Valkenburg & Vroone, 2004). Some children advance more rapidly than others in these cognitive abilities. It is between the ages of five and 12 when the most significant advances in psychological development here tend to occur. For instance, being able to state categorically that the characters in a televised drama are not “real people” might be within the scope of a minority (around 40%) of five- and six-year-olds, but well over half of eight-year-olds and three-quarters or 11to 12-year-olds (Dorr, 1983). There can be some degree of variance in these figures across different samples of children with eight-year-olds in one study performing better (or worse) than their age-counterparts in another study (Rarick, Townsend & Boyd, 1973; Hawkins, 1977). What is key to this global understanding of television among children is their sensitivity to specific features of the programmes themselves such as the way characters on screen behave towards each other, the clothes they wear, the settings and situations in which they find themselves, and the objects with which they engage. There can be a multitude of clues in these features about whether a dramatic setting is similar to real-life settings with which children are familiar (Dorr, 1983; Clifford et al., 1995). By their teenage years, young viewers are generally able to make fairly complex assessments of the realism of television and other audio-visual

Understanding of screen experiences 43

materials. They can distinguish between genres and the different representations of reality depicted by television, as well as discrepancies between television representations and the physical world. Over time, children become increasingly aware of specific production attributes of programmes that define the nature of their genre. This growing awareness and the understanding that goes with it equips young viewers better to decide whether the programmes they are watching can be regarded as credibly “true to life” (Greenberg & Reeves, 1976; Huesmann, Lagerspetz & Eron, 1984; Calvert, 1988; Flavell, Flavell & Kortmacher, 1990; Wright, Huston, Reitz & Piemyat, 1994). Hence, reports about police officers and their actions in factual programmes might be conceived as not only “credible” but also “true to life” because of the nature of the programme genre in which they appear (Greenberg & Reeves, 1976; Dorr, Kovaric, Doubleday, Sims & Seidner, 1985; Flavell et al., 1990). Characters and their actions A further aspect of children’s developing comprehension of screen content is their ability to evaluate the actions of on-screen characters against values that govern their own behaviour in everyday life. Children learn to judge the realism of characters as well as settings in which televised events occurs (Fernle, 1981; Dorr, 1983). Much of the early screen entertainment watched by children is animated. This changes over time and programmes with human characters become more appealing. One of the earliest reality-fantasy distinctions children learn to make therefore is between animated (cartoon or puppet) and human characters on screen. This ability is usually fully established by age ten (Door, Graves & Phelps, 1980). Further evidence has shown that children acquire the ability to classify screen characters across multiple attributes and dimensions, just as they might real people (Reeves & Lometti, 1979). Children make judgements about characters as they would about real-life people and these judgements often drive their character preferences (Bruner, 1966). Hence, researchers found that when three- to five-year-olds watched the actions on screen of an attractive and an ugly character, they were more likely to be critical of the latter’s behaviour simply because of her physical appearance. If the storyline actually showed the “attractive” character to be spiteful or cruel to other people in a non-physical way that could only be determined by understanding subtleties in the storyline, only older children picked up these cues (Hoffner & Cantor, 1985). Children display specific character preferences when watching television. However, their favourite characters can change as they mature. Characters they really like at age two they no longer feel any affinity with two or three years later. In some instances, character preferences are driven by the extent to which specific on-screen characters comply with social norms or

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fashions. As children develop cognitively and emotionally their commodity and entertainment preferences can be shaped by early sex-typing socialisation. At the very early stages of development boys and girls might like male and female characters equally. With advancing age, this changes. Characters that are obviously masculine generally appeal most to boys while those more obviously feminine attract a predominantly female fan base (Bond & Calvert, 2014).

Television genres Television programmes come in many different forms. In some cases, they depict or report real events and in others fictional events. Over time, as their cognitive faculties children learn to differentiate between different types of programmes and make judgements about what is real and what is fantasy on screen. Initially, when children watch television frequently with their parents, they may learn from parental cues about the nature of the programming being viewed. As they watch increasingly on their own, they must make these distinctions for themselves (Greenberg & Reeves, 1976; St. Peters, Fitch, Huston, Wright & Eakins, 1991). As their understanding grows, children are able increasingly to differentiate between factual and fictional genres and then among different degrees of “plausible reality” within fictional dramas. Such abilities can be important in providing some degree of internalised protection against television and film portrayals that trigger extreme fear responses in children. By knowing that a televised event is not “real” can offer reassurance to a frightened child that there probably is not anything to be scared about really (Cantor & Wilson, 1984; Wilson & Cantor, 1987; Wright, Huston, Reitz & Piemyat, 1994). Considering the psychological reactions of children to different genres, research has indicated that youngsters’ cognitive and emotional responses to similar depictions can vary depending on whether they occurred in a documentary style, obviously fictional drama style or realistic drama style. The documentary version was perceived by children aged eight to ten years as more “factual” than the other versions. Emotional responses were similar across all three versions, but recall of programme content was more detailed and complex when it was rated as factual. The perceived social realism of the programmes varied between children, with those perceiving any version as more “realistic” being more likely to report emotional feelings similar to those portrayed by on-screen actors (Huston, Wright, Alvarez, Truglio, Fitch & Piemyat, 1995).

Mediating effects of reality judgements The importance of perceived realism of television, that is often closely intertwined with the concept of genre, rests on its mediating influence on

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the ultimate impact of television portrayals on children. Children do not blindly react to or accept the authenticity and integrity of television depictions once they have achieved a critical level of cognitive development. Such development brings with it an ability to understand television programmes, story-telling and characterisations in more complex and subtle ways. Even so, if young viewers willingly accept the veracity of television’s portrayals, they are then more susceptible to screen influences on their attitudes, beliefs and behaviour. These judgements can also shape changing viewing tastes across childhood. Even though children from ages six to ten exhibited progressively more complex television-related literacy and understanding, if they perceived television programmes and their representations of “reality” as similar to the social reality they knew from their own lives, they were more likely to believe that television provided hones and truthful representations, even in the case of genres that were known to be fictional (Wright, Huston, Truglio, Fitch, Smith & Piemyat, 1995). As children enter their early school, pre-teen years, their evolving cognitive development allows them to make more sophisticated judgements about their screen experiences. Televised stories can be judged in terms of the twists and turns of plots and the realism and credibility of characterisations and depicted events. In the early phases of this stage of their development children might still exhibit some fantasy-reality confusions, but these become fewer and weaker over time (Piotrowski, 2014). Their entertainment preferences change too. They move away from obviously “children’s” entertainment and instead exhibit more grown-up preferences, turning on television to family dramas and eventually even to series/serials primarily targeted at adults. Children of all ages like to be amused and so enjoy humour. As with other changes to their entertainment tastes, so with maturity their tastes in humous also evolve. Animated films and puppet characters hold the attention of pre-schoolers and early school-age children. Later, humorous scenes with identifiable human characters hold greater appeal (McGhee, 1979). During elementary school years, children develop a taste for fantasy action entertainment featuring futuristic or superhero characters. These characters often display specific moral codes and lifestyles and storylines depict “good” superheroes battling it out with evil characters – sometimes human and sometimes also possessing superhuman powers. The level of story involvement here has moved from simple perceptual distinctions. The appeal of characters stems not just from their physical appearance or special abilities but also in embodying a wider social code of behaviour with which youngsters also identify (Martin, 2007). As they approach their teen years, children continue to enjoy engaging with fantasy entertainment, but they also expect fantasy to be tinged with credibility and realism. When children were engaged in conversations about

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the Harry Potter stories, they recognised the fantasy elements of witches and magic, but also focussed on moral codes, the nature of different relationships and bonds between the characters and their relevance toreal-world lessons (Das, 2016). Regardless of the degree of fantasy, children frequently tend to look for connections, no matter how subtle, from fictional realms to everyday reality. Adolescents have long been frequent users of mass media and in the digital era have adopted new communications technologies such as smartphones almost as an extension of their self-identities. Today, adolescents use multiple screen technologies. While they remain regular users of television via traditional sets, they have also become avid users of smaller screen devices that can be easily carried around. Tablets and smartphones can be used to receive video content (and also to send it), to play games, and to maintain contact through a variety of channels with friendship groups and social networks (Valkenburg & Piotrowski, 2017). Adolescents have usually attained a level of cognitive ability that allows them to critique media entertainment in their own terms. They can develop highly critical viewpoints about specific celebrity figures, movies, television shows, video games, web sites and mobile applications. They know what they like. Their tastes are also used as a form of self-identity and, most especially, to differentiate themselves from the adult mainstream, especially their parents. Screen experiences must capture their sensations and imaginations. The must be enjoyable on their terms and this also means credible while also being distinctive enough to be interesting and worthwhile. In the second decade of the 21st century, screen experiences have evolved dramatically since the later stages of the 20th century when the Internet as a public system first emerged. One key change is the rise of multitasking whereby youngsters use more than one screen device at the same time. Hence, while sitting in front of the television set, a child might also be playing games or sending texts or engaging with some other application on a tablet or smartphone, or reading a newspaper or book (Voorveld & van der Goot, 2013). Adolescence is a period of identity exploration. Their media habits are both a reflection of and a source of influence over identity discovery. Screen learning in this context is manifest not only in terms of experiences with movies and television but also a whole range of online activities that include screen-based text and video communications with friends and viewing of amateur video productions made by peers on a wide range of topics. Screens have therefore become interfaces for a diversity of interpersonal activities and exchanges with others that are extensions of adolescents’ lives in the physical world and might also be defined by mainstream visual entertainment experiences that drive further interpersonal reflection (Kresch & Harden, 2014).

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Learning interactively from screens The acquisition of cognitive skills is an essential psychological prerequisite to being able to learn factual content from or through screen technologies (Greenfield, 1984). In the chapters that follow we will examine evidence about “learning from” screen technologies. In other words, can their engagement with screen technologies impart lessons to children that shape their social knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours? In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990, programmes such as Sesame Street, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Blue’s Clues, and others with educational intent were found to enhance preschool children’s core cognitive abilities relating to literacy and numeracy, as well as equipping children better to make sense of their screen experiences (Lesser, 1974; Mielke, 1990). The emergence of interactive screen technologies, however, has added a new dimension to screen learning and understanding. Here, children can engage directly in a physical way with events taking place on screen. They can, to varying degrees, control screen actions and experience reactions to the actions they have instigated. Under these conditions, the psychological impact, including the learning impact, can become very powerful (Radesky, Schumacher & Zuckerman, 2015). More recent research showed that children engaged with interactive screen technologies from as young as 12 months and begin to touch screens for themselves by the age of 18 months. The most popular of these are tablets and smartphones. By 24 months, they can use these technologies by themselves. Although they might not understand all that they see on the screen, they quickly learn which buttons to press to make things happen (Cristia & Seidl, 2015; Yadav, Chakraborty, Mittal & Arora, 2018). Screen experiences do not occur in a social vacuum and other factors can also influence their eventual impact of child development. Parental viewing behaviour and rules that are imposed over their children’s use of screen technologies can be important. Children with better educated mothers, for instance, tend to watch less television. This comes about because of parental controls over other viewing-related factors in the home such as how many television sets are in the home, where these are located, whether viewing takes place at mealtimes, with meals being eaten (or not) in front of the screen, and whether specific rules are applied about viewing (Hesketh, Ball, Crawford & Salmon, 2007). A classic test of children’s ability to transfer knowledge acquired through a simulated setting and transfer it to a real setting was developed in the 1980s. In a series of experiments children were shown a physical smaller-scale model of a room or a visual (screen) depiction of the room where it was revealed to them where a toy had been hidden. In the typical experiment, each child would first spend some time playing in the room with the experimenter. Then, the child was taken to a different room in which they

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were shown a physical scale model or a screen-based depiction of the room. Here they were told and shown where a specific toy had been concealed (DeLoache, 1987, 1989). In the final phase they were returned to the original room and told to find the hidden toy. The key question was whether children could both remember what they had been shown about the toy in a simulation of the real setting and apply that memory by transferring that knowledge to the real room. Across a series of studies, the evidence consistently showed that children had difficulty performing this task if they were under 30 months old, and thereafter became progressively better at it (DeLoache, 1987,1989, 1995, 2000). The finding was based originally on tests of knowledge transfer from scale models to full-size settings, and were later replicated using video screen simulations of physical settings (Troseth & DeLoache, 1998). There has been mixed evidence concerning the efficacy of video presentations versus live presentations in the context of children’s learning. A number of studies have found that video presentations perform less well than face-to-face versions in getting specific lessons across to young learners (Anderson & Pempek, 2005). Evidence has emerged, however, that infants aged 30 months and children aged four and five years can remember task solutions as performed by visible actors when presented over video at least as well if not better than when performed live in front of them (Barr & Hayne, 1999; Reis, Kruger  & Krist, 2017; Strouse, Troseth, O’Doherty & Saylor, 2018). Mental effor t and comprehension Learning from television is not as simple and straightforward as many believe. For children, in particular, to absorb and remember factual information presented on television requires mental effort. Normal viewing frequently fails to engage children cognitively in the right way to promote that kind of cognitive focus. Interactive video presentations might be to overcome this challenge to some degree by engaging the children more actively in processing the content because they are given control over at least some of what happens in screen. Under passive viewing, there may be generally poor transfer of learning from video to subsequent real-world applications (Kirkorian, 2018). This is something that needs to be better understood so that optimal learning conditions can be created in video learning productions. The expansion of touchscreen devices opens up opportunities for more effective video-based learning in which children’s cognitive effort is increased. The loss of information between video exposure and subsequent enactment of skills that have been learned has been referred to as a transfer deficit. It has been noted that children learn better from face-to-face instruction that video-mediated instruction, even when there is some degree of interactivity built in to video presentations (Barr, 2010, 2013; Hipp, Gerhardstein, Zimmerman, Moser, Taylor & Barr, 2016).

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This does not mean that children cannot learn from video or televised presentations. There is ample evidence that they can. For instance, even at two and three years of age, children display early abilities to mimic the behaviour of actors seen in person and on screen. Face-to-face experiences tend to have the more powerful impact, however (Barr, 2010). Children’s cognitive development is gradual and progresses through stages. Youngsters learn basic vocabulary before they then learn to link words together into sentences. Then, they learn to connect sentences into more extended narratives. Those narratives might represent symbolic representations of physical actions. At first children can understand the linguistic building blocks of these narratives sufficiently to develop a simple understanding of what is being described, but might not at that stage be able yet to reproduce the physical actions by translating abstract language into concrete events (Barr, Meuntener & Garcia, 2007; Barr, 2013). Further research provided insights into the ability of toddlers to find hidden toys after they had been hidden from view. Infants aged two to three years were studied. In one study, after seeing a toy being placed the children had to find it. In another case, they later had to place the toy in the same place themselves. Performance on both tasks was better when the child accompanied the person hiding the toy as compared to seeing someone hide the toy on television. Three-year-olds did somewhat better in the television condition, however, than two-year-olds (Schmitt & Anderson, 2002; Anderson & Pempek, 2005). These results have been confirmed and extended by others (Troseth, Saylor & Archer, 2006; Lauricella, Pempek, Barr & Calvert, 2010). Accumulating evidence has shown that interactive video experiences can generate better learning than traditional television viewing in educational or instructional contexts among pre-schoolers and school-age children. As children’s manual dexterity with touchscreen devices and broader software and online literacy grows over time, so their ability to learning via interactive screen experiences also benefits (Green & Bavelier, 2008; Stevens, 2012; Cristia & Seidl, 2015). Furthermore, technologies exercise different cognitive skills. Interactive screen devices enable children to practice specific visual information processing skills and motor skills (Hirsch-Pasek et al., 2015). Different screen technologies can be used to convey different types of content. Some has educational objectives, for example aiding language acquisition among young children. Other content may have purely entertainment objectives. Research has indicated that the amount of screen technology use can impede certain kinds of cognitive development. Yet, what is probably more important is the type of content a child mostly consumes from their screen behaviour (Linebarger & Walker, 2005; Schmidt & Anderson, 2007; Lillard & Peterson, 2011). Research carried out at the University of London discovered evidence for positive cognitive effects of television watching. Here, children who reported watching television for three or more hours a day were ahead of

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their peers who claimed to watch for no more than an hour a day in terms of their reading and writing skills. One possible explanation for this finding was that children are exposed to more vocabulary by watching greater amounts of television. The social class and education level of parents also emerged as key factors. Parents in higher paid jobs with more qualifications and work-related responsibilities had children who were higher achievers in school. Parental reading to children and encouraging children to make the effort to learn for themselves were also important factors (Sullivan, Ketende & Joshi, 2013).

Media multitasking One phenomenon that has become prevalent with the growth of interactive screen technologies is media multitasking. This is where users engage with more than one technology at the same time. Thus, we might use our tablet computer to engage with the Internet while also watching television. This kind of multiple, simultaneous technology use is fairly normative among young people in the 21st century. It is a behaviour that starts very young. As a consequence, it has generated a lot of interest in regard to how it influences a child’s cognitive development. Children can acquire the skills to switch their attention rapidly between parallel streams of incoming information. This rapid attention switching, however, might mean that youngsters come to need constant exposure to triggering cues to maintain their attention. When confronted with single streams of sequential information their attention might wander or subside unless a new stream demands some processing power from them. These rapid attention-switching skills might enable a child to cope well with multi-tasking online in social and leisure contexts, but there is emergent evidence that they do not exercise the kinds of cognitive competencies that underpin high educational performance in traditional tests of basic linguistic and numeracy skills. It is possible that regular media multitasking impeded executive functioning development in the frontal cortex of the brain, which is able to control the allocation of mental resources to tasks. Instead, young media multitaskers are accustomed to their attention being externally controlled by rapid stimulus cue switching between different screen experiences (Cain, Leonard, Grabrieli & Finn, 2016). This does not mean that media multitasking necessarily results in poorer information processing ability when new information is first received by a child. It does seem to mean that heavy dependency on screen technologies conditions stronger visual attention and processing skills but weaker implicit learning skills through which information at the forefront of attention is placed in a richer background context for elaboration. Media multitaskers exhibit poorer performance when it comes to processing visual inputs in a deeper context, which can result in less meaningful interpretations of inputs (Edwards & Shin, 2017).

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There remains a great deal of uncertainty about exactly what effects on a child’s cognitive development regular media multitasking can exert. There is a growing literature that reports statistically significant degrees of association between claimed media multitasking and poorer memory performance and impulsivity. What is less clear is the direction of causality here and whether rapid switching between technologies enhances cognitive growth or whether those with higher cognitive abilities for other reasons can cope better with switching (Uncapher, Lin, Rosen, Kirkorian, Baron, Bailey, Cantor, Strayer, Parsons & Wagner, 2017).

Concluding remarks There has been continuing interest in children’s ability to understand their television and other screen experiences. This perspective in screen-related research is not so much concerned with the impact of television or screen technologies on children’s perceptions and understanding the physical world and its social reality and more with whether children can make sense of the things they see and hear on screen. The research about this topic has taken on many methodological forms, but the emergent evidence has repeatedly shown that children gradually acquire the abilities to understand their television and video experiences over time. The evolving cognitive abilities are stimulated by ongoing cognitive development and the specific screen-related experiences they have enjoyed, and, as we see in more detail later in this book, by the interventions of others, especially their parents and schools. Infants in the first year or two of life understand little of what they see on television or through other screen experiences. By mid-infancy, however, their ability to shift attentional gaze develops and their responsive to a wider range of stimuli expands. By late infancy and during early school years, children can begin to follow story narratives and non-physical, or symbolic, features become more important drivers of attention. Being able to attend to specific features of a television show and to shift attention when needed to different on-screen events are critical faculties linked to understanding screen content. Then, being able to go beyond the screen content to make further judgements about what is being shown in terms of its meaning and whether it can be classed as “fantasy” or a representation of “reality” are further refined throughout later child development. Interactive screen technologies have added a new dimension of user control over viewing experiences that also requires a new layer of comprehension. This understanding covers knowing how to use the technology, interpreting dynamic content over which the user may have more control, and the usual veracity and relevance distinctions about the content. What has become clear is that children develop their own critical judgements about television and video content and about screen representations of objects, events, people, and settings. These are important cognitive mediators

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that enable young viewers to make sense of the things they are watching and moderate the effects that these viewing experiences ultimately have on youngsters’ perceptions of the physical world and their behaviour in it.

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54 Understanding of screen experiences Gunter, B., Furnham, A., & Lineton, Z. (1995) Watching people watching television: What goes on in front of the TV set? Journal of Educational Television, 21(3), 165–191. Hawkins, R. P. (1977) The dimensional structure of children’s perceptions of television reality. Communications Research, 4(3), 99–120. Hesketh, K., Ball, K., Crawford, K., & Salmon, J. (2007) Mediators of the relationship between maternal education and children’s TV viewing. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 33(10), 41–47. Hipp, D., Gerhardstein, P., Zimmerman, L., Moser, A., Taylor, G., & Barr, R. (2016) The dimensional divide: Learning from TV and touchscreens during early childhood. Media Exposure During Infancy and Early Childhood, 33–54. Hirsch-Pasek, K., Zosh, J. M., Golinkoff, R., Gray, J. H., Robb, M. B., & Kaufman, J. (2015) Putting education in “educational” apps lessons from the science of learning. Psychological Science and Pubic Interest, 16, 3–34. Hoffner, C., & Cantor, J. (1985) Developmental differences in responses to a television character’s appearance and behaviour. Developmental Psychology, 21(6), 1065–1074. Honan, M. (2014) Are touch screen melting your kids’ brains? Wired. Available at: http://www.wired.com/2014/04/children-and-touch-screens/. Accessed 1st March 2019. Huesmann, L. R., Lagerspetz, K., & Eron, L. D. (1984) Intervening variables in the TV violence-aggression relation: Evidence from two countries. Developmental Psychology, 20(5), 746–755. Huston, A. C., & Wright, J. C. (1983) Children’s processing of television: The informative functions of formal features. In J. Bryant & D. R. Anderson (Eds.). Children’s Understanding of Television: Research on Attention and Comprehension, pp. 35–68. New York, NY: Academic Press. Huston, A. C., Wright, J. C., Alvarez, M., Truglio, R., Fitch, M., & Piemyat, S. (1995) Perceived television reality and children’s emotional and cognitive responses to its social content. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 16(2), 231–251. Kirkorian, H. L. (2018) When and how do interactive digital media help children connect what they see on and off the screen? Child Development Perspectives, 12(3), 210–214. Kirkorian, H. L., & Anderson, D. R. (2017) Anticipatory eye movements while watching continuous action across shots in video sequences: A developmental study. Child Development, 88(4), 1284–1301. Kirkorian, H. L., Anderson, D. R., & Keen, R. (2012) Age differences in online processing of video: An eye movement study. Child Development, 83(2), 497–507. Kretsch, N., & Harden, K. R. (2014) Pubertal development and peer influence on risky decision making. Journal of Early Adolescence, 34(3), 339–359. Lauricella, A. R., Pempek, T. A., Barr, R., & Calvert, S. (2010) Contingent computer interactions for young children’s object retrieval success. Journal of Applied Development Psychology, 31, 362–369. Lemish, D. (1987) Viewers in diapers: The early development of television viewing. In T. R. Lindlof (Ed.). Natural Audiences: Qualitative Research of Media uses and Effects, pp. 33–57. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Understanding of screen experiences 55 Lerner, C., & Barr, R. (2017) Screen sense: Setting the record straight: Research-based guidelines for screen use for children under 3 years old. Zero to three 2014. Available at: www.zerotothree.org/resources/series/screen-sense-setting-the-record-straight. Lesser, G. S. (1974) Children and Television: Lessons from “Sesame Street.” New York, NY: Random House. Liliard, A., & Peterson, J. (2011) The immediate impact of different types of television on young children’s executive function. Pediatrics, 128(4), 644–649. Lin, L. Y., Cherng, R. J., Chen, Y. J., Chen, Y. J., & Yang, H. M. (2015) Effects of television exposure on developmental skills among young children. Infant Behaviour Development, 38, 20–26. Linebarger, D. L., & Walker, D. (2005) Infants’ and toddlers’ television viewing and language outcomes. American Behavioral Scientist, 48(5), 624–645. Martin, J. (2007) Children’s attitudes toward superheroes as a potential indicator of their moral understanding. Journal of Moral Education, 36, 239–250. McGhee, P. E. (1979) Humor: Its Origin and Development. San Francisco, CA: Freeman. Mielke, K. (1990) Research and development at the Children’s Television Workshop. Educational Technology Research and Development, 38(4), 7–16. Newcomb, A. F., & Collins, W. A. (1979) Children’s comprehension of family role portrayals in televised dramas: Effects of socioeconomic status, ethnicity and age. Developmental Psychology, 15(4), 417–423. Petroni, A., Cohen, S. S., Langer, N., Henin, S., Vanderwal, T., Milham, M. P., & Parra, L. C. (2018) The variability of neural responses to naturalistic videos change with age and sex. eNeuro, 27, 5(1). doi:10.1523/ENEURO.0244-17.2017. Piotrowki, J. T. (2014) Participatory cues and program familiarity predict young children’s learning from educational television. Media Psychology, 17(3), 311–331. Potter, W. J. (1988) Perceived reality in television effects research. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 32, 23–41. Radesky, J. S., Schumacher, J., & Zuckerman, B. (2015) Mobile and interactive media use by young children: The good, the bad, and the unknown. Pediatrics, 135(1), 1–3. Rarick, D. L., Townsend, J. E., & Boyd, D. A. (1973) Adolescent perceptions of police: Actual and as depicted in TV drama. Journalism Quarterly, 50, 438–446. Reeves, B., & Lometti, G. (1979) The dimensional structure of children’s perceptions of television characters: A replication. Human Communication Research, 5, 214–245. Reis, M., Kruger, M., & Krist, H. (2017) Theory of mind and the video deficit effect; Video presentation impairs children’s encoding and understanding of false belief. Media Psychology, 22(1), 23–38. Richert, R. A., Robb, M. B., Fender, J. G., & Wartella, E. A. (2010) Word learning from baby videos. Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, 164, 432–437. Rydin, I. (1976) Information Processes in Pre-School Children 1.1. The Tale of the Seed. Stockholm, Sweden: Swedish Broadcasting Corporation, Project No72-7-114. Samuels, A., & Taylor, M. (2011) Children’s ability to distinguish fantasy from real-life events. Developmental Psychology, 12(4), 417–427.

56 Understanding of screen experiences Schmidt, M. E., & Anderson, D. A. (2007) The impact of television on cognitive development and educational achievement. In N. O. Pecora, J. P. Murray & E. Wartella (Eds.). Children and Television: Fifty Years of Research, pp. 65–84. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Schmitt, K. L., & Anderson, D. (2002) Television and reality: Toddlers’ use of visual information from video to guide behaviour. Media Psychology, 4(1), 51–76. Stevens, J. (2018, 27th May) Toddlers and touchscreens: A science in development. Association for Psychological Science. Available at: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/observer/obsonline/toddlers-and-touchscreens-ascience-in-development.html. St. Peters, M., Fitch, M., Huston, A. C., Wright, J. C., & Eakins, D. J. (1991) Television and families: What do young children watch with their parents? Child Development, 62, 1409–1423. Strouse, G. A., Troseth, G. L., O’Doherty, K. D., & Saylor, M. M. (2018) Co-viewing supports toddlers’ word learning from contingent and noncontingent video. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 166, 310. Sullivan, A., Ketende, S., & Joshi, H. (2013) Social class and inequalities in early cognitive scores. Sociology, 47(6), 1187–1206. Troseth, G. L., & DeLoache, J. S. (1998) The medium can obscure the message: Young children’s understanding of video. Child Development, 69, 950–965. Troseth, G. L., Saylor, M. M., & Archer, A. H. (2006) Young children’s use of video as a source of socially relevant information. Child Development, 77, 786–799. Uncapher, M. R., Lin, L., Rosen, L. D., Kirkorian, H. L., Baron, N. S., Bailey, K., Cantor, J., Strayer, D. L., Parsons, T. D., & Wagner, A. D. (2017) Media multitasking and cognitive, psychological, neural, and learning differences. Pediatrics, 140(Suppl. 2), 562–568. Valkenburg, P. M., & Piotrowski, J. T. (2017) Plugged In: How Media Attract and Affect Youth. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Valkenburg, P. M., & Vroone, M. (2004) Developmental changes in infants’ and toddlers’ attention to television entertainment. Communication Research, 31(3), 288–311. Voorveld, A. M., & van der Goot, M. (2013) Age differences in media multitasking: A diary study. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 57(3), 392–408. Wartella. E. A., & Lauricella, A. R. (2012) Should babies be watching television and DVDs. Pediatric Clinics of North America, 59(3), 613–621. Wartella, E. A., Richert, R. A., & Robb, M. B. (2010) Babies, television and videos: How did we get here? Developmental Review, 30, 116–127. Wilson, B. J. (1991) Children’s reactions to dreams conveyed in mass media programming. Communication Research, 18, 283–305. Wilson, B. J., Hoffner, C., & Cantor, J. (1987) Children’s perceptions of the effectiveness of techniques to reduce fear from mass media. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 8, 39–52. Woolley, J. D. (1997) Thinking about fantasy: Are children fundamentally different thinkers and believers from adults? Child Development, 68(6), 991–1011. Woolley, J. D., & Ghossaimy, M. (2013) Revisiting the fantasy-reality distinction: Children as naïve sceptics. Child Development, 84(5), 1496–1510. Wright, J. C., Calvert, S. L., Huston-Stein, A., & Watkins, B. A. (1980, May) Children’s selective attention to television forms: Effects of salient and information

Understanding of screen experiences 57 production features as functions of age and experience. Paper presented at the Meeting of the International Communication Association, Acapulco, Mexico. Wright, J. C., Huston, A. C., Reitz, A. L., & Pienyat, S. (1994) Young children’s perceptions of television reality: Determinants and developmental differences. Developmental Psychology, 30, 229–239. Wright, J. C., Huston, A. C., Truglio, S., Fitch, M., Smith, E., & Pienyat, S. (1995) Occupational portrayals on television: Children’s role schemata, career aspirations, and perceptions of reality. Child Development, 66(6), 1706–1718. Yadav, S., Chakraborty, P., Mittal, P., & Arora, U. (2018) Children aged 6–24 months like to watch YouTube videos but could not learn anything from them. Acta Paediatrica, 107(8), 1461–1466.

Chapter 4

Screen experiences and cognitive development

Television and other screen technologies can provide massive amounts of information to children. Whether they can learn from this information depends on the emergence of fundamental cognitive skills. These skills underpin learning but also develop and flourish through different kinds of learning experiences. Some cognitive abilities can fail to emerge to an advanced level because they receive insufficient practice. Interaction with audio-visual media can help children to develop cognitive information processing skills that are useful in the context of screen-based experiences. Such experiences, however, might enable children few opportunities to practise skills that are essential for effective learning in other contexts, for example, when reading texts. Children spend a lot of time watching television, playing video games or searching the World Wide Web via computer screens. These experiences can help them acquire advanced skills in relation to some information-processing activities, but can also deliver shortfalls in other kinds of cognitive skills development (Lillard, Li & Boguszewski, 2015). Eventual outcomes depend on patterns of use. During preschool years, television, used judiciously, can enhance cognitive development (Nathanson, Alade, Sharp, Rasmussen & Christy, 2014). When pre-school children were tested for their abilities to perform specific cognitive tasks including delay of gratification and different kinds of problem-solving, it was found that those assigned to watch fast-paced cartoons beforehand performed more poorly than did those who watched slower-paced educational programmes. Watching fast-paced cartoons could in the short-term impede children’s problem-solving abilities and also render less able to delay personal gratification for doing something (Lillard & Peterson, 2011; Huber, Yeates, Meyer, Fleckhammer & Kaufman, 2018). Despite concerns that over-use of screen entertainment might impede cognitive skills development, there is plenty of evidence that television and interactive video experiences can bring considerable benefits to children, starting from early in life (Buckingham & Scanlon, 1993; Davies, 2001). Screen experiences can vary in their nature and their learning skills benefits likewise can vary. Thus, children’s guardians must consider the types

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of viewing experiences they direct children towards as well as control over the total amount of screen use. Hence, parents can play a major part in underscoring the learning potential of screen experiences by ensuring their children are directed towards the most beneficial types of content and also by restricting overall levels of screen consumption (Livingstone, 2002). There are two main ways of investigating whether screen technology. One is to look at correlational relationships between after-the-fact, “selfreported”, or “other-reported” exposure to specific screen technologies and other records of cognitive performance. The other way is to construct interventionist exercises (or experiments) in which children are shown video scenarios and then tested for specific types of knowledge gain. In these instances, the videos contain the factual information on which children are tested. Researchers might also vary the exposure conditions to see whether these also make a difference to how children perform.

Television viewing as early education The overall amount of television exposure of children during their infancy to early school years can affect their general cognitive development, with lasting consequences. As noted already, the types of content to which they are exposed can also make a big difference to the effects of their early screen consumption (Singer & Singer 1998). Children aged between two and four who watched lots of general television entertainment were found to exhibit poorer vocabulary development than those with lighter viewing habits. Yet, those children who watched shows such as Sesame Street on a regular basis could benefit cognitively from the experience. Such programmes presented content and used formats designed to engage children’s attention were able to impart specific verbal skills to them. This effect was especially likely to occur among children from more impoverished environments and social background (Wright, Huston, Scantlin & Kotler, 2001). While programmes with an explicit educational objective were found to be able to promote certain types of cognitive development, most especially on vocabulary, the scientific evidence has been less unambiguous about whether more complex abilities such as grammar and other literacy skills were enhanced through such viewing experiences (Rice, Huston, Truglio & Wright, 1990; Linebarger & Walker, 2005). The emergence of interactive video technology via laptops, tablets, smart phones, and smart television sets has enhanced potential screen-based experiences. Research has shown that engaging with interactive games can also promote the development of specific cognitive skills (Greenfield, de Winstanley, Kilpatrick & Kaye, 1994). One study found that after children had been allowed to play with Pokemon, they demonstrated a great deal more creativity in their writing assignments. It is possible therefore that specific screen experiences can be used to impart specific cognitive skills and

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other screen experiences can prime specific cognitive activities that enhance performance in different cognitive tasks (Bromley, 2004). The effectiveness of educational television and video materials is also mediated by particular production techniques and content attributes. The skills and knowledge a programme aims to impart are more likely to get through to children if they are repeated at key points in the production, if they are presented in a variety of ways, and if they are presented with other attention-grabbing features such as humour (Lemish, 2007). Research in Canada has shown that children aged two to five years who spent more time in front of technology screens exhibited poorer development across a range of measures. More time spent viewing or using screens was linked to poorer development a year or two later (Madigan, Browne & Racine, 2019). This study was not able to prove conclusively that amount of use, rather than nature of use, was the key factor here. An American study that followed a sample of children from lowerincome families over three years from the age of six months found that the greater the amount of media exposure very early in life, the slower the infants’ subsequent language and other cognitive development over the next two years of their lives. Interestingly, there were no dramatic differences in child development rates associated with exposure predominantly to education content rather than non-educational content (Tomopoulos, Drever, Berkule, Fierman, Brockmeyer & Mendelsohn, 2010).

Screen experience and cognitive development Turning to general cognitive-level impacts of screen technology, there are important questions we can ask about whether information and knowledge are readily imparted to children through screen devices and about whether the development of cognitive skills and apparatuses that underpin knowledge growth is affected either positively or negatively by screen-related experiences. Screen technologies demand the use of specific cognitive faculties, predominantly concerned with processing pictorial information and offers less practice of skills important to processing of language. Yet, it is not simply the effects of overall screen exposure that is critical, but also the nature of specific on-screen experiences. Some of these experiences can be informative and help to promote cognitive development, while others do not (Zosh, Verdine, Filipowicz, Golinkoff, Hirsch-Pasek & Newcombe, 2015).

Television and language development The effects of television on pre-school children can be both positive and negative and depends on the nature of use. For the under-2s, the impact of too much TV use can be delays in language and other cognitive skills development. Once children have started school, the effects of television are more

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mixed and depends on the pattern of viewing adopted and the kinds of content that children prefer to consume (Anderson & Subrahmanyam, 2017). A study of Taiwanese infants aged 15–35 months found differences between those children who watched a lot of TV and those that did not in their respective cognitive, language, and motor development. Development scores were lower on average among the children that watched the most television. The study provides indicative results but does not conclusively prove any causal links here (Glatter, 2014). Research with American children aged six to nine years showed that less television viewing was positively related to better maths and reading scores at school. However, the effects of amount of television viewing were attenuated in households with better educated parents and more books for children to read (Huang & Lee, 2010). Further evidence has shown that language development might be delayed by over-use of television (Chonchaiya  & Pruksananonda, 2008). Listening to or viewing sequences from television programmes can impart language skills to very young children, but interactions with other people work better, especially when the child is paying full attention to the person with whom they are interacting. In particular, direct face-to-face interaction can enhance object labelling abilities in children up the age of two years. Using television presentations to achieve the same objective does not work so well with those toddlers under two, but as they get older, this can change (Linebarger & Walker, 2005; Krcmar, Bernard & Lin, 2007). Parents have a part to play in this process and can facilitate language development in infants by watching television with their offspring and talking to them during viewing (Masur, Flynn & Olson, 2016). Ferguson and Donnellan (2014) measured media exposure and language development scores for 358 children aged 17–27 months with help from their caregivers. They found that viewing of Baby Einstein videos was associated with poorer language development. Further data were obtained about the children’s vocabulary and language skills. There were certain programmes such as Dora the Explorer, Blue’s Clues, and Dragon Tales, that were associated with the best language improvement by aged 30 months. In another investigation, watching the Teletubbies was associated with poorer language development. Watching Sesame Street produced some language improvement, but this was marginal (Linebarger & Walker, 2005). Further studies confirmed that educational videos and programmes designed for infants could promote basic language development (Robb, Reichert & Wartella, 2009; Reichert, Robb, Fender & Wartella, 2010; Vandewater, 2011).

Screen exposure and early vocabulary development Heavy early television exposure can cause delays in language development (Chonchaiya & Pruksananonda, 2008; American Academy of Pediatrics,

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Council on Communications and Media, 2016). Heavier screen exposure between the ages of two and four years can hold back language development up to the age of ten years (Pagani, Fitzpatrick, Barnett & Dubow, 2010). For every extra hour a day of viewing before the age of three, vocabulary development and number knowledge were poorer by school-age a couple of years or so later. Such children were also more likely to be picked on by other children in school (Pagani, Fitzpatrick & Barnett, 2013). Researchers investigated the performance of a baby video designed to teach infants new words. A DVD was placed in a sample of homes of 12- to 24-month-olds for six weeks and then the youngsters were brought into the laboratory for a vocabulary test. Some impact on language learning was observed, but the words learned were not necessarily the ones highlighted in the video (Reichert et al., 2010). Krcmar conducted two experiments with infants aged six to 24 months to find out if they learned better from live information than that shown in a video recording. Live presentation worked best both for word learning and for remembering the actions of specific actors. Word learning could be enhanced across modalities through repetition. Actions were better remembered when performed by people with whom they were familiar (Krcmar, 2010). Early screen exposures can quickly develop into a habit with young children unless parents intervene from the start to impose limits on them. Further research showed that television viewing when language is initially being bedded down can slow down children’s development in infancy and also that this can have longer-term effects if the viewing habit really takes hold (Duch, Fisher & Ensai, 2013; Duch, Fisher, Ensari & Harrington, 2013; Hamilton, Spinks, White, Kavanagh & Walsh, 2016; Madigan, Browne, Racine, Mori & Tough, 2019).

Attention distraction by screens Heavy early television exposure can cause delays in language development (Chonchaiya & Pruksananonda, 2008; American Academy of Pediatrics, Council on Communications and Media, 2016). There is evidence that a lot of early-in-life screen exposure can affect a youngster’s ability to focus their attention in the ways needed when using language to acquire information and communicate with others. The evidence has not all confirmed this link, however. It seems that the damaging effects of viewing on language development is most likely to occur following regular heavy doses of screen exposure (Zimmerman & Christakis, 2007). When screen consumption levels are high, however, they have been associated with poorer language acquisition among infants and poorer overall cognitive development, including delayed executive function abilities which control the processing of new and incoming information to the brain.

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One major reason for this outcome then is that a lot of early-in-life screen exposure can affect a youngster’s ability to focus their attention in the ways needed when using language to acquire information and communicate with others. Hence, regular heavy doses of screen exposure are not recommended especially where the use is purely recreational and undirected (Zimmerman & Christakis, 2007). Furthermore, if a child is engaged in directed study in which specific cognitive skills are being tested, having a television set playing in the background is likely to divide the child’s attention and impede learning (Courage  & Howe, 2010; Courage & Setliff, 2010; Lapierre, Piotrowski & Linebarger, 2012; Lillard et al., 2015). Even with children aged three or under, the presence of a television set playing in the background in the same room that the children are playing with their toys can cause distraction. Although the children do not completely abandon their toys, while the television is playing, they will keep looking back at it every minute or so for a short time (Schmidt, Pempek, Kirkorian, Lund & Anderson, 2008). The same researchers also found that background television can distract parents as well so that issue fewer utterances directed at their child. This reduces the quality of communication between parent and child during early and critical stages of language development (Pempek, Kirkorian & Anderson, 2013). The impact of television is not restricted to occasions when the child is actively watching. Even when not directly interacting with the television, there can be a negative impact on children’s cognitive development. For example, when a set is playing in the background it can distract children and their parents from communicating directly with each other, or pulls children’s attention away from other play activities with important developmental functions (Armstrong, Bioraskyn & Mares, 1991; Kirkorian, Pempek, Murphy, Schmidt & Anderson, 2009). When the set plays a lot in the background, while a youngster is doing other things that involve cognitive processing, it can represent a significant distraction (Courage & Howe, 2010; Courage & Setliff, 2010; Lapierre et al., 2012; Lillard et al., 2015). Research has shown that when the television is playing in the background, children speak less and talk with their parents to a lesser extent (Christakis, Gilkerson, Richards & Zimmerman, 2009). It is not just the sheer presence of television that can have specific effects on the behaviour of children and parents, by attracting their attention away from each other and the surrounding physical environment. It is also important to consider the types of content that children might watch on television and how that affects their subsequent conduct. Children’s ability to regulate their attention in non-viewing tasks can be influenced by their overall quantity of viewing and also by spending a lot of time watching specific kinds of programmes. One interesting finding in this regard was that when children watched educational programmes, they did not subsequently develop problems

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with being able to control (and maintain) their attention on specific tasks. When they watched entertainment material, however, whether of a violent or non-violent nature, there were subsequent attention problems that became established. When these viewing habits were already in place by the age of three, they were associated with attentional problems from the age of five, crucially just as children were starting school (Zimmerman & Christakis, 2007). Risks to cognitive development were observed to occur as a result of regular daily television exposure among children as young as 15–35 months. It seems that this period represents a critical period of development when the basic building blocks of more advance language development generally take place. Any disruption to this early development can have significant impact in later years by undermining the ability of children to maintain the cognitive focus some learning tasks require and by undermining the establishment of basic language skills (Lin, Cherng, Chen, Chen & Yang, 2015).

Controlling screen distraction Leading researchers in the field, such as Professor Dimitri Christakis of the University of Washington have warned against young children having too much television exposure. This does not mean that any television watching is potentially harmful. It is simply a call for optimising how much time young children spend glued to any screen technology. Christakis reviewed research evidence and noted that many parents that let their youngsters watch lots of television have been misled sometimes by manufacturers with claims that viewing could stimulate children’s brains. There is evidence that some programmes can impart educational messages. At the same time, excessive amounts of viewing exercise a relatively narrow range of cognitive skills and can create information processing styles that do not always make a good fit for all later learning scenarios. Spending a lot of time watching screen-based entertainment at the expense of devoting time to other pursuits such as reading can actually slow down certain kinds of cognitive development, especially language development. Television also triggers continued attention through constant changes in stimulation on screen. This can create a preference for such styles of information presentation whereby a child’s attention span becomes shortened and their ability to focus for extended period, such as when reading, is attenuated (Christakis, 2009). Research has established that the relationship between viewing and child development is complex. It can be mediated by other factors such as the nature of the child, family circumstances, parenting styles, and other social factors. It can also depend on the types of programmes a child normally views. Some educational programmes can promote cognitive development by encouraging a child to engage with language, solve problems, and learn about

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subjects that will benefit them at school. Television can be more problematic when it disrupts play behaviour and interferes with parent-child communication. It can then make children less attentive in ways that are needed for school learning, it can delay language learning, and slow down the development of higher cognitive functions (Schmidt, Rich, Rifas-Shiman, Oken & Taveras, 2009; Kostyrka-Allchorne, Cooper & Simpson, 2017).

Using television to promote cognitive development Despite evidence concerning the ways television can interfere with cognitive development, sometimes, screen technologies can have positive cognitive benefits for young children. This outcome depends on the nature of the content with which a child engages. Age-appropriate content can be used to enhance vocabulary and provide early signs about how to string words together (Courage & Howe, 2010; Radesky, Schumacher & Zuckerman, 2015). Parents have a part to play in this process as mediators of children’s viewing and also as sources of language learning. The growing difficulty for parents, as screen technologies diversify and become both more prevalent and portable, is that their children can increasingly view beyond the sight of their parents, making viewing behaviour more difficult to control (Radesky et al., 2015). There has been interest in the ability of video conversations such as Skype or other chat programs and other forms of more passive video exposure to impart vocabulary to very young children. In one investigation of this phenomenon, infants aged 24–30 months were introduced by researchers to completely new words. These words were unfamiliar to all the children because they were made up by the researchers. The children were taught four new verbs. One of these was “meeping” and was used by the researcher to describe a specific way of turning a toy. Thus, the researcher would take a toy and perform the action while saying “I am meeping this toy” (Roseberry, Hirsch-Pasek & Golinkoff, 2014). This was done under four conditions. There were two live conditions in which the researcher and child were physically together when new words were being introduced and two others in which the child saw the toy being moved and movement described by the researcher via a video link. In addition, in one face-to-face and one video condition the child could interact with the researcher while the toy was being moved and the new word introduced, while in the remaining two conditions there was no interaction between the researcher and the child. Instead, the child saw the researcher interact with another child. Afterwards the child watched one of two videos taken from the children’s education programme, Sesame Beginnings. In one of these programmes, a charter was shown playing with a toy and moving it in the same way as the researcher had done. In the other, the on-screen character played with the

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toy but did not perform the actions of the researcher. The children were asked while watching one of these programmes to identify where “meeping” had occurred. The children were much more likely to do this for the programme in which the “meeping”-related actions were shown. In addition, they were much more likely to identify this behaviour after being trained in an interactive rather than a passive viewing condition. One of the interesting tests that has emerged in the digital era that relates to children and reading is whether reading from a hard copy book has a different impact from reading via a screen. In one such investigation, researchers compared these reading conditions with pre-school children aged 24–52.5 months. Comprehension was found to be higher from a book than from an iPad. This was true of both parents and their children. Both made more detailed comments about the story they had read when they had used a paper book (Krcmar & Cingel, 2014). Belton (2001) studied children’s story-telling abilities and the sources they used to stimulate their imaginations. Among the hypothesized sources were television and videos. Yet, no clear evidence emerged that children transformed ideas gained from watching audio-visual material into their written story-telling. One possible reason for this outcome could be that the images seen on television are not regarded as relevant to the stories that children might wish to tell that are relevant to their own lives. If this is the case, it opens up the further possibility that dependence on television in childhood might distract children from pursuing their own creative lines of thought generated by their real-life experiences.

Mental health and screen use Screen use does provide a specific form of brain stimulation which can result in developmental effects on physical brain growth in early childhood. The cognitive impact of screen-related behaviour therefore might have impact that is not restricted to knowledge and skills acquisition that eventually underpin educational performance, but also extend to general mental health. Heavy exposure to screen entertainment has been linked to increased likelihood of hyperactivity. Parents might be able to offset such effects by interacting more with their children verbally while viewing is taking place (Hermawati, Rahmadi, Sumekar & Winami, 2018). As such, some researchers have taken a very physical approach to examining the impact of television viewing on children’s cognitive development by measuring differences in brain volumes of children with varying viewing histories. One such study in Japan took a sample of 133 boys and 143 girls and examined correlations between their television viewing and changes over time in the volume of their regional grey and white brain matter. Positive effects of television viewing on the frontopolar and medial prefrontal areas were found, as well as positive effects on the visual cortex. There were further

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positive relations between viewing and brain growth in hypothalamus and sensorimotor areas of the brain. There were negative relationships, however, between amount of television viewing and verbal intelligence scores over time (Takeuchi, Taki, Hashizume, Asano, Asano, Sassa, Yokota, Kotozaki, Nouchi & Kawashima, 2015). For children with mental disorders such as autism, there is growing interest in the impact of their use of screen technologies. Evidence has emerged that autistic youngsters enjoy watching television and movies and are especially drawn to animated films. Screen entertainment of this sort can trigger their attention and interest and can even lead to these young people imitating some of the things they see and hear on the screen (Shane & Albert, 2008). At the same time, young people on the autism spectrum might be more at risk of developing potentially dangerous side-effects than are other children when exposed to content they cannot understand or relate to (McLeod, Sidhu & Carenoglu, 2018). Sometimes screen content can implant dangerous thoughts in children’s minds that could be especially problematic for those with depressive or suicidal symptoms (Belfort & Miller, 2018).

Television and attention-deficit disorder Early viewing in infancy, between one and three years, has been linked to the development of attention-deficit problems at age seven. A study was produced by the Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Centre in Seattle. For each hour of television watched on average per day between the ages of one and three, there was a 10% increased likelihood of a child experiencing attentional problems by the age of seven (Christakis, Zimmerman, Di Giuseppe & McCarty, 2004). One American study produced some statistical evidence of a weak relationship between television exposure levels preschool and the presence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the first year of school this relationship did not persist across later school years. This relationship was tested and re-tested across two samples and found consistently to be weak even though technically statistically significant. There was some evidence that early exposure to electronic media (under two years of age) could have an impact on language development and on attention span. It was also linked to hyperactivity (Stevens & Muslow, 2006). Progressive cognitive development deficits of heavier use of screen technology with pre-schoolers and school-age children was confirmed in further similar research (Landhuis, Poulton, Welch & Hancox, 2007; Madigan et al., 2019). Further evidence has emerged specifically that television viewing in early life can impede the development of “theory of mind”, that is, the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and to others. Such a condition tends to characterise people with autism disorders and ADHD (Bergland, 2013). One study on this subject found that children’s theory of mind scores were

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poorer among those that reportedly watched greater amounts of television. Yet, this relationship was attenuated among children whose parents talked to them about not watching too much television (Nathanson, Sharp, Alade, Rasmussen & Christy, 2013). Parental reports of children’s television viewing emerged as a significant predictor of teachers’ ratings of their inattentiveness and hyperactivity at school, even after variances in their behaviour that might have been accounted for by a range of demographic and other background variables had been statistically controlled. The same measurement of children’s television viewing also predicted the objective measure of children’s activity levels (Miller, Marks, Miller, Berwid, Kera, Santra & Halperin, 2007).

Conclusions Television and other recreational screen exposure can have positive and negative effects on pre-school children. This is an issue about which many parents have expressed their concern, nonetheless (Canadian Paediatric Society, Digital Task Force, 2017). There were initial presumptions among many in the field that over-use of interactive screen technology could have similar outcomes to those observed for excessive television viewing. As children spent more time with television and other recreational screen technologies, they might devote less time and effort to interactions with parents and reading from an early age. Such distractions for early real-world learning experiences would result in some cognitive skills, especially those linked to language development, being undermined and delayed (Vandewater, Bickham & Lee, 2006; Linebarger & Vaala, 2010; Council on Communications and Media, 2011; Lovato & Waxman, 2016). In following the earlier research into the effects of television on youngsters, studies of interactive screen technologies need to be mindful that television was found to have potential positive and negative effects on children at cognitive and behavioural levels of development (Lillard & Peterson, 2011; Christakis, Garrison, Herrenkohl, Haggerty, Rivara, Zhou  & Liekweg, 2013). Certainly, in the context of antisocial (or violent) and prosocial content, these different effects have been found to follow children’s playing with different types of video game (Gunter, 2016). The availability of multiple different media technologies to young people has also created another new media consumption phenomenon – “media multi-tasking”. It has become the norm for children to use more than one screen technology at the same time. Typically, this will take the form of using the screen on their mobile phone or a tablet computer while also watching television via a traditional set. This behaviour requires the young media user to switch attention and information processing capacity quickly from one screen to the other. The cognitive impact implications of such behaviour have been explored but are not yet fully understood.

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There is an understandable concern about this behaviour and its effects among children and young adults whose brains are still developing. Some evidence has begun to emerge that regular media multi-tasking is not beneficial for some cognitive skills. It can result in poorer memory performance and increased impulsivity, and these psychological responses are underpinned by physiological changes in parts of the brain that arise out of using more than one technology at the same time. Not all research on media multi-tasking has confirmed negative psychological effects. Indeed, there is ample evidence from among teenagers that they are accustomed to working on complex cognitive tasks, such as school homework, while having the television playing in the background or while listening to the radio or to recorded music (Van der Schuur, Baumgartner, Sumter & Valkenburg, 2015). Infants have been found to gain experience with touchscreen devices from very early in their lives. Up to the age of 18 months, two-thirds may not have had any such experience, but once they get through two years of age, a majority have had this experience (Crista & Seidi, 2015). Researchers found that infants liked playing with special baby apps or looking at photos, at least according to their parents. Some also liked engaging with puzzles, but this behaviour was not so prevalent as other apps among the youngest users (Crista & Seidi, 2015). Yet, if a single screen technology such as TV can create distraction that delays cognitive development, the effects of multiple screen technologies in a young child’s early life could potentially have even greater developmental impact.

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Cognitive development 73 Singer, J., & Singer, D. (1998) Barney & Friends as entertainment and education: Evaluating the quality and effectiveness of television series for preschool children. In J. A. Asamen & G. L. Berry (Eds.). Research, Paradigms, Television and Social Behavior, pp. 305–367. London, UK: Sage. Stevens, T., & Muslow, M. (2006) There is no meaningful relationship between television exposure and symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Pediatrics, 117(3), 665–672. Takeuchi, H., Taki, Y., Hashizume, H., Asano, K., Asano, M., Sassa, T. Y., Yokota,  S., Kotozaki, Y., Nouchi, R., & Kawashima, R. (2015) The impact of television viewing on brain structures: Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. Cerebral Cortex, 25, 1188–1197. Taylor, G., Monaghan, P., & Westermann, G. (2018) Investigating the association between children’s screen media exposure and vocabulary size in the UK. Journal of Children and Media, 12(1), 51. Thakkar, R. R., Garrison, M. M., & Christakis, D. A. (2006) A systematic review for the effects of television viewing by infants and pre-schoolers. Pediatrics, 118(5), 2025–2031. Tomopoulos, S., Dreyer, B. P., Berkule, S., Fierman, A. H., Brockmeyer, C., & Mendelsohn, A. L. (2010) Infant media exposure and toddler development. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 164(12), 1105–1111. Van der Schuur, W. A., Baumgartner, S. E., Sumter, S. R., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2015) The consequences of media multitasking for youth: A review. Computers in Human Behavior, 53, 204–215. Vandewater, E. A. (2011) Infant word learning from commercially available video in the US. Journal of Children and Media, 5, 248–266. Vandewater, E. A., Bickham, D. S., & Lee, J. H. (2006) Time well spent? Relating television to children’s free-time activities. Pediatrics, 117(2), e181–e191. Wright, J. C., Huston, A. C., Scantlin, R., & Kotler, J. (2001). The early window project: “Sesame Street” prepares children for school. In S. M. Fisch & R. T. Truglio (Eds.). “G” is for Growing: Thirty Years of Research on Children and Sesame Street, pp. 97–114. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Zimmerman, F. J., & Christakis, D. A. (2007) Association between content types of early media exposure and subsequent attentional problems. Pediatrics, 120(5), 986–992. Zosh, J. M., Verdine, B. N., Filipowicz, A., Golinkoff, R. M., Hirsch-Pasek, K., & Newcombe, N. S. (2015) Talking shape: Parental language with electronic versus traditional shape sorters. Mind Brain Education, 9, 136–144.

Chapter 5

Screen experiences, sex roles, sexualisation, and sex

Moving beyond the potential influences of screen technologies and their contents on children’s cognitive development, further interest has centred on social learning. This type of learning is underpinned by cognitive skills but goes beyond the development of specific information-processing abilities. It consists of learning of social and cultural conventions, norms, rules, scripts, and values. It involves learning to make distinctions between different population sub-groups and societal institutions and structures. It also consists of children learning their own place in their social and cultural surroundings that is manifest in terms of their ability to articulate their own identity. Social learning has been investigated in relation to the way children behave towards others. This includes, as later chapters will show, learning how to behave in socially constructive and destructive ways towards others. One critical area of development, however, concerns learning about their biological sex, culturally identified and self-identified sex-roles and sexual behaviour. Social learning can derive both from direct instruction and from a child simply observing the behaviours of others in their everyday environment. Initially, the key role models in the child’s life will be their parents, older siblings, and other relatives with whom they have regular contact. As they grow older, school teachers, peers, and friends will also become sources of potential aspiration or influence. In addition, children’s mass media experiences might provide further rich sources of social learning. Television has been identified by social scientists over many years as an important social learning source because it displays plentiful role models in a wide range of different social settings. These role models can become especially powerful sources of behavioural influence where they are highly regarded and attractive to children (Yue & Cheung, 2000). Television is more than just a platform on which individuals can become famous and from which they gain celebrity capital which makes them seem much more than “ordinary people”. It depicts thousands of potential role models as well as many thousands more representations of people from different social backgrounds and different social groups. As such it becomes a valuable information source about social groups in terms of how they normally

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behave and the characteristics they normally display. Except that television does not usually depict “normality”, but instead presents its own version of it. Researchers that have devoted considerable time and effort to monitoring television outputs around the world have consistently reported that the “world of television” differs from the “real world” in terms of the way different social groups are depicted. As such, television was thought to distort everyday reality by emphasising specific features of it and downplaying others. It was found to show some social groups as powerful and others as weak. Consequently, screen entertainment has been identified as a source of social influence that can produce distorted beliefs about social groups and institutions in terms of their character, their behaviour, and their position and status in society. Very often, these depictions failed to reflect the nature of these groups in everyday reality. Screen presentations become sources of social stereotyping that can enhance the status of some social groups and diminish the status of others (Morgan, 1982; Gunter, 2014). Much of the research attention has focussed on gender issues and the ways that men and women are depicted. Another prominent theme of enquiry has been screen representations of ethnicity. There has been further attention paid to portrayals of different age groups, different sexual orientation groups, and other vulnerable communities within society (such as those with mental or physical disabilities) (Wober & Gunter, 1988). This chapter will not be able to do justice to all these different areas of screen technology and social roles research. Instead, the aim here is provide an outline of the key issues that have been investigated. Referrals will be made to other more detailed and authoritative references sources throughout. Newer screen technologies have also been found to display similar potentially socially conditioning features. While social role portrayals across screen technologies, old and new, have evolved over the years, social stereotyping is still prevalent. In fact, the new forms of screen technology have been found to show content that sometimes displays even more pronounced or extreme social role portrayals than television. Across media generally, some researchers have claimed that gender stereotyping is especially pronounced and might encourage young people to develop distorted perceptions of men and women. Men are often shown as hyper-masculine and women as ultra-feminine and sexual. Such depictions can produce exaggerated expectations about appropriate roles to adopt in reality. Failure on the part of young people to be able to live up to these “ideals” can be psychologically damaging (Dill & Thill, 2007).

Screen technology, sexism, and sexualisation Children generally have some initial ideas about their own sex between the ages of two and three years (Fauls & Smith, 1956). Sex-role identification is defined by an understanding of physical attributes and also sets of beliefs

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about how we are expected to behave and present ourselves to the world. Boys and girls learn, early in life, to behave differently in different settings and these lessons derive from a mixture of real-life and screen role models. As children approach adulthood, these distinctions take on a more sexual tone (Gunter, 2014). Social learning, in general, represents a process termed “socialisation”, and once this process takes on a more sexual tinge, its developmental aspect is represented by the term “sexualisation” (Olfman, 2009). Societies and cultures develop sets of expectations about men and women. While the same expectations concerning how people should behave apply to everyone, there are others that are gender-specific. These gender-differentiated traits and roles are learned by children early in their lives. Within social learning theory, initial attention to focussed on learning from overt behaviours, but subsequently theorists turned their attention to the significance of internalised cognitive rules about behaviour (Bussey & Bandura, 1999). Much earlier, research in the United States in the early 1970s had already found that children aged as young as three to six years displayed strongly stereotyped beliefs about the kind of person you could expect to become as a boy or as a girl. Pictures were used to helped these children make their choices. These pictures might show stereotyped scenarios such as woman doing housework or men working as police officers. Other pictures showed counter-stereotyped images such as a man long after the children or a woman in a job usually occupied by men. Over seven in ten boys and girls chose stereotypical careers for themselves and again choice a stereotypical option when asked to imagine what they could become if they were a member of the opposite sex (Beuf, 1974). As well as learning from the people closest to them, in societies saturated with mass media, there are many mediated sources of learning. Television provides many portrayals of men and women in many different contexts and settings. Formal studies of the way each gender has been portrayed in drama and entertainment settings on television have repeatedly revealed systematically different patterns of representation. Men and women were allocated consistently and repeatedly to different types of roles in television drama or in motion pictures. Men tended to command more significant roles than did women (Dorr & Lesser, 1980). Such hypotheses were investigated more directly in survey research and laboratory experiments and evidence started to emerged that children’s gender-role beliefs might indeed be sensitive to media portrayals (Gunter, 1986). For instance, surveys showed significant degrees of association between self-reported or parentally reported viewing by children and their sex-role beliefs and perceptions. Children who reportedly watched greater amounts of mainstream television also displayed sex-role beliefs deemed to be stereotyped. Research has shown that these kinds of links between reported media exposure and gender-role stereotyping in children occur through childhood (Frueh & McGhee, 1975; McGhee & Frueh, 1980).

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Michael Morgan and his colleagues conducted studies throughout the 1980s on this subject. Their initial work indicated that television could “cultivate” sex-stereotyped beliefs about men and women among children and these could have a longer-term developmental impact on some children. Initially, this research indicated that girls appeared to be more seriously affected in their beliefs than were boys (Morgan, 1982). Heavier viewing led to stronger stereotyping being measured among the same girls followed through over time across a two-year period of data collection. A closer inspection of Morgan’s results, however, indicated that they were more complex than at first appeared. He divided his sample into three different groups classified by their IQ. High, medium and loo IQ-scoring girls and boys exhibited different kinds of relationships between their gender-role beliefs and their reported watching of television. The strongest links between reported viewing and holding sexist beliefs occurred for high-IQ girls and medium-IQ boys. An explanation for the girls’ result was that the most intelligent girls were the least likely to be sexist to begin with and therefore had the greatest potential to have their beliefs shifted in a more sexist direction. The result for the boys, however, was not so clearly explained. Indeed, the overall correlations, while technically of statistical significance, were quite modest leaving as an open question as to whether some kind of viewingsexism causality had actually been demonstrated. A later study examined the potential stereotyping influence of television alongside peer group relationships. It was hypothesised that teenagers with the fewest friends (and greatest social isolation) might also be the most susceptible to television’s gender-role stereotyping influences. The findings supported this hypothesis. However, the data also showed that television viewing was related to sexism regardless of the richness of teenagers’ peer group networks (Morgan & Rothschild, 1983). In a further extension of this work, another study indicated that messages about gender roles delivered through television could act alongside and further reinforce gender-role stereotyping in young people that may have been cultivated through real-world influences (Morgan, 1987). One important study in Canada in the 1970s, took advantage of a setting in which television was introduced into children’s lives for the first time to measure its social learning influences. Children were studied in three similarly sized communities. At the outset of the study, one of these communities had no television reception (Notel) while one of the others had one television channel available (Unitel) and the third had three channels (Multitel). By the end of the study two years later, Notel had had television reception introduced and in Unitel, television reception had expanded to more  channels. Researchers were able to take baseline measures from children in these communities at the outset and then again after two years. Children were found to shift their personal views about the gender appropriateness of specific behaviours over time, when they had experienced

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television for the first time. Their views came to reflect the more stereotyped depictions found on the screen. These belief changes were no observed among children that already had television at home when first interviewed (Williams, 1986). TV gender portrayals can counter the usual social stereotypes and might then arrest the cultivation of stereotyped beliefs and attitudes. Evidence of this effect emerged from a British study that examined how children responded to two television detective dramas in which (unusually at the time) the officers in command were women. In one instance, the female character was shown to keep herself physically fit and in a scene in which she and a male colleague had to chase down a crook, she outlasted her colleague and showed herself to be physically stronger. Pre-test and post-test questioning indicated that the children who watched these two dramas developed more positive beliefs about the competence and authority of women police officers. Children’s perceptions of police women displayed marked improvement following exposure to these two televised examples (Clifford, Gunter & McAleer, 1995). Interventions have been developed in which challenges against genderstereotypes are raised and introduced to children for closer analysis. Specially developed educational television programmes have been produced as part of this instruction. Principal among the fresh ideas being considered were those concerning the career aspirations of children. The aim here was to get both genders to be more accepting of girls entering jobs, such as engineering and sports such as football. Examples of women driving lorries and men working as nurses were created and discussed. This type of multifaceted programme produced positive results among children aged nine to 12 years (Johnston & Ettema, 1982). Further research from the UK used television narratives in which counterstereotyped scenarios were acted out on screen. In one such narrative, a normal family was depicted in which the father was made redundant and the mother had to get a job and become the main breadwinner. The father meanwhile had to help out with domestic chores around the house more than before. After exposure to a narrative of this sort, pre-teenage children were found to change their views about appropriate behaviours for men and women towards a non-sexist mindset (Durkin, 1983). Sexism in television programmes and movies has been found to be present in interactive screen productions such as video games. The characters in popular games frequently display conformity to norms of masculinity and the relationships between males and females in these games confirms social dominance orientation whereby masculine characters dominate the action and outcomes. Among adult players, greater involvement in these games was found to be associated with holding stronger sexist beliefs about women (Fox & Tang, 2014). Playing sex-typed video games and especially ones that depict sexual harassment or other violence towards women can have short-term effects on

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judgements about harassing women. Male players could become more tolerant towards this type of behaviour. Over the longer term further exposures might result in such beliefs becoming more consolidated and even developing into more extreme rape myth beliefs (Dill, Brown & Collins, 2008).

Screen use and sexualisation Screen technologies have long represented a source of sexual knowledge, and attitudinal and behavioural influence among children. Sexual relations have frequently been depicted or referred to between principal characters on mainstream television programmes over many decades (Gruber & Grube, 2000). These portrayals have become more explicit over time. Sexual relations have been noted to occur more often between unmarried partners than spouses (Greenberg, Stanley, Siemicki, et al., 1993). Television was often nominated by children as their most important source of information about sex (Brown, Greenberg & Buerkel-Rothfuss, 1993; Kaiser Family Foundation/Children Now, 1999). This last observation is not surprising given evidence that sexual behaviour portrayals on television and via other screen media are highly prevalent (Louis Harris & Associates, 1988; Lowry & Towles, 1989; Committee on Communications, American Academy of Pediatrics, 1995). Evidence emerged from the United States, that adolescent girls were exposed to more programming with sexual content than were same-age boys (Greenberg & Linsangan, 1993). Teenage boys were more often drawn to watch more explicit sexual content in X-rated movies and pornography (Buerkel-Rothfuss, Strouse, Pettey & Shatzer, 1993). Research with young adults has shown that video games can influence gender stereotyping in players. These games have been found to depict sexualised female characters. Interacting with such characters can affect the self-concept development of young adult women. This influence has been explained in terms of Bussey and Bandura’s (1999) social cognitive theory of gender development. When American college students were assigned to different video playing conditions in which they interacted with a “sexualised” female heroine or a “non-sexualised” female heroine, or no video game at all, differences were subsequently found between these three groups in their beliefs about women in the real world. Engaging with a female character who displayed strength, independence and fortitude led young women players to voice more positive sentiments of empowerment about women in reality (Behm-Morawitz & Mastro, 2009). Fox and Bailenson conducted an experiment with American college undergraduates (men and women) who were shown conservatively dressed or scantily clad virtual females in a fully immersive virtual environment. These characters exhibited either responsive, high gaze reactions to the human players or nonresponsive, low gaze reactions. Participants exposed to the

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highly stereotyped scantily clad virtual female (“vamp”) subsequently displayed more sexism and rape-myth acceptance than did those exposed to the conservatively dressed virtual character (“virgin”) (Fox & Bailenson, 2009).

Effects of consuming screen porn Researchers have found that consuming pornography can have negative cognitive effects and, in particular, that it can cause some deterioration in short-term memory task performance. Some people were found to report difficulties sleeping and also that they forgot appointments after engaging with porn material online. In one study, 28 heterosexual men with an average age of 26, were shown various images, some of which were pornographic. During the experiment, the participants touched a “yes” or “no” key to indicate whether the slide they were currently seeing was the same as one they saw four slides earlier. This was termed the “4-back working memory task”. The researchers discovered that the men performed significantly worse with the pornographic images than with non-sexual images. It was concluded that exposure to explicit sexual imagery can interfere with working memory processes. In particular, sexual arousal during the processing of new information could interfere with working memory processes (Baklinski, 2012; Laier, Schulte & Brand, 2013). The primary visual cortex is a basic survival mechanism in human beings. When people watch movies or other images, this part of the brain becomes activated regardless of the nature of the content. When individuals perform demanding non-visual tasks, however, the primary visual cortex becomes deactivated. Hynh and colleagues wanted to find out how this part of the brain responded when people watch erotic sexual material. Research was carried out with 12 pre-menopausal heterosexual women aged between 18 and 47. These women were monitored while they watched low-intensity and high-intensity sexual film segments and non-sexual film material. Watching high-intensity sexual content resulted in deactivation of the primary visual cortex and surrounding areas of the brain compared with watching low-intensity sexual content and non-sexual content. In the context of highly sexual material where it is clear to the viewer what she is watching, there may have been some removal of blood supply to that part of the brain to other areas that control sexual arousal (Hynh, Beers, Willemsen, Lont, Laan, Dierckx, Jansen, Sand, Weijmar & Holstege, 2012). Andrew Pryzbylski and Victoria Nash investigated the exposure of adolescents in the UK and across Europe to pornographic content on the Internet and the efficacy of content screening mechanisms and procedures deployed by parents and carers. Although many caregivers claimed to use filtering tools, it became clear that this behaviour was frequently ineffective and did not prevent young people from accessing or being exposed to sexually explicit content online (Pryzbylski & Nash, 2018).

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Screen sex and evolving sexual behaviour The expansion of screen technologies and sources of visual entertainment outputs has meant that youngsters have been exposed to more mediated sexual content. Sexual depictions have been a part of mainstream media outputs for decades. Mainstream sex has become more prevalent and more explicit over time. Yet, the regulated mainstream media have, nonetheless, been restricted in how far they have been permitted to push the boundaries of public taste. The Internet, however, has been largely unregulated and has therefore become a channel through which highly explicit sexual content has become readily accessible to children who know their way around the virtual world. The interpersonal dimension of the online world has also meant that it has created a safe space in which children can talk to each other about sex. They can even go so far as to share home-made sexualised images of themselves with others. Researchers have investigated links between exposure to sexual content on mainstream media such as television and magazines and adolescents’ sex-related attitudes and behaviours and also more specifically between their exposure to more explicit sexual material found in online pornography. American studies have revealed that greater reported exposure to television shows with sexual content among youngsters has been linked with earlier onset of their own sexual behaviour and teenage pregnancy (Martino, Collins, Kanouse, Elliott & Berry, 2005; Brown, L’Engle, Pardun, Guo, Kenneavy & Jackson, 2006; Chandra, Martino, Collins, Elliott, Berry, Kanouse & Miu, 2008; Steinberg & Monahan, 2010). Other researchers struggled to find any such significant relationships (Collins, Martino, Elliott & Miu, 2011). There has also been emergent evidence of a circularity in the relationship between teenage sexual activity and exposure to sexual media content. It is not just the case that sexual depictions on screen might trigger sexual behaviour in the youth audience but also that those adolescents that are most sexually active have a stronger tendency to seek out sexual content to watch. This evidence emerged from a five-year longitudinal study of adolescents aged 14–16 years at the time of recruitment. Those youngsters that were more sexually active at the first time of data collection were also more likely to exhibit greater exposure levels to sexual content in screen and print media. Greater exposure to media sex at time one was in turn related to greater sexual activity at time two (Bleakley, Hennessy, Fishbein & Jordan, 2008). The growth in popularity of reality television shows in the 21st century has created a new genre of influence over desired social roles. Many of these shows hold strong appeal for children and can be especially popular with adolescents who are exploring different potential “adult” roles as they leave childhood behind. One programme category that has achieved prominence in the United States (with followings in other parts of the world) are the

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so-called “teen mom” reality shows such as 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom. As their titles suggest they centre on the lives of real teenagers who have got pregnant or had children. Research with American high school students aged 16–17 years found that heavier viewers of these shows believed that, rather than struggling with their circumstances as is usually the case in reality, teen mothers could actually have an enviable quality of life with a good income and fathers that remained involved and supportive. The more they watched these shows, the more realistic they were perceived to be (Martins & Jensen, 2014). Evidence has also emerged that adolescents’ online experiences of sexualised self-presentations of others on social media sites were related to their level of sexual experience within the next six months (among Dutch 13–17s). Moreover, those at the younger end of this group who had had some initial sexual experience (e.g. touching genitals) had greater later exposure to online sexual content. This evidence indicates that youngsters might seek out information and guidance about sex through these sources as well as being encouraged to become sexually active in specific ways following such exposure (van Oosten, Peter & Boot, 2014). Screen experiences have long been linked to the sexualisation of children. This means that what children witness on screens, in various kinds of entertainment, can draw their attention to, trigger their curiosity about, and provide behavioural examples of sexual behaviour. These experiences can also condition attitudes towards sex and towards the sexes. The opening up of screen media experiences during the Internet age has also meant that children can be exposed to material of a sexual nature that had previously been restricted to adult use. Interest in child sexualisation stems from concerns about premature exposure of children to sexual imagery and also from wider social conditioning effects that could arise from such exposure, if it becomes a regular occurrence, that then become manifest of attitudes which become prevalent about girls and women. The sexual objectification of women is a linked phenomenon that has raised particular concerns in this context. Accusers have claimed that the major mass media display regular patterns of treatment of females that focus on their physical attributes and sexual nature. Frequent exposure to this type of content can cultivate distorted attitudes about girls and women among both boys and men and among girls and women themselves. Extreme portrayals of sex in the media in pornography can further condition mindsets about women and sex among men that can undermine healthy sexual relationships and create unrealistic views about what such relationships should be like. Most seriously of all, there are concerns that extreme sexual depictions in which women are not only objectified (i.e. treated as objects rather than as human beings) but also shown as receiving enjoyment from sex that is forced upon them (Gunter, 2014).

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Even in mainstream media content that is targeted at teenagers, the prominent of sexual themes can draws youngsters’ attention to sex and might encourage risky sexual activity (American Psychological Association, 2007). Depictions of healthy romantic relationships could be harmless and indeed might be presented in ways that demonstrate socially positive and healthy interpersonal relationships. Portrayals of youth sexual activity that display sexual promiscuity, in contrast, might encourage susceptible youngsters in a screen audience to take risks that result of unwanted outcomes such as teen pregnancy or the transmission of certain diseases (Peter  & Valkenburg, 2008a). Regular exposure to explicit sexual Internet material has also been linked to sexual uncertainty among teenagers. Research with youngsters aged 13–20 years found that they found pornography to be arousing. This reaction was true more of boys than girls. This does not mean that girls were not aroused by watching porn, but they also had an accompanying reaction of shame. Boys enjoyed the pleasure of porn without the guilt. Sex in pornography frequently lacks any genuine intimacy and that was an important ingredient for girls (Peter & Valkenburg, 2008b). A three-wave panel study of Dutch youngsters aged 12–20 years found that exposure to online porn was related to reduced sexual satisfaction among male and female adolescents (Peter & Valkenburg, 2009). The use of online porn by adolescents was found to correlate with insecurity about sex. Heavier use of sexually explicit material online was related to lower sexual satisfaction among adolescents and young adults. This response was equally true of boys and girls (Peter & Valkenburg, 2010a). Dutch researchers also found that the more frequent exposure to explicit sexually material on the Internet was positively correlated with greater perceived realism of those pornographic depictions of sex among adolescents and was linked also to a greater likelihood of regarding sex as a relatively superficial instrumental experience for personal pleasure rather than as being central to an affectionate and committed relationship (Peter & Valkenburg, 2010b). Comparisons for adolescent and adult samples found that over time, adults watched more online porn than did adolescents, but that responses to it were often quite similar. Males watched more online porn than did females. People, regardless of age, with sensation-seeking tendencies and whose sexual orientation was not exclusively heterosexual were drawn to explicit sexual material on the Internet more than others. Another interesting finding was that those drawn most strongly to online porn also generally exhibited poorer general life satisfaction scores than others (Peter & Valkenburg, 2011). Dutch research examined links between adolescents’ exposure to sexually explicit material on the Internet and their own sexual confidence. Significant findings emerged only among girls where more frequent exposure to

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online porn was linked to greater sexual uncertainty especially among girls with a low hyper-gendered orientation or a relatively high impersonal sex orientation. Thus, girls with a strongly feminine role orientation towards sex and who regarded sex as something pursued for pleasure without emotional involvement related best to online pornographic depictions of sex (van Oosten, 2016). Koletic (2017) reviewed the research literature covering 20 publications and found that there was evidence that adolescents’ exposure to sexually explicit material online was statistically related to their sexual attitudes and behaviours, sexual norms and values, and self-esteem and life satisfaction. Studying adolescents over time enabled these links to be uncovered and revealed that there are developmental implications of youth exposure to online pornography. Although surveys cannot demonstrate causality with certainty, which would require experiments that might not receive ethical approval, less interventionist approaches such as longitudinal panel surveys represent an acceptable alternative able to provide some insights into the effects of pornography on young people (Koletic, 2017).

Concluding remarks Children’s use of television and their audio-visual experiences via other screen technologies can convey messages to them that can influence their self-perceptions and close interpersonal relations with others. Both attitudes and behaviour can be influenced, sometimes in positive ways and sometimes in negative ways. Over time, relevant television depictions have evolved and been joined by a more extensive catalogue of potentially influential mediated depictions of the sexes and related social-identity conceptions and related behaviour. These mediated influences can begin to influence children from the earliest years of their lives if youngsters have regular screen exposure from infancy. Screen experiences can present distorted role models that restrict the aspirations of girls and boys. Equally, they can open up a world in which behavioural examples inspire children to internalise ambitious hopes for themselves in the future. These mediated influences do not operate in a social vacuum, but they can be influential when they feature attractive role models whom children respect and would like to emulate. The massive growth of mediated content, and especially that brought into children’s lives by Internet sources, have created new opportunities for and risks to the socialisation of children that present challenges for parents and media regulators. Extreme sexual content can create unrealistic ideas about satisfying intimate relationships and about the types of behaviour that are likely to be labelled as socially acceptable. The impressions that boys develop about girls and that girls develop about boys, as well as their selfperceptions, are critical factors that influence the ways they behave towards

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each other at different stages in their development, and especially as they approach adulthood. It is important therefore that research provides a comprehensive and up-to-date understanding of how these aspects of child development are impacted by children’s screen media experiences.

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86 Sexualisation, and sex Dill, K. E., & Thill, K. P. (2007) Video game characters and the socialization of gender roles: People’s perceptions mirror sexist media depictions. Sex Roles, 57, 851–864. Dorr, A., & Lesser, G. S. (Eds.) (1980) Women, Communication and Careers. Munich, Germany: K. G. Saur. Durkin, K. (1983) Sex roles and children’s television. A report to the Independent Broadcasting Authority, University of Kent, Canterbury, Social Psychology Unit. Fauls, L. B., & Smith, W. D. (1956) Sex-role learning in 5-year-olds. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 89, 195–217. Ford, T. E. (1997) Effects of stereotypical television portrayals of African-Americans on person perception. Social Psychology Quarterly, 60(3), 266–275. Fox, J., & Bailenson, J. N. (2009) Virtual virgins and vamps: The effects of exposure to female characters’ sexualized appearance and gaze in an immersive virtual environment. Sex Roles, 61(3–4), 147–157. Fox, J., & Tang, W. Y. (2014) Sexism in online video games: The role of conformity to masculine norms and social dominance orientation. Computers in Human Behavior, 33, 314–320. Frueh, T., & McGhee, P. A. (1975) Traditional sex-role development and amount of time spent watching television. Developmental Psychology, 11, 109. Graves, S. B. (1975) Racial diversity in children’s television: TV impact on racial attitudes and stated programme preferences. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Greenberg, B. S., & Linsangan, R. (1993) Gender differences in adolescents’ media use, exposure to sexual content and parental mediation. In B. S. Greenberg, J. D. Brown & N. L. Buerkel-Rothfus (Eds.). Media, Sex and the Adolescent, pp. 134–194. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Greenberg, B. S., Stanley, C., Siemicki, M., Heeter, C., Soderman, A., & Linsangan, R. (1993) Sex content on soaps and prme-time television series most viewed by adolescents. In B. S. Greenberg, J. D. Brown & N. L. Buerkel-Rothfuss (Eds.). Media, Sex and the Adolescent, pp. 29–44. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Gruber, E., & Grube, J. W. (2000) Adolescent sexuality and the media: A review of current knowledge and implications. Western Journal of Medicine, 172(3), 210–214. Gunter, B. (1986) Television and Sex-Role Stereotyping. London, UK: John Libbey. Gunter, B. (2014) Media and the Sexualization of Childhood. London, UK: Routledge. Hynh, H. K., Beers, C., Willemsen, A., Lont, E., Laan, E., Dierckx, R., Jansen, M., Sand, M., Weijmar, W., & Holstege, G. (2012) High-intensity erotic visual stimuli deactivate the primary visual cortex in women. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 9(6), 1579–1587. Kaiser Family Foundation/Children Now. (1999) Talking with Kids About Tough Issues: A National Survey of Parents and Kids. Menlo Park, CA: Kaiser Family Foundation. Koletic, G. (2017) Longitudinal associations between the use of sexually explicit material and adolescents’ attitudes and behaviors: A narrative review of studies. Journal of Adolescence, 57, 119–133. Laier, C., Schulte, F. P., & Brand, M. (2013) Pornographic picture processing interferes with working memory performance. Journal of Sex Research, 50, 642–652.

Sexualisation, and sex 87 Louis Harris & Associates, Inc. (1988) Sexual Material on American Network Television During the 1987–1988 Season. New York, NY: Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Lowry, D. T., & Towles, D. E. (1989) Prime time TV portrayals of sex, contraception, and venereal diseases. Journalism Quarterly, 66, 347–352. Martino, S. C., Collins, R. L., Kanouse, D. E., Elliott, M., & Berry, S. H. (2005) Social cognitive processes mediating the relationship between exposure to sex on television and adolescents’ sexual behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 914–924. Martins, N., & Jensen, R. E. (2014) The relationship between “Teen Mom” reality programming and teenagers’ beliefs about teen parenthood. Mass Communication and Society, 17(6), 830–852. McGhee, P. E., & Frueh, T. (1980) Television viewing and the learning of sex-role stereotypes. Sex Roles, 2, 179–188. Morgan, M. (1982) Television and adolescents’ sex-role stereotypes: A longitudinal study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 947–955. Morgan, M. (1987) Television, sex-role attitudes and sex-role behavior. Journal of Early Adolescence, 7(3), 269–282. Morgan, M., & Rothschild, N. (1983) Impact of the new television technology: Cable TV, peers and sex-role cultivation in the electronic environment. Youth and Society, 15(1), 33–50. Neely, J. J., Heckel, R. V., & Leichtman, H. M. (1973) The effect of race of model on imitation in children. Journal of Social Psychology, 89, 225–231. Olfman, S. (2009) The sexualisation of childhood: Growing older younger/growing younger older. In S. Olfman (Ed.). The Sexualization of Childhood. Westport, CT: Praeger. Peter, J., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2008a) Adolescents’ exposure to sexually explicit internet material and sexual preoccupancy: A three-wave panel study. Media Psychology, 11(2), 207–234. Peter, J., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2008b) Adolescents’ exposure to sexually explicit material, sexual uncertainty, and attitudes toward uncommitted sexual exploration: Is there a link? Communication Research, 35(5), 579–601. Peter, J., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2009) Adolescents’ exposure to sexually explicit internet material and sexual satisfaction: A longitudinal study. Human Communication Research, 35, 171–194. Peter, J., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2010a) Adolescents’ use of sexually explicit internet material and sexual uncertainty: The role of involvement and gender. Communication Monographs, 77(3), 357–375. Peter, J., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2010b) Processes underlying the effects of adolescents’ use of sexually explicit internet material: The role of perceived realism. Communication Research, 37, 375–399. Peter, J., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2011) The use of sexually-explicit internet material and its antecedents: A longitudinal comparison of adolescents and adults. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 40(5), 1015–1025. Pryzbylski, A. K., & Nash, V. (2018) Internet filtering and adolescent exposure to online sexual material. Cyberpsychology, Behaviour and Social Networking, 21(7), 405–410.

88 Sexualisation, and sex Steinberg, L., & Monahan K. C. (2010) Adolescents’ exposure to sexy media does not hasten the initiation of sexual intercourse. Developmental Psychology, 47(2), 562–576. Van Oosten, J. M. (2016) Sexually explicit Internet material and adolescents’ sexual uncertainty: The role of disposition-content congruity. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 45(44), 1011–1022. Van Oosten, J. M. F., Peter, J., & Boot, I. (2014) Exploring associations between exposure to sexy online self-presentations and adolescents’ sexual attitudes and behaviour. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 44(5), 1078–1091. Van Vuuren, D. P., Bornman, E., & Meis, G. (1990) Children’s perceptions of and identification with the social reality of The Cosby Show: A comparison between the USA and South Africa. South African Journal of Psychology, 20(2), 70–79. Vidmar, N., & Rokeach, M. (1973, May) Archie Bunker’s bigotry: A study in selection perception and exposure. Paper presented at the review meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Washington, DC. Williams, T. M. (Ed.) (1986) The Impact of Television. London, UK: Academic Press. Wober, J. M., & Gunter, B. (1988) Television and Social Control. Aldershot, UK: Avebury. Yang, G. S., Gibson, B., Lueke, A. K., Huesmann, L. R., & Bushman, B. J. (2014) Effects of avatar race in violent video games on racial attitudes and aggression. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5(6), 698–704. Yue, X. D., & Cheung, C. (2000) Selection of favourite idols and models among Chinese young people: A comparative study in Hong Kong and Nanjing. International Journal of Behavioural Development, 24, 91–98.

Chapter 6

Screen experiences and antisocial behaviour

The potential effects of screen technologies on antisocial behaviour has been perhaps the most widely researched media topic and certainly the one that has attracted the greatest public interest. Historically, research into the effects of media violence began with early studies of crime and violence themes in early Hollywood motion pictures in the 1920s and 1930s (Blumer  & Hauser, 1933). The concerns about the impact of stories with violent and potentially upsetting themes can be traced back further to public disquiet over popular books with frightening or scary themes that were targeted at children in the 19th century (Tatar, 1998). A further concern grew out of the apparent synergies between the fictionally enacted violent themes played out on cinema screens and the play themes encouraged by toys targeted at children, especially at boys, which often invited them to engage in aggressive play (Goldstein, 1998). Debates about these mutually reinforcing violent entertainment and play themes have persisted over time in relation to late 20th century toys such as Captain America, GI Joe, and Rambo being spun off from movies or television shows with the same themes (Gunter, 2016). The first large scale social scientific enquiry into media violence was begun in the 1920s and published in the 1930s. This examined the content of movies and audience reactions to them. This research was funded by a philanthropic organisation which gave its name to the entire programme of enquiry – The Payne Fund (Dale, 1935). Further studies followed, initially about the potential impact of radio, and then subsequently, in the years following the Second World War, about comic books and television (Smythe, 1954; Wertham, 1954). Research into the impact of the introduction of television into communities followed in the UK and the United States and examined the possibility that television would displace other activities in children’s lives but also gave some consideration of the social behaviour influences of television viewing (Maccoby, 1951; Coffin, 1955; Himmelweit, Oppenheim & Vince, 1958; Schramm, Lyle & Parker, 1961).

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Across the 1960s and 1970s, concerns about violence focussed on television. Violence was identified as a common feature of televised drama (Halloran & Croll, 1972; Gerbner & Gross, 1976; Gerbner, Gross, Morgan & Signorielli, 1986). In later years, researchers advised that the prevalence of violence on television may have been exaggerated in terms of its overall prevalence across television schedules. Instead, disproportionate quantities of violence portrayals were concentrated within specific programme genres, especially within certain categories of movie (Kunkel, Wilson, Linz, Potter, Donnerstein, Smith, Blumenthal & Gray, 1995; Gunter & Harrison, 1998; Gunter, Harrison & Wykes, 2003). This was also a period of burgeoning research into the behavioural effects of film and televised violence were undertaken, including studies of children. Hypotheses were tested that children could encouraged to copy the screen behaviour they witnessed or have their impulse control weakened or become less concerned about violence and its consequences. Major research programmes were launched by health agencies in the United States during the same period including the National Commission on the causes and Prevention of Violence (1969) and the Surgeon General’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social Behavior (1972). The surgeon general’s inquiry sparked considerable academic debate, and the committee’s findings were disputed by the leading American television networks that promptly launched their own investigations into the effects of televised violence (Milgram & Shotland, 1973; Belson, 1978; Milavsky, Stipp, Kessler & Rubens, 1982). These studies in part confirmed and in part contradicted or challenged the surgeon general’s conclusions which were that there was evidence for a weak stimulating effect of televised violence on social violence.

Theories of mediated violence effects Imitation effects One hypothesis about the influence of media violence among children proposed that behaviour performed by actors on screen could be learned by young viewers, committed to memory and then retrieved later for reenactment. In simple terms, children will copy the things they see on screen. The probability that this copy-cat behaviour will occur depends on other factors such as whether the observed aggressive behaviour was rewarded or punished, the similarities between the original observed situation in which screen violence occurred and situations in which children find themselves, and identification with the screen actors (Bandura, 1973, 1986, 1994). Examples of this “social learning” have also been reported for video games (Graybill, Kirsch & Esselman, 1985; Chambers & Ascione, 1987). The interactive nature of video games in which on-screen action is controlled by

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players could even strengthen these effects because they can become more psychologically involving for young players than for simply watching screen actors (Krahe & Moller, 2010; Lin, 2013). In video games, rewards could be experienced not just indirectly through the outcomes for the on-screen actor but also more directly if the player achieved success through their own skill (Winkel, Novak & Hopson, 1987). Hence, in free play settings with settings similar to those seen in a video game, children have been observed to display more aggression after they have played with a violently themed game (Schutte, Malouff, Post-Gorden & Rodasta, 1988). Impulse control Children must be taught to control their natural impulses and learn rules of behaviour that become internalised. If socially conditioned controls against behaving aggressively are weakened, the risk of violent outbursts from children are increased. One of the major concerns about the effects of media violence is that it might weaken these internal aggression controls (Walters & Thomas, 1963; Berkowitz, 1965; Liebert & Baron, 1972; Berkowitz & Alioto, 1973). This might happen especially if the violence observed on screen is presented as justified. In laboratory tests of this effect, participants are given an opportunity to deliver noxious stimuli to another person in learning or reaction time tasks in which poor performance is punished. They were found to deliver more punitive stimuli after exposure to media violence than after exposure to non-violent content. This same effect was observed among video game players (Carnagey & Anderson, 2005). Similar effects were found on research with children (Cooper & Mackie, 1986; Silvern & Williamson, 1987; Irwin & Gross, 1995). Triggering aggressive thoughts Researchers found that aggressive behaviour could still occur following a delay after exposure to media violence. Someone who had observed screen violence, might hang to a memory of what they saw in the form of an “aggression script” that could later be retrieved to guide and shape their behaviour (Berkowitz, 1984; Berkowitz & Rogers, 1986). In following up research into this phenomenon, other researchers conceived of a reaction called “priming”. A violently themed movie scene or video game, for instance, could trigger aggressive thoughts in an observer and those thoughts would become associated with the original setting in which they initially occurred. If the observer then encountered a similar setting at a later date, those thoughts could be triggered again (Anderson & Ford, 1987; Anderson & Morrow, 1995).

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Violent episodes in a video game were found to trigger such thoughts and might stay with the player and be invoked in subsequent social settings that resembled in certain ways aspects of the original game episode (Anderson & Dill, 2000; Anderson, Gentile & Buckley, 2007). Behavioural scripts Further theories of media violence developed the idea of violent thoughts and scripts that are internalised by individuals that can then shape behavioural responses in different social settings. Media depictions of violence can feed these thought processes and provide social behaviour scripts that can be learned. When it comes to children, their abilities to engage in these cognitive processes depends on the level of psychological development they have reached. Very young children, usually before the age of eight, often lack the cognitive maturity to make connections between actions and causes or consequences in on-screen episodes (Collins, 1979). As they grow older, they acquire the ability to learn and retain these scripts and understand when they might become socially relevant (Rule & Ferguson, 1986). Repeated exposure to violently themed storylines and episodes on television and in movies, for example, can provide young people with a repertoire of behavioural scripts that build over time and guide their behaviour across a wide range of social settings (Huesmann, 1986, 1988; Geen, 1994). This effect grows the more closely screen depictions resemble real-life settings in which children might find themselves (Josephson, 1987; Guerra, Huesmann & Hanish, 1995). Hence, even though screen experiences might not trigger instant aggressive responses from viewers, they might condition a range of violently themed social scripts that they draw on in different settings (Buckley & Anderson, 2006; Anderson et al., 2007). Learning of social behaviour can be helped or impeded by specific patterns of screen technology experience. Much depends on what kinds of screen experiences children are exposed to. Research with over 81,000 children in Shanghai aged 3–12 years, find that heavier television viewing was associated with better social communications skills. More time spent online or playing electronic games was associated with poorer social communications skills. One explanation was that television gives children things to talk about with each other. Those who withdraw into excessive web searching and game playing have fewer face-to-face interactions and, in consequence, have more poorly developed social skills (Yang, Jin, Liu, Jin, Huang & Tong, 2019). Yet, at a very early age, as young as 24 months, watching an adult model perform specific behaviours with specific objects can result in imitation. In fact, infants will accurately copy what they have seen, not just immediately afterwards but for up to 24 hours afterwards, whether the adult is seen right

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in front of them in the same room or on a television screen. Although imitation was weaker following a televised demonstration, some learning nevertheless took place (Hayne, Herbert & Simcock, 2003). Desensitisation Exposure to media violence can cause physiological arousal in those observing it (Tannenbaum & Zillmann, 1975). It creates a “drive state” that can drive subsequent aggression under specific environmental conditions. At a physical level, such arousal is measurable in terms of changes to blood pressure, heart rate, skin responses and brain activity. Verbally, under these conditions, an individual might report “feeling” excited (Doob & Climie, 1972; Rule & Ferguson, 1986). Above optimal arousal can prove to be unpleasant and such screen portrayals can upset children and make them turn away, although some might not. Children were shown to display heightened physiological responses and other signs of anxiety or fear to graphic screen portrayals of violence (Osborn & Endsley, 1971; Cline, Croft & Courrier, 1973; Thomas & Drabman, 1975; Thomas, Horton, Lippincott & Drabman, 1977). Over time, however, researchers also observed that physiological responses to repeat exposures to screen scenes of violence gradually reduced. This occurred among children as well as adults. Among boys, in particular, even by a second exposure to a scene of violence, their arousal levels would be much lower than they were to the initial viewing (Bjorkqvist & Didriksson, 1985). These effects were observed across movies, television shows, and video games (Bartholow, Bushman & Sestir, 2006; Greitemeyer, 2014a, b). The gradual reduction in arousal to scenes of violence with repeat exposure was referred to as a desensitisation response. As observers grew used to specific scenes that were originally found upsetting, they developed mechanisms internally to reduce the unpleasant, psychologically, of such experiences. Cultivation effects Repeat exposure to mediated violence on film, television, and online media can also influence people’s perceptions of the world around them. The idea of “cultivation effects” of the media was popularised by a group of researchers working at the Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania in the 1970s. These researchers proposed that American network television was a major influence of this sort and that the prevalence of violent themes in peak-time drama shows was a significant factor (Gerbner & Gross, 1976; Gerbner et al., 1977, 1978, 1979). What was especially important were the patterns of victimisation of those shown on the receiving end of violence especially in televised fictional drama. Research showed that there were demographic biases in these victim

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patterns and that certain social groups were disproportionately likely to be on the receiving end of violent attacks or threats. The widespread use of violence to solve problems and the biased patterns of involvement in violence of different social groups conveyed social lessons to viewers about the status of the real world (Gerbner et al, 1979). Evidence was produced from analyses of televised output to substantiate the claims made about the “world of television” and data were obtained from large scale surveys of public opinion in which television viewing records were statistically related to perceptions about the status of society in terms the prevalence in it of different kinds of violence and the risks to self and others posed by criminal and violent behaviour. Conclusions were reached that television depicted an exaggerated sense of social risk and that this was apparently conveyed to the public, children included, via their viewing experiences and could be seen in the heightened sense of risk that could be found among the heaviest television viewers (Wober & Gunter, 1988). The original findings were roundly challenged by a number of scholars who identified theoretical and methodological weaknesses with the cultivation model (Hawkins & Pingree, 1980; Hirsch, 1980, 1981a, b; Hughes, 1980; Wober & Gunter, 1988). Yet, there was a theoretical explanation for these “effects” that derived from cognitive psychology. One factor at play here was the so-called “availability heuristic” (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973, 1974). This concept proposed that our ideas about events that occur in everyday life are shaped most powerfully by our memories of most recent examples of them. Later researchers introduced the concept of “construct accessibility” as an extension of the availability heuristic. In the context of television, for example, this hypothesis predicted that exposure to events that received screen coverage could render those events more instantly memorable and more readily accessible from memory (Shrum & O’Guinn, 1993; Shrum, 1996). Hence, if viewers at home watch a lot of televised drama featuring fictional police officers and those characters are frequently depicted as being divorced, they might come to believe that real police officers have a significantly higher than average propensity to get divorced. Managing mood states Further evidence has indicated that when someone is on a bad mood, playing a video game might be able to change and even improve their mood state. This effect was found to occur through exposure to movie and televised violence (Zillmann, 1988). Violent entertainment can be found exciting and enjoyable, especially when the depicted violence is not overly graphic and this can distract people from less happy state of affairs in their own lives (Dillman-Carpentier, Brown, Bertocci, Silk, Forbes & Dahl, 2008).

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Non-violent content can also have the same effect if it is sufficiently engaging (Chen, Zhou & Bryant, 2007; Strizhakova & Krcmar, 2007). In the context of playing video games, the interactive nature of these games can lead players to feel they are in control and this feeling can alter negative mood states (Colwell, 2007; Olson et al., 2008; Ferguson & Rueda, 2010). General aggression model (GAM) For a long time, theories of the causes of aggression each focussed on one specific type of psychological mechanism that was identified as either motivating or shaping aggressive behaviour. A group of researchers attempted to move research forward by creating an overarching theory of aggression which incorporated many of these different elements and determining a system within which they could work together. This new approach was called the “general aggression model” (Anderson & Bushman, 2002a; Anderson & Huesmann, 2003; Anderson & Carnagey, 2004). This model combined cognitive, affective, motivational and behavioural elements. A cornerstone aspect of the model was the idea that overt aggression was fundamentally underpinned by internalised memories about previous aggression experiences. These experiences could have been ones encountered in real life or in media depictions of violence. These aggressive memories did not exist in a cognitive vacuum but were expected to be intertwined with other non-aggressive memories. Memories could be invoked by “primes” or cues encountered by the individual in their social environment. The nature of these memories combined with assessments made of the immediate circumstances in the priming setting would determine a specific readiness to respond and shape the nature of that response. In other words, whether or not a person displays aggression will depend on the availability of relevant aggression “scripts” they have registered in their memories (Anderson & Bushman, 2001). According to the GAM, the fundamental psychological mechanisms underpinning aggressive behaviour are violent scripts which can be learned through a range of different life experiences. Children learn to respond to mediated violence in different ways that are dependent on their personal family upbringing circumstances and genetic codes. Life events interact with the internal development of psychological mechanisms such as impulse control. Mediated violence can inform aggression scripts alongside real-life aggression experiences. How these are then moulded into psychological systems that control individual’s display of aggression determines a child’s eventual sensitivity to violent portrayals in films, television programmes, video games and other screen experiences. Children who have learned to respond in positive ways to frustration, irritation, and intimidation might not display violence for real no matter what their regular media experiences have been. With others, where impulse controls have not been well

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conditioned, new aggression scripts from the media might be absorbed and readily acted on (Masten, Hubbard, Gest, Tellgen, Garmezy & Ramirez, 1999; Masten, 2001; Masten & Reed, 2002). Catalyst model Another theory about aggression recognised the interactions between genetically endowed biological characteristics and environmental experiences but also places more emphasis on family circumstances and peer groups as sources of developmental influence (Ferguson, Rueda, Cruz, Ferguson, Fritz & Smith, 2008). Lessons learned from interactions with family members during the first few years of life and with peer groups in later childhood years can condition restraints on aggression. Some youngsters may develop a predisposition to behave violently and might also be drawn to violently themed screen experiences. Others are conditioned into more positive forms of responding to situations in which aggression might be triggered and are less drawn to mediated violence as a source of behavioural inspiration. Violence seen on screen might give ideas to the violence prone youngsters, but not so much to one less inclined to react aggressively. The catalyst model recognises, more than the GAM, the role played by personality factors that are determined as much by genetics as by environmental experiences. Personality traits combine with other internalised cognitive representations of environmental experiences to determine behavioural responses in different social settings. According to its proponents this feature gives it an explanatory edge over the GAM which focusses mainly on learning of behavioural scripts (Ferguson et al., 2008; Ferguson & Dyck, 2012). What these theories all recognise is that children’s responses to screen violence evolve as they grow up.

Age-related responses to televised violence Exposure to screen technology begins very early in a child’s life. The first experiences do not even involve a child’s direct attention. A television set may be playing in the background while a child sleeps or plays or interacts with a parent even before they have started walking or talking. Later, once a child has begun to engage in proper “viewing” in which their attention is meaningfully attracted to things that are happening on the screen, social lessons can be learned from the content to which they are exposed. Even before this stage, however, the physical stimulation of a switch-on television set might also have an impact. Barr and Hayne (2003) conducted five experiments to examine the ability of infants to learn from television. They studied young children aged 12, 15, and 18 months. An adult performed a demonstration of a task either live in front of the child or was seen doing this on a television screen in a

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video-recording made earlier. The researchers measured the infants’ ability to reproduce e the adult’s actions either immediately or 24 hours later. Children across the three age groups were able to reproduce the adult’s actions following a live presentation both immediately and after a delay. Following the television presentation, however, only the older children showed any ability to do this. Researchers with infants and toddlers aged six months to 18 months in Thailand found that exposure to television shows designed for adults was associated with the propensity of the child to display more antisocial or disruptive behaviours. Interpreting what these findings mean is more challenging because it is unlikely that the children were able to understand what was occurring in these shows. Yet, for some reason the physical presence of a television set playing in the background was associated with greater likelihood of certain behavioural reactions (Chonchaiya, Sirachairat, Vijakkhana, Wilaiskditipakorn & Pruksananonda, 2015). Browne and Hamilton-Giachritsis (2005) reviewed five meta-analyses and one other review, all from North America covering research about violence in television, film, and video and computer games. Findings indicated that these stimuli could trigger short-term arousal effects and thoughts and feelings that could increase the likelihood of a young person behaving aggressively. Although there may be other factors that can influence child aggression, exposure to violent media content exhibited a small but statistically significant association with it. At a societal level, there was less compelling evidence to link media violence directly to volume of social crime.

Interactive screen technology The concerns about violence in interactive games echo those about television and movie violence. Much of the relevant research on the theme of violence and other antisocial conduct has focussed on video games (Braun, Goupil, Giroux & Chagnon, 1986; Mehrabian & Wixen, 1986; Braun & Giroux, 1989; Funk & Buchman, 1996). Violent themes were recognised as being prevalent in video games, and this led to questions being asked about their possible impact on children. Many findings for television recurred for video games (Cooper & Mackie, 1986; Anderson & Ford, 1987; Silvern & Williamson, 1987; Winkel et al., 1987; Irwin & Gross, 1995; Scott, 1995). There is also evidence that children were attracted to violent video games that could enhance youngsters’ propensities to display violence in their own lives (Emes, 1997; Dill & Dill, 1998). Dill and Dill (1998) distinguished between different kinds of psychological reactions players could have when interacting with video games which could be cognitive, emotional or behavioural. Prior research into media violence had identified different psychological mechanisms through which “effects” could occur. The research into video games they reviewed showed

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that when children played these games, they caused physical arousal, aggressive thoughts, and increased a child’s propensity to respond aggressively when provoked or encouraged to do so. Other reviewers confirmed these conclusions although also questioned the consistency with which they occurred (Durkin, 1995; Griffiths, 1999; Durkin & Low, 2000; Sakamoto, 2000; Unsworth & Ward, 2001). Other reviewers examined not only the effects of violent video games but also the reasons players might have for playing them. A more comprehensive analysis of mediated violence has been theoretically underpinned by the General Aggression Model discussed earlier (Anderson & Bushman, 2002a, b). Video games are very popular with preadolescent children and adolescents and there may be a range of psychosocial reasons that drive this interest. These games are so pervasive that they have become a part of everyday life for many youngsters and therefore have been conceived to play important roles in child development (Abbott, Palisano & Dickerson, 1995; Bailey, West & Anderson, 2010, 2011). Some children may be especially strongly drawn to games with violent themes and they may be the ones most susceptible to react aggressively in social situations as well (Uhlman & Swanson, 2004; Polman, de Castro & van Aken, 2008). To understand the potential effects of violently themed video games on children’s social behaviours, a comprehensive analytical model is required that includes analysis of the social and environmental conditions surrounding their engagement with these games, the nature of the games themselves, and the different psychological levels at which young players respond to these games. A developmental perspective has also been recommended which takes into account the varying psychological capabilities of children at different stages of their biological and psychological maturation across childhood (Bender, Rothmund & Gollwitzer, 2013; DeLisi, Vaughn, Gentile, Anderson & Shook, 2013). Ferguson (2015, 2016) has argued that views held by many leading professional bodies such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological association about the effects of media violence might have been overstated. Despite claims that many thousands of studies have produced accumulated evidence of such effects, more recent research has begun to challenge these claims. The links between exposure to screen mediated violence and child aggression, for example, is less clear than once thought. Some psychological models provide incomplete explanations of the ways that children engage with screen media. Assumptions that child aggression could be directly triggered by witnessing violent enactments on screen through some simple arousal mechanism, by creating motivational conditions for the expression of such behaviour, or by teaching youngsters how to behave aggressively need further qualifications. Newer models such as Self Determination Theory and Mood Management Theory shifted the focus onto the reasons why children chose to view

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certain types of content and whether they deliberately sought out violent content (or indeed other content) for specific purposes. Some individuals might seek out violent video games, for instance, as a form of relaxation (Przybylski, Rigby & Ryan, 2010). Many experts believe there is a need to tighten up methodology and theory. Critical measures need to be better validated and more complex multivariate models deployed to understand the complex array of variables that come into play in influencing children’s reactions to screen violence. Children themselves vary in their personalities and backgrounds and these differences must be measured and included in explanatory models (Bushman  & Sanderson, 2001; Pasher, Cobur & Harris, 2012; Bushman, Gollwitzer & Cruz, 2015; Ferguson & Beresin, 2017). These challenges must be addressed before jumping to premature conclusions about screen violence effects (Elson & Ferguson, 2013; Ferguson & Bersesin, 2017). Meanwhile debates and disagreements rumble on (Bushman & Huesmann, 2013). One alternative explanation has claimed that it is not necessarily the violence in video games that is the critical behavioural-effects trigger point. These games are frequently fast-paced and highly competitive and these additional important elements can create considerable arousal in players that might, in turn, predispose them to react aggressively if provoked after playing (Adacchi & Willoughby, 2011) Some personality types could be especially prone to display higher levels of arousal to arousing video games, to have a tendency anyway to be easily led into breaking rules and laws, or might be more prone to identify with on-screen violence and violent characters (Konijn, Bijvank & Bushman, 2007; Markey & Market, 2010). Elsewhere researchers reported that violent and non-violent video games can produce very similar effects on players in terms of their subsequent inclinations to display aggression (McCarthy, Coley, Wagner, Zengel & Basham, 2016). Other research reported non-significant relationships between the amount of time children claimed to play video games with violent themes and their inherent aggressiveness. In their research, Przybylski and Weinstein (2019) asked over 1,000 14- and 15-year-olds in Britain about their video game playing and their propensities to behave aggressively. They got their respondents to name the games they had played in the past month. These games were then separately analysed by the researchers and how they would be classified by the European video game rating system. To measure children’s aggression, the researchers turned to their caregivers and got them to complete a questionnaire which asked about the behaviours their child had displayed over the previous month. The teenagers themselves were asked to complete a trait aggression inventory. This comprised a series of statements describing how they might behave in different settings which they either endorsed or rejected as descriptive of themselves. When the researchers took all these data and examined how much time their respondents had reportedly spent playing with violent video games over the previous weeks there

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was no evidence that this measure was related in any way or predictive of their own aggressiveness. In another major British study, just over 2,000 British adolescents were asked about their play habits and experiences including those with mobile technologies. The children’s caregivers were also questioned on aspects of each child respondent’s background. Around one in three respondents said they had experienced bullying while playing mobile games. One in ten reported repeat bullying. Males, those from ethnic minorities and those whose caregivers had reported behavioural problems, were the most likely to report bullying problems. Four in ten reported being upset by these experiences, and the first port of all for one in two respondents was their parents (Przybylski, 2019).

Pulling the evidence together One method of assessing the overall status of this evidence has been an analytical technique called meta-analysis. Exponents of this methodology collect together data from many different studies and rather than simply reviewing the findings, they take the final coefficients produced by those studies that express that strength of links between key variables and aggregate over these statistics to generate an overall score of association. One major meta-analysis revealed apparently modest but statistically significant correlations between levels of exposure to media violence and criminal aggression across society. This particular analysis extracted correlation coefficients from survey studies or other statistical expressions of links between relevant variables that were measured in experimental studies to produce average scores showing the degree to which media violence exposure and social violence are interrelated. Hilgard, Engelhard, and Rouder (2017) re-analysed a major meta-analytic review by Anderson, Shibuya, Ihori, Swing, Bushman, Sakamot, Rothstein, and Saleem (2010), and discovered that when they controlled for this publication bias, the revised body of evidence failed to confirm such powerful effects of violent video game play on youngsters as had been previously assumed. Another major area of contention is the social significance of statistically significant findings in scientific research about the effects of media violence. Statistical relationships can achieve statistical significance and yet, in fact, might demonstrate that one variable accounts for relatively minor changes to another. Even so, minor effects could be socially important if they occur on a large enough scale (Grimes, Anderson & Bergen, 2008). Finally, it is important to recognise an alternative explanation of any statistically significant relationship between measured exposure to screen violence and subsequent behavioural aggression among viewers. The usual assumption is that the media experience is the causal variable here. In fact, it might be a consequence of behaviour motivated by pre-existing aggressive

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dispositions within individuals. Some evidence has emerged over the years both from survey studies and experimental studies that violent entertainment can hold special appeal to individuals who are already aggressive by nature (Diener & De Four, 1978; Diener & Woody, 1981; Gunter, 1985). An appetite for violent entertainment can also be created by fear of violence in a person’s local environment (Boyanowski, Newtson & Walster, 1974; Boyanowski, 1977). If young people exhibit dispositions towards aggressiveness in their own personalities, they might be driven to seek out violent entertainment because it holds special appeal for them, because they seek justification and tacit approval for their own inclinations and to obtain ideas about such behaviour to build into their own behavioural repertoires (Valkenburg & Peter, 2013). What might also play a part here is the influence of prosocial content, that might be mixed in with antisocial depictions. This is the subject of the next chapter.

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108 Antisocial behaviour Scott, D. (1995) The effect of video games on feelings of aggression. Journal of Psychology, 129, 121–132. Shrum, L. J. (1996) Psychological processes underlying cultivation effects: Further tests of construct accessibility. Human Communication Research, 22(4), 482–509. Shrum, L. J., & O’Guinn, T. C. (1993) Processes and effects in the construction of social reality: Construct accessibility as an explanatory variable. Communication Research, 20, 436–471. Silvern, S. B., & Williamson, P. A. (1987) The effects of video-game play on young children’s aggression, fantasy and prosocial behaviour. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 8, 453–462. Smythe, D. W. (1954) Reality as presented by television. Public Opinion Quarterly, 48, 384–396. Strizhakova, T., & Krcmar, M. (2007) Mood management and video rental choices. Media Psychology, 10, 91–112. Surgeon General’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social Behavior (1972). Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. Tatar, M. (1998) “Violent delights” in children’s literature. In J. Goldstein (Ed.). Why We Watch: The Attractions of Violent Entertainment, pp. 69–87. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Thomas, M. H., & Drabman, R. S. (1975) Toleration of real-life aggression as a function of exposure to televised violence and age of subject. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 21, 227–282. Thomas, M. H., Horton, R. W., Lippincott, E. C., & Drabman, R. C. (1977) Desensitization to portrayals of real-life aggression as a function of exposure to television violence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 450–458. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1973) Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability. Cognitive Psychology, 5, 207–232. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974) Judgment under certainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185, 1124–1131. Uhlman, E., & Swanson, J. (2004) Exposure to violent video games increases automatic aggressiveness. Journal of Adolescence, 27(1), 41–52. Unsworth, G., & Ward, T. (2001) Video games and aggressive behaviour. Australian Psychologist, 36, 184–192. Valkenburg, P. M., & Peter, J. (2013) The differential susceptibility to media effects model. Journal of Communications, 63(2), 221–243. Walters, R. H., & Thomas, E. L. (1963) Enhancement of punitiveness by visual and audiovisual displays. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 17, 244–255. Wertham, F. (1954) Comic books…very funny. Saturday Review of Literature, May, p. 6. Winkel, M., Novak, D. F. M., & Hopson, M. (1987) Personality factors, subject gender and the effects of aggressive video games in adolescents. Journal of Research in Personality, 21, 211–223. Wober, M., & Gunter, B. (1978) Television and Social Control. Aldershot, UK: Gower. Yang, Y., Jin, Z., Liu, S., Jin, X., Huang, H., & Tong, S. (2019) Children’s social communication skills and electronic screen exposure, perinatal, and other risk factors. Journal of Public Health, 28, 445–453. Zillmann, D. (1988) Cognition-excitation interdependence in aggressive behaviour. Aggressive Behaviour, 14, 51–64.

Chapter 7

Screen experiences and prosocial behaviour

Much has been written about the potential negative effects of screen technology use, but only a few studies have examined the positive benefits television, computers, and other screen technologies can bring into children’s lives (Gregory, 2012). These devices provide interfaces with varied and useful information sources about a wide range of topics. Screen narratives can spin socially positive tales in which prosocial behaviours are depicted. If we are to presume that negative portrayals on screen can trigger negative thoughts and actions, why should the same effects not be true of positive portrayals? Screen content, whether it is received via television sets, portable computer devices, or the cinema screen, can encourage positive behavioural outcomes via two principal tracks: by reducing the likelihood of post-viewing antisocial behaviour and by presenting positive behaviour role models or reasons for behaving in a prosocial manner.

Catharsis In Chapter 6, evidence was discussed concerning the antisocial effects of screen content, largely associated with exposure to portrayals of aggressive behaviour. There is a theory, however, which proposes that exposure to depictions of mediated violence might allow observers to purge themselves of their aggressive impulses. This catharsis hypothesis dates back to the writings of Aristotle. If this hypothesis is sound, then sometimes at least, watching violent portrayals does not need to result in behaviourally negative outcomes (Gunter, 1980). There are different versions of this hypothesis, however, and the empirical evidence to demonstrate its existence is far from extensive. A strong form of the hypothesis posits that anyone can purge themselves in this way. A weaker form of it proposes that only some people can manage effectively to do this (Feshbach, 1963; Copeland & Slater, 1985). Catharsis may be more readily attainable through vicarious experiences by individuals with stronger abilities to daydream, fantasise, and use their imaginations. Children may be

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especially able to engage in cathartic activities with television, if they are involved in the programmes they are watching (Biblow, 1973). In the biggest study on the subject, Seymour Feshbach and Jerome Singer argued that impulse reduction could also occur among young viewers (Feshbach & Singer, 1971). In their research with teenage boys studying in residential schools, controls were imposed over their viewing habits. One group watched only violent programmes, while a matched control group was starved of such content. Higher levels of social aggression were observed among the boys allowed to watch mainly nonviolent television programming. Others challenged the veracity of these results (Wells, 1973). It should be noted that some of the boys allocated to the non-violence viewing condition complained about the quality of the viewing diet they were offered which omitted some of their favourite programmes. The frustration caused by this restriction over their viewing could have underpinned some of their bad-tempered behaviour (Copeland & Slater, 1985). Further research with children found, however, that exposure to televised violence did not invariably give rise to heightened subsequent aggressive tendencies among young viewers. Such reactions were observed among children after watched realistic violence, such as in televised boxing or wrestling matches, but not after they watched violence portrayed in more fantasy dramatic settings such as westerns (Noble, 1975). Researchers have also found that children could be successfully annoyed, and therefore made more prone to display bad-tempered behaviour, if they were constantly interrupted during a play task (building a toy). If they were subsequently shown a short violent or non-violent film before returning to a play setting, differences in their social behaviour occurred. These differences were contingent, however, not just on the type of programme content they watched but also their personality profiles, especially as defined by their ability to daydream and fantasise. Children with higher fantasising abilities were more adept than those lacking these abilities at discharging their aggressive impulse via violent entertainment content (Biblow, 1973). The catharsis hypothesis has not received much empirical support, but some scholars have suggested it can occur with certain types of screen experience such as playing violently themed video games (Graybill, Kirsch & Esselman, 1985; Kestenbaum & Weinstein, 1985; Calvert & Tan, 1994) and others claiming that the jury is out on whether video games can promote catharsis (Sherry, 2007). Evidence has emerged that young video game players reported reduced feelings of anger after playing violent games (Olson, Kutner & Warner, 2008). Elsewhere, however, others have challenged these findings on methodological grounds. Nonetheless, these games might be able to calm people down through the distractions they create (Ferguson & Rueda, 2010).

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Modelling good behaviour on the screen Just as it has been proposed that antisocial portrayals witnessed in screen content might encourage youngsters to behave more aggressively, so too it is equally feasible to hypothesise that models of good behaviour on screen might promote subsequent prosocial behaviour. Some supportive empirical evidence has been produced. Prosocial effects on children’s behaviour can be promoted by their watching educational programmes and other programmes with prosocial themes and portrayals. Among the behaviours that might be affected are generosity, helping and cooperation, being friendly towards others, controlling one’s own selfish impulses, and resisting temptation. Television programmes can convey messages to young people that help them to internalise altruistic behavioural orientations (Rushton, 1979). Television programmes can have profound effects on babies and infants during the first two or three years of their lives (Cheng, Maeda, Yoichi, Yamagata, Tomiwa & Japan’s Study Group, 2010). Mothers have been found to report less problematic behaviour in their children when they have restricted viewing diets. Greater amounts of daily television exposure up to the age of 18 months have been associated with poorer attentional skills and at 30 months with poorer prosocial behaviour skills. Behavioural problems might, in part, be underscored by cognitive development issues contingent on regular television exposure during infancy, which can lead to children being more restless and less able to retain attentional focus without being easily distracted (Christakis, Zimmerman, DiGuiseppe & McCarty, 2004; Thakkar, Garrison & Christakis, 2006; Kano, Takahashi, Kataoka & Seino, 2007). This conditioning, in turn, might underpin subsequent lack of discipline in controlling selfish impulses. Yet, it is not simply the amount of television viewing that is critical. The cognitive and behaviour development outcomes of early television experiences can be further mediated by the nature of these experiences, that is, by the types of programmes children watch. Programmes that contain examples of prosocial behaviour can encourage the development of these behaviours in young viewers. In addition to such modelling effects, prosocial influences might even offset the more popular discussed antisocial effects of television (Greitemeyer, 2011). Much early evidence about prosocial effects differentiated between different types of television experiences.

Research with educational programmes Instructional films, television programmes, and other video materials have been produced with the express intention to teaching how to behave in socially constructive and positive ways. Over the years, many well-known educational TV shows have been produced and broadcast on mainstream TV channels, such as Sesame Street, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and The Electric Company.

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These shows have proven to be both entertaining and educational, and have triggered many positive cognitive and behavioural benefits in pre-schoolers and early school-age children. These programmes devoted considerable attention to enhancing the intellectual development of young children, such as their literacy and numeracy skills (Christensen & Roberts, 1983; Huston & Wright, 1998). In these respects, these programmes were targeted at children from disadvantaged backgrounds to counter the developmental shortfalls of living in poorer neighbourhoods with a paucity of educational resources and encouragement (Ball & Bogatz, 1970; Cook, Appleton, Conner, Schaffer, Tabkin & Weber, 1975). In addition, to cognitive effects, however, educational TV shows presented examples of prosocial behaviour that were designed to instil a more selfless view of the world and internalised control over antisocial impulses. Further studies investigated general behavioural effects and also specific types of prosocial activity (Bandura & Menlove, 1968; O’Connor, 1969, 1972; Stein & Bryan, 1972; Wolf & Cheyne, 1972; Poulos, 1974). Mediated role models were used to encourage children to give to charity and to be more helpful to other people. They were also applied to help children to overcome or confront their fears, such as their fear of going to the dentist (Gunter & McAleer, 1990). Positive messages were also delivered to children about how to make new friends and overcome self-consciousness around others (O’Connor, 1969, 1972). Televised role models were used to teach lessons about delay of gratification, the need to obey rules, and resistance to temptation in different settings (Stein & Bryan, 1972; Wolf & Cheyne, 1972). One demonstration of this type of social learning was to create a situation in which children played in a room of toys but were told beforehand that one of the toys was prohibited. The children were then divided into groups in which they watched a video example of a child in the same setting either playing with or not playing with the prohibited toy. Children’s behaviour was then observed subsequently and children tended to follow the lead of the child they saw in the video (Wolf & Cheyne, 1972). Charitable behaviour could be encouraged amongst children when they saw a televised example of a same-age child giving away pries they had won playing a game. When children witnessed a child similar to themselves on video giving to charity, they were likely to follow suit more often than if they had not seen this role model (Bryan & Walbeck, 1970a, b; Rushton & Owen, 1975).

Research with broadcast programmes There have been productions made for mainstream television that were designed to teach children positive social behaviours and control of their less sociable impulses. One of the best known of this type of programming was

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the American production Sesame Street (Silverman, 1977). This programme was originally designed for under-privileged children living in urban ghettoes. The show itself was highly popular around the world for its entertainment value as well as its educational content. Another show, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, also emerged around the same time with similar aspirations. These programmes were targeted at pre-school and early-school-age children (Coates & Pusser, 1975; Coates, Pusser & Goodman, 1976). Despite their emphasis on being entertaining, these programmes were found to prove effective in teaching children how to behave in more prosocial ways, not just mimicking those behaviours portrayed in the programmes but also encouraging children to behave in generically more constructive and cooperative ways (Poulsen, 1974; Liefer, 1975; Lovelace & Huston, 1983). Prosocial effects of these programmes could be enhanced when they were also devoid of any antisocial content ((Silverman & Sprafkin, 1980). Their effects could be further reinforced when opportunities were created for children to talk about the things they had seen in these programmes (Ahammer & Murray, 1979).

Effects of popular programmes Prosocial behaviours shown in regular television shows produced for their age group have been found to shape children’s free play behaviour in positive ways. When mediated examples of constructive and sociable behaviour are combined with opportunities subsequently for children to enact these behaviours themselves, the positive effects become further reinforced (Zielinska & Chambers, 1995). Both regular television drama and comedy shows have been identified as possible influences on children’s values, beliefs, and behaviour. Children have been found able to identify prosocial themes in comedy shows such as The Cosby Show (Rosenkoetter, 1999). Other researchers reported, however, that these effects do not manifest to the same extent in all children. Girls, for example, may be more readily able to identify virtuous behaviour in entertainment shows than are boys (Valkenburg & Jenssen, 1999). Contrasting with violently themed programmes, including cartoons, prosocial-themed shows were more likely to give rise to prosocial behaviour post-viewing in play settings. Programmes themed with aggression, even though animated, were found instead to promote more aggressive play (Forge, 1987; Sanson & Di Muccio, 1993). Even advertising content could elicit different behavioural responses depending on whether key characters on screen were closely identified with. In which case, especially for boys, any post-exposure social behaviour was dependent on the nature of the behaviour portrayed on screen (Schuetz & Sprafkin, 1979; Stout & Mouritsen, 1988). Evidence has emerged that television dramas produced for mass audiences can trigger socially helpful behaviour among children. In a study with

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five- and six-year-olds, children were divided into three different groups. Two watched episodes from the television series Lassie. The remaining children watched an episode from The Brady Bunch. One Lassie episode depicted a small boy helping a dog. Another scene showed positive behaviour towards a dog, but no specific helping behaviour. The clip from The Brady Bunch depicted positive family behaviour but featured no dogs. The children were subsequently placed in a situation where they had to wear headphones and use them to monitor a kennel, they could not see, which they were told contained a puppy. If they could hear what seemed to be sounds of distress from the puppy, they were asked to press a button which would call an attendant to go to the dog to help it. The key variable being measured here was the length of time delay between the child hearing the young dog barking and pressing the button for help. The findings showed that the children in the condition in which they watched a boy in the Lassie episode helping a dog pressed the button much more quickly when the puppy barked than did the children in the other two conditions. They also pressed the button longer. It seems, at least, that if young children watch a television show which contains people displaying helping behaviour, they might be more inclined to exhibit similar behaviour themselves (Sprafkin, Liebert & Poulos, 1975; Rubinstein, Liebert, Neale & Poulos, 1976). Taking this result a step further, might it also be the case that when children witness helping behaviour of one kind, they might also be more likely to display not just that behaviour but also other forms of socially positive behaviour. Murray and Ahammer (1977) investigated children’s programmes being shown in Australia. Shows such as Lassie, I Love Lucy, The Brady Bunch and Father Knows Best were content-analysed and classified for the amounts of prosocial behaviour identified in them. Some programme episodes were labelled as “prosocial” and others as “neutral”. Different groups of children were assigned to watch a diet of prosocial or neutral programmes for half an hour each day, five days a week for four weeks. They were all tested for one week before and one week after this intervention for their propensities to show prosocial behaviour. The children fed the prosocial television diet exhibited the most increases in prosocial behaviour over time. Another popular family-based television show in the 1970s was The Waltons. Researchers used an episode from this show in which the key actors were helping each other and an extract from a film in which people were not very helpful towards each other. The children who watched The Waltons episode were subsequently more likely to display helpful behaviour compared with children in the other group. Here, the children were placed in a setting in which the experimental dropped some books and the key variable was whether the children would help him to pick them up (Baron, Chase & Courtright, 1979).

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Television’s prosocial influences outside the laboratory What happens under more natural viewing conditions when children watch prosocial television? Some researchers have explored the effects of prosocial television outside the laboratory. Early evidence from the United States indicated that children who watched a lot of programmes high in prosocial behavioural content tended to exhibit stronger prosocial habits themselves (Sprafkin & Rubinstein, 1979). When findings of this sort were compared with those for exposure to antisocial behaviour on television and subsequent behaviour patterns among youngsters, the antisocial behavioural effects were usually found to be stronger than the prosocial effects. Yet, one explanation for this difference might be that children are usually taught to behave in selfless and socially constructive ways by parents and other persons of influence in their lives. The impact of television role-models therefore might be rendered relatively weak in the face of these more direct influences in their lives. Another possible factor at play is that prosocial behaviours are often depicted on television in more subtle ways than are antisocial behaviours. Hence, an act of violence can grab the attention of the viewer, especially if it is particularly unpleasant. These depictions show behaviours that children might not normally confront in their everyday lives. Pressures to behave in socially constructive, altruistic, and supportive ways may be constantly reinforced in their early social settings, while indulging their selfish impulses especially if this involves behaving aggressively towards others, might be quickly challenged or punished.

Children’s moral development Screen content can teach children how to behave constructively, kindly and supportively through observational learning from on-screen role models. In everyday life, however, behaving appropriately is not just about mimicking the actions of others. Fundamentally, children must internalise sets of codes and rules that underpin their conduct in general. As well as studying whether behavioural development can be shaped by on-screen behavioural examples, researchers have investigated whether screen experiences can influence children’s moral development. The reactions of children to screen portrayals which raise moral dilemmas can depend on the stage of moral development they have already reached. As children grow older, they begin to adopt principles whereby retribution of a victim against a perpetrator of an action that caused the victim harm adopts a more proportional standard. Thus, in a fairy story in which good character was badly treated by a bad character, and then the good character returned to get his revenge, different endings displayed the revenge as mild,

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damaging but reasonable or much more brutal than the original behaviour had been. Children at an earlier stage of moral development seemed to display more facial joy while watching the brutal revenge, while those at a more mature level of development were happier when confronted with proportional or equitable retribution (Zillmann & Bryant, 1975). In television dramas, for example, on-screen actors might be confronted with moral dilemmas that need to be resolved. Their own judgement must determine an appropriate course of action. In making these judgements, the actors may need to refer to codes of practice, ethical conventions, and even mandated laws to determine how tricky situations can be resolved with fair outcomes for all those involved. Insofar as viewers at home identify with the events taking place on screen, they might learn from them or have their existing learning reinforced. Then, there are other on-screen scenarios, for example, interactions between on-screen performers that take place in televised discussion and talk shows in which moral dilemmas are aired and debated. Social lessons can be learned from these mediated experiences as well (Ryan, 1976). Children’s moral development has been theoretically conceived to evolve through a series of stages (Kohlberg, 1984). In the context of television, one study interviewed boys and girls aged four to five years, seven to eight years, and ten to 11 years to find out about their moral reasoning capabilities. Their mothers also assisted the researchers by maintaining a television viewing diary for their children across the duration of the study. Among the youngest children, moral reasoning was negatively related to the amount of television they reportedly watched. Among those aged seven to eight, the children that watched situation comedies the most exhibited the most advanced moral reasoning abilities. The researchers surmised that this might be an outcome of the themes of these programmes which often showed people helping each other. Moral reasoning among the eldest children in the study tended to be weakest among those that reportedly watched the most action-adventure programmes (Rosenkoetter, Huston & Wright, 1990). Prosocial behaviour is behaviour that is performed by an individual for the benefit of others. It is usually manifest in the form of kindness, being helpful or supportive to another, exhibiting generosity and displaying empathy and sympathy for another when they experience something that is upsetting, damaging or potentially harmful to them. Frequently, such behaviour is underpinned by moral principles and a worldview that it is better to be altruistic than selfish.

Interactive screen experiences and prosocial effects Screen experiences in the 21st century extend beyond the use of television sets. Children have been enthusiastic adopters of new screen technologies both to receive television broadcasts and to engage with other forms of

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video entertainment, often in an interactive fashion. Much of the research into the prosocial effects of new online media has been carried out with young adults rather than children. Yet, interactive screen experiences such as video games are known to be extremely popular with children (i.e. young people aged under-18). The most popular video games are those that enable young players to get involved with the characters they control on-screen (Olson et al., 2008). The evidence for prosocial video game effects has derived principally from two types of study: surveys and experiments. Surveys obtain data via questionnaires and are dependent on the accuracy of respondents’ self-reports. Some survey studies collect data at one point in time and others do so across two or more time points. The latter, longitudinal, surveys enable researchers to track developments in children’s behaviour over time and track these changes back to their media experiences over the same time period. Experiments tend to involve one-off interventions in which small groups of participants (as compared to surveys) engage in controlled video game playing experiences and the types of games with which they engage are controlled by the researchers. A methodology is constructed in which participants are given an opportunity to display prosocial behaviour after playing. Comparisons are then made between children that played with game with prosocial themes and non-prosocial themes. Survey evidence in this area has shown that those youngsters who claim greater amounts of play with prosocial-themed video games also exhibit stronger likelihood of being able fell empathy for others, to behave in a cooperative way, to show a willingness to be generous, helpful, and supportive towards others (Gentile, Anderson, Yukawa, Ihori, Saleem, Ming, Shibuya, Liau, Khoo, Bushman, Huesmann & Sakamoto, 2009; Greitemeyer & Osswald, 2010). Ultimately, any positive impact of playing with prosocially themed video games might also depend on the nature of the behaviour that is being targeted. One study found that the theme of video games made little difference to teenagers’ propensity to be helpful subsequently, when the prosocial behaviour being measured was a willingness to pick up a pen someone had dropped (Tear & Nielsen, 2014). There is evidence with pre-teenage and early teenage children that playing video games with violent themes subsequently renders them less likely to display helpful behaviour. In contrast, playing games with prosocial themes can promote post-playing altruistic tendencies (Chambers & Ascione, 1987). A Japanese study with pre-teenagers (aged 10–11 years) used a longitudinal survey design to track linked over time between self-reported video game use and social behaviour. The evidence to emerge from this study indicated that children that interacted the most with video games with violent themes, displayed decreases in their propensity to behave in a prosocial manner. The more these children mentioned prosocial scenes from their video game

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play, however, the greater was their willingness to behave in prosocial ways (Ihori, Sakamoto, Shibuya & Yukawa, 2007). The self-reported measures of social behaviour used in this study were not very refined with respondents being required to indicate along a five-point scale how often they performed specific behaviours. An international study investigated teenage children in Australia, China, Croatia, Germany, Japan, Romania and the United States. Measures were taken of the participants’ media exposure and their propensities to display empathy and helpfulness. Evidence emerged greater reported levels of exposure to television programmes, movies and video games. The authors claimed that during adolescent years, young people will experiment with different rules about how to behave. They are sensitive therefore to any credible examples of how one should behave in different social settings, including settings depicted in audio-visual entertainment (Prot, Gentile, Anderson, Suzuki, Swing, Lim, Horluchi & Lam, 2013; Prot, Gentile, Anderson, Suzuki, Swing, Lim, Horiuchi, Jelic, Krahe, Liuqing, Liau, Khoo, Petrescu, Sakamoto, Tajima, Toma, Warburton, Zhang & Lam, 2014). The same research group conducted a two-year panel study among over 3,000 pre-teenage and teenage children in Singapore. Questions Data were obtained about television and movie viewing patterns and types of video games played and how often. Media content was differentiated by its violent or prosocial nature. Measures were also taken from the respondents about how often they displayed different kinds of prosocial behaviours and sentiments. Once again, significant statistical connections were found between the amount of exposure to prosocial media content and youngsters’ propensities to perform different sorts of prosocial behaviours (Prot et al., 2014). Research with German teenagers (12–13 years) obtained self-reports about media consumption and self-reports and teachers’ reports about social behaviour. Reported exposure to aggressively themed video games was associated with both higher aggression reports and low prosocial behaviour reports by teachers (Krahe & Moller, 2011). Playing video games with violent or prosocial content can trigger thought processes and feelings in young players that reflect the nature of their dominant themes. In psychological terms therefore the behavioural impacts of playing these games could be mediated by underlying cognitive processes (Sestir & Bartholow, 2010). Other studies indicated that playing video games with violent themes can trigger subsequent reductions in tendencies to cooperate with other players or to exhibit empathy with another person (Sheese & Graziano, 2005; Fraser, Padilla-Walker, Coyne, Nelson & Stockdale, 2012). Video games with prosocial content might promote prosocial actions by suppressing negative thoughts that might trigger aggression and by promoting positive thoughts that trigger kindness and helpfulness (Gentile & Gentile, 2008). Playing a video game with a prosocial theme as opposed to a violent theme led players to seek positive prosocial solutions to stories

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over more aggressive solutions (Greitemeyer & Osswald, 2009). Video games with prosocial themes might also provide prompts to players to behave in prosocial ways (Gentile & Gentile, 2008; Swing, Gentile & Anderson, 2009). A meta-analysis examined findings from 34 studies of children’s exposure to prosocial media content and prosocial behaviour. There were consistent moderate effects of exposure to prosocial content on prosocial conduct compared to other groups that consumed antisocial content or control groups that watched neutral content. The effects of prosocial content could be as strong as the effects of antisocial content when the content being watched was self-selected by children (Mares, & Woodard, 2010). Mares and her colleagues conducted two experimental studies in which children aged three to seven watched videos about helping or loving displayed in either loving or funny settings or as songs. The first study found no significant effects of prosocial content exposure on subsequent likelihood or displaying prosocial behaviour. The second study found some evidence that exposure to content about people helping others could encourage children to be more helpful in settings where that behaviour was already being encouraged (Mares, Bonus & Pebbles, 2018). Coyne and her colleagues examined evidence from 72 studies. They examined exposure to prosocial and antisocial media content and relationships with study participants’ tendencies to display aggressive or prosocial behaviour. In general, results across studies showed that exposure to prosocial content was consistently linked to stronger tendencies to display empathy towards others and prosocial behaviour and reduced likelihood of displaying aggression. Prosocial behaviour was treated as a multidimensional entity and not all forms of prosocial behaviour appeared to be enhanced by exposure to prosocial media content. Being helpful to others and having prosocial thoughts were promoted by exposure to prosocial content in media, but behaviours such as donating and volunteering were not (Coyne, Padilla-Walker, Holmgren & Davis, 2017).

Prosocial vs antisocial screen experiences: redressing the balance The previous chapter indicated that antisocial behaviour tendencies could be shaped by mediated examples. The same is true of social behavioural tendencies. Considerable research attention has been devoted to developing an understanding of media influences on antisocial conduct. The possible role played by media in shaping prosocial behaviour has not attracted the same level of interest. Increasingly, though, there have been calls for this imbalance to be redressed. The burgeoning field of “positive psychology” can provide theoretical and methodological steers here (De Leeuw & Buijzen, 2015). Mares and Woodard (2005) conducted a meta-analysis of 34 studies about the positive effects of television on children’s social behaviour, including

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their aggressiveness, altruism, and stereotyping of others in their social interactions with others. Experimental studies produced the most powerful positive effects with participants who watched prosocial screen content, for instance, subsequently displaying stronger altruistic tendencies compared with same-age children in control groups who saw neutral content and compared with children exposed to antisocial content. In settings in which children could choose media content for themselves, those who reported the greatest amount of exposure to prosocial content were the most likely to display more verbal intentions to behave in socially and morally positive ways. When depictions of prosocial behaviour were mixed up with displays of violent behaviour, the modelling effects of the prosocial content appeared to be diminished. Coyne and her colleagues examined the effects of exposure to prosocial media on different kinds of prosocial behaviour. Do individuals become more likely to feel sorry for and to help others following a diet of prosocial media content. Their meta-analysis covered 72 studies. It emerged that prosocial behaviour was enhanced by exposure to or interaction with prosocial media content. Helping behaviour was enhanced, but not donating or volunteering (Coyne & Smith, 2014; Coyne et al., 2017). In another study, 441 adolescents reported their two favourite television shows at two time points, around two years apart. The children were aged 13 years at the start and 15 years at the end on average. Aggression displayed at the second time point was negatively related to amount of prosocial content exposure two years earlier. Early aggressiveness was associated with a greater propensity to consume aggressive media content later. Those teenagers with stronger tendencies towards empathy were more likely later to report showing kindness to strangers (Padilla-Walker, Coyne, Colliers & Nelson, 2015). Dutch researchers were interested in the potential effects of prosocial content in televised news on the social behaviour of children aged nine to 13 years. In this experiment, the children were divided into groups that viewed different versions of a television news story about fundraising for UNICEF. In the treatment condition, the news item showed children organising fundraising for the charity. In a control condition, children watched a story about UNICEF which contained not references to fundraising. Afterwards all children in the study were given an opportunity to donate money to UNICEF. In a post-viewing questionnaire, children who saw the story that featured fundraising subsequently displayed more willingness to raise funds themselves than did children from the control condition. Children that viewed the story showing fundraising were more willing to help set up a project to raise money for UNICEF that did children in the other condition (De Leeuw, Kleemans, Rozen, Ascgutz & Buijzen, 2015). According to Cingel and Krcmar (2017), television shows can present moral narratives from which children can learn. This process can begin

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very early in life. Children aged between four and six, for example, can learn lessons about “fairness” through watching television programmes in which these lessons are acted out on screen. If parents join in by further discussing these lessons, the overall learning effects become even stronger and longer lasting.

Prosocial behaviour used to offset antisocial behaviour One potentially important outcome of exposure to screen depictions of prosocial behaviour for children might be that the lessons they might learn not only promote their own prosocial orientations but also that such inclinations reduce the likelihood they will learn from displays of antisocial behaviour (Greitemeyer, 2011). While this proposition seems reasonable and theoretically plausible, the empirical evidence shows that although it can occur, it does no always do so. Lovelace and Huston (2008) examined evidence concerning the effects of prosocial television on promoting prosocial behaviour in children, promoting prosocial behaviour as a means of controlling antisocial behaviour. Portrayals of prosocial behaviour on the screen can present direct lessons in social behaviour for children to learn from provided they can identify with the scenes and characters being shown. Prosocial behaviour can also be used as an antidote to antisocial behaviour and on-screen portrayals can present examples in how to resolve conflicts in constructive ways. The empirical evidence does not always support these observations, however. Wiegman, Kuttschrueter, and Baarda (1992) studied Dutch teenagers and were interested in the hypothesis that television portrayals could serve as role models for both antisocial and prosocial behaviour. They found no evidence for prosocial behavioural effects and the initial findings of possible antisocial role modelling effects disappeared after the introduction of statistical controls for other variables, in particular the intelligence of the child. A two-year longitudinal study obtained data about media exposure and aggressive and prosocial behaviour tendencies among a small sample of 78 preschool children. Parental reports and children’s media habits were related to reports of children’s aggressive and prosocial behaviours. Greater reported exposure to prosocial content predicted higher levels of prosocial behaviour. Exposure to more aggressively themed content predicted more quarrelsome behaviour among girls and more physical aggression among boys (Ostrov, Gentile & Crick, 2006). As we can see, there is a growing body of evidence that screen experiences can affect children’s behaviours in positive and negatives ways. The promising news is that not all role models on screen are bad and the good ones can have influence just as much as the bad ones.

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124 Prosocial behaviour Greitemeyer, T. (2011) Effects of prosocial media on social behaviour: When and why does media exposure affect helping and aggression? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20(4), 251–255. Greitemeyer, T., & Osswald, S. (2009) Prosocial video games reduce aggressive cognitions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 896–900. Greitemeyer, T., & Osswald, S. (2010) Effects of prosocial video games on prosocial behaviour. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 211–221. Gunter, B. (1980) The cathartic potential of television drama. Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 33, 448–450. Gunter, B. (1981) Can television trach kindness? Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 34, 121–124. Huston, A. C., & Wright, J. C. (1998) Television and the informational and educational needs of children. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 557, 9–23. Ihori, N., Sakamoto, A., Shibuya, A., & Yukawa, S. (2007) Effects of video games on children’s aggressive behaviourand pro-social behaviour: A panel study with elementary students. Tokyo, Japan: DiGRA 2007 Conference Proceedings, pp. 170–177. Kano, A., Takahashi, K., Kataoka, N., & Seino, Y. (2007) Relation of television and video watching times to development of children aged three and a half years. The Journal of the Japan Pediatric Society, 111(3), 454–461. Kestenbaum, G. I., & Weinstein, L. (1985) Personality, psychopathology and developmental issues in male adolescent video game use. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 24, 329–333. Kohlberg, L. (1984) The Psychology of Moral Development, Vol.2, Essays on Moral Development. New York, NY: Harper & Row. Krahe, B., & Moller, I. (2011) Links between self-reported media violence exposure and teacher ratings of aggression and prosocial behaviour among German adolescents. Journal of Adolescence, 34, 279–287. Lovelace, V. O., & Huston, A. C. (1983) Can television teach prosocial behaviour? In J. Sprafkin, C. Swift & R. Hess (Eds.). Television: Enhancing the Preventative Impact of TV, pp. 93–106. New York, NY: Haworth Press. Lovelace, V. O., & Huston, A. C. (2008) Can television teach prosocial behaviour? Prevention in Human Services, 2(1–2), 93–106. Mares, M. L., Bonus, J. A., & Peebles, A. (2018) Love or comprehension? Exploring strategies for children’s prosocial media effects. Communication Research. doi:10.25384/SAGE.c.4233962.v1. Mares, M. L., & Woodard, E. (2005) Positive effects of television on children’s social interactions: A meta-analysis. Media Psychology, 7(3), 301–322. Mares, M. L., & Woodard, E. (2010) Positive effects of television on children’s social interactions: A meta-analysis. Media Psychology, 7(3), 301–322. Noble, G. (1975) Children in Front of the Small Screen. London, UK: Constable. Olson, C. K., Kutner, L., & Warner, D. (2008) The role of violent video game play in adolescent development: Boys’ perspectives. Journal of Adolescence Research, 23, 55–75. Ostrov, J. M., Gentile, D. A., & Crick, N. R. (2006) Media exposure, aggression and prosocial behaviour during early childhood: A longitudinal study. Social Development, 15(4), 612–627.

Prosocial behaviour 125 Padilla-Walker, L. M., Coyne, S. M., Collier, K. M., & Nelson, M. G. (2015) Longitudinal relations between prosocial television content and adolescents’ prosocial and aggressive behaviour: The mediating role of empathic concern and selfregulation. Developmental Psychology, 51(9), 1317–1328. Poulson, F. L. (1974) Teaching cooperation on television: An evaluation of Sesame Street social programs. AV Communication Review, 22, 229–246. Prot, S., Gentile, D. A., Anderson, C. A., Suzuki, K., Swing, E., Lim, K. M., Horiuchi, Y., & Lam, B. C. P. (2013) Long-term relations among prosocial media use, empathy, and prosocial behaviour. Psychological Science. 25(2), 358–368. doi:10.1177/0956797613503854. Prot, S., Gentile, D. A., Anderson, C. A., Suzuki, K., Swing, E., Lim, K. M., Horiuchi, Y., Jelic, M., Krahe, B., Liuqing, W., Liau, A. K., Khoo, A., Petrescu, P. D., Sakamoto, A., Tajima, S., Toma, R. A., Warburton, W., Zhang, X., & Lam, B. C. P. (2014) Long-term relations among prosocial media use, empathy and prosocial behaviour. Psychological Science, 25(2), 358–368. Rosenkoetter, L. I. (1999) The television situation comedy and children’s prosocial behaviour. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29, 979–993. Rosenkoetter, L. I., Huston, A. C., & Wright, J. C. (1990) Television and the moral judgement of the young child. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 11, 123–137. Rubinstein, E. A., Liebert, R. M., Neale, J. M., & Poulos, R. W. (1976) Assessing television’s influence on children’s prosocial behaviour, Occasional paper 74–11. Stony Brook, NY: Brookdale International Institute. Rushton, J. P. (1979) Effects of prosocial television and film material on the behaviour of viewers. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 12, 321–351. Rushton, J. P., & Owen, D. (1975) Immediate and delayed effects of TV modelling and preaching on children’s generosity. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 14, 3089–3310. Ryan, K. (1976) Television as a moral educator. In R. Adler & D. Cater (Eds.). Television as a Cultural Force, pp. 111–127. New York, NY: Praeger. Sanson, A., & Di Muccio, C. (1993) The influence of aggressive and neutral cartoons and toys on the behaviour of preschool children. Australian Psychologist, 28, 93–97. Sesitr, M. A., & Bartholow, B. D. (2010) Violent and nonviolent video games produce opposing effects on aggressive and prosocial outcomes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 934–942. Sheese, B. E., & Graziano, W. G. (2005) Deciding to defect: The effects of video game violence on cooperative behaviour. Psychological Science, 16(5), 354–357 Sherry, J. (2007) Violent video games and aggression: Why can’t we find the links? In R. Priess, B. Gayle, N. Burrell, M. Allen & J. Bryant (Eds.). Mass Media Effects Research: Advances through Meta-Analysis, pp. 231–248. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Shuetz, D. A. Jr., & Mouritsen, R. H. (1988) Prosocial behaviour in advertising aimed at children: A content analysis. The Southern Speech Communication Journal, 55, 159–174. Silverman, L. T. (1977) Effects of Sesame Street programming on the cooperative behaviour of pre-schoolers. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Stanford University.

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Chapter 8

Screen experiences, advertising, and child consumerism

Despite the efforts of some governments to provide publicly funded screen entertainment and information services, most screen-based content is commercially funded, and produced and broadcast by privately owned companies. Traditionally, television broadcasters have generated revenue from the sale of their programmes and of airtime to advertisers. Producers can make additional monies from product placements within programmes or from programme sponsorship deals. Here, commercial brands pay to be physically shown on camera within programmes or to have their names associated with programmes and mentioned repeatedly at the start, during natural breaks and again at the end of a transmission. In addition, in the digital era, direct payments by consumers are made to content providers as subscription for entire services or for specific programmes. All these revenue sources exist for audio-visual content services provided via the Internet and received via a rage of screen devices. It is the commercial aspect of screen content provision that will be addressed in this chapter. Primarily, our concern here is with advertising in its various guises. On television, advertisements generally occur in breaks within and between programmes and online they can pop-up within and alongside web sites. There have long been concerns about the impact of advertising on children. Advertising regulators implement national legislation and use codes of practice to limit types of advertising and the kinds of appeals advertisers can use. These codes of practice can vary between media, but all tend to have restrictions that specifically address the protection of children. Regulators have been playing “catch-up in terms of controls over advertising and other promotional content on the internet where many new promotional techniques have evolved that circumvent traditional advertising regulations and can place vulnerable children at greater risk (King, Hebden, Grunseit, Kelly, Chapman & Venugopal, 2011; Gunter, 2016). Many online brand promotions do not resemble traditional forms of advertising. Brands can be more subtly integrated with entertainment content. Children may even be recruited to speak on behalf of brands as “brand champions” in social media sites. In computer gaming and virtual reality

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environments, brand names and logos can appear on virtual objects. These techniques have required a re-think about how such brand promotions might affect children and the about ways in which they can effectively be regulated. One of the key concerns is that children lack the requisite cognitive skills to understand what advertising is about and to defend themselves psychologically against its persuasive appeals (Gunter, 2016). Advertisers’ selling techniques have been portrayed for a long time as manipulative and capable of encouraging consumers to make purchases they did not necessarily need (Packard, 1957). Many early critics, however, failed to produce empirical evidence to back up their claims. Across the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, academic researchers in fields such as psychology, sociology, and marketing built a more robust and extensive body of work that drew conclusions about children’s engagement with advertising derived from better quality empirical evidence (Young, 1990; Blades, Oates, Blumberg & Gunter, 2014; Gunter, 2016). Research evidence also showed that advertising did not operate in a social vacuum. There are other factors that could influence children’s brand preferences and consumer behaviour, such as parents, other family members, friends and wider peer groups, and other non-commercial media messages. The impact, if any, of specific types of media advertising need to take account of non-mediated factors from the young consumer’s social setting to produce a comprehensive account of the specific influences of advertisements (Churchill & Moschis, 1979).

Children as consumers The influences of advertising on children cannot be fully understood without some consideration of how children become active as consumers. Children become aware of products and services in early childhood through the games and toys they play with and also from the everyday items they use, including the foods and drinks they enjoy, the household goods they see around them at home, and, of course, from their early experiences of advertising. The ability of children to understand all these things depends on the stage of psychological development they have reached (Chu, Blades & Herbert, 2014). At early developmental stages, children are presumed to have limited abilities that require further experience and learning to push their understanding of the world around them to a higher level. Such “stage” models of development were eventually supplanted by “process” models that presumed a continuous flow to children’s psychological development rather than a more saccadic concept of jumping from one stage to another (Gunter, Oates & Blades, 2005). The stage theory of child development was significantly influenced by the work of Jean Piaget (Piaget, 1970, 1972). This work was based on a few studies of small numbers of children that had been studied performing various

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simple tasks. Subsequently, psychologists challenged the original ideas about specific stages of cognitive psychological development (Ginsburg & Opper, 1988; Smith, Cowie & Blades, 2003). Piaget had identified four specific stages of cognitive development in children: sensori-motor stage (birth to two years), preoperational stage (2–7 years), concrete operational stage (7–11 years), and formal operational stage (11 years to adulthood). In the sensori-motor stage, children learned based interpretational skills including being able to recognise faces and objects and how to perform simple movements. In the preoperational stage, children start to acquire basic language skills and learn about symbolic representations of physical objects and events. At this point, these skills are limited to what they can see immediately in front of them. Children’s judgements are constrained by immediate perceptions rather being articulated through logical, conceptual calculations and judgements. If water is tipped from a short, squat glass into a taller, but slimmer glass, most children at this stage of development would perceive the latter as containing more water, even though the amount of water remained unchanged as it was poured from one glass into the other. By the concrete operational stage, children are no longer fooled in this way by their immediate perceptions. They know that when water is tipped from one glass into another, the amount of water remains the same even though the shape of the glass changes. This skill was called “the conservation of mass”. In other words, children at this stage can take into account more than one dimension at a time when reaching analytical judgements of this kind. At the preoperational stage, however, children may be limited in their abilities to put themselves in the position of another person and empathise with them or try to see the world from their point of view. By the concrete operational stage, this ability starts to materialise. By the formal operational stage of development, children were shown as being able to make more sophisticated judgements of objects and situations and think in an abstract fashion about the world. While during their pre-teen years, children could make assessments about objects they could see and not always be taken in by what appeared at first glance to be true. By the final stage o development, children learn that some potential real-world phenomena can be described, but may not be possible because of physical rules governing the way the world is. In other words, they can reach conclusions about how physical objects might behave without needing to see them, by using theories about the world and the way it works. When the Piagetian stages are applied to a domain such as television advertising, initial judgements at the very early stages of development are based much of what can be directly perceived. Hence, advertisements are different from programmes because they tend to be much shorter. At later stages of development, children also know that there are specific production

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techniques and content attributes that are typical of advertisements which have the purpose of “selling you something” rather than simply entertaining or informing you, as programmes do (Kunkel, 1988a; Young, 1990). At the most abstract level of thinking, teenagers can draw their own conclusions about what advertisements show about products or about the claims they make because they understand fully what advertisements are designed to achieve and they also know that production techniques are often used to make products look different from the way they really are (Gunter et al., 2005; Gunter, 2016). The shift from stage to process theories of child development were driven by findings that young children can engage is some kinds of abstract thought even before they start school. Piaget’s failure to discover these abilities in early childhood years was explained by the lack of sensitivity of his research methods (John, 1999; Moses & Baldwin, 2005). Early studies of children’s understanding of advertising confirmed Piaget’s theories of cognitive development (Ward, 1974; Wartella & Ettema, 1974; Ward, Wackman & Wartella, 1975; Wartella, 1982). Children’s understanding of advertising was found to develop through a number of distinct stages (Young, 1990; Gunter et al., 2005). The initial stage of understanding took a fairly basic perceptual form of differentiating between advertisements and, for example, programmes on television by their respective durations. Advertisements tended to be much shorter than programmes. There was little differentiation in other terms (Zuckerman, Ziegler & Stevenson, 1978; Butter, Popovich, Stackhouse & Garner, 1981; Levin, Petros & Petrella, 1982). Next, children begin to understand the specific purpose of advertisements to promote and sell products and services (Donohue, Henke & Donohue, 1980; Macklin, 1987). Next, children recognise that advertisements provide information about products and encouragement to people to like and buy the advertised brands (Christenson, 1982; Brucks, Armstrong & Goldberg, 1988; Kunkel, Wilcox, Cantor, Palmer, Linn & Dowrick, 2004). Finally, once they reach their teenage years, young consumers they begin to understand the economic implications of advertising. In other words, advertisers promote their products and services to make money for their companies (Gunter & Furnham, 1998; Livingstone & Helsper, 2006).

Other models of child cognitive understanding Cognitive development embraces many different cognitive skills and each of these can develop differently with transitions from one level of development to another not always occurring at the same time. Some developmental psychologists departed theoretically from Piaget and believed that social interaction patterns and language development were more critical than the cognitive skills identified by Piaget in understanding child development

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(Bruner, 1973). Others built on original Piagetian stage theory to articulate more fluid systems of cognitive development that while following similar stages could and often did progress differently for different individuals (Demetriou, 2003; Commons, 2008). A process model of children’s understanding of advertising was proposed by John (1999). Her model recognised that children’s consumer understanding proceeded through a number of stages, but she envisaged a more gradual transition at each point and also recognised that children could vary in the pace that their own understanding evolved. Their ability to understand the nature and purpose of advertising was, in part, constrained by their general level of cognitive development, but it could also be affected by the level of their exposure to advertisements and whether parents might talk to them about consumer matters. An associated Persuasion Knowledge Model posited that children could learn to identify the marketing techniques deployed in advertising campaigns to persuade consumers to like and prefer the advertised brands over rival ones (Friestad & Wright, 1994; Wright, Friestad & Boush, 2005). The acquisition of this knowledge can be cued in various ways in a child’s environment and makes significant headway usually between the ages of seven and 11 (An & Stern, 2011). Over time, therefore, children first notice products and their advertising messages. Next, they begin to recognise specific products by their outside appearance. Similarly, with advertisements, first, they learn how to differentiate them from surrounding media content. This differentiation initially takes place at a crude perceptual level but then eventually relies on a deeper understanding of the aims and purposes of advertising. Then, with a growing understanding of the concept of persuasion and of the marketing techniques associated with it, young consumers can make distinctions between brands on the basis of their defining characteristics and form judgements about which brands they like and why (Gunter, 2016). At six to nine years of age, children show some understanding of advertisements beyond their appearance. Some of this age group will be ahead of the rest in this understanding (Wilson & Weiss, 1992; Kunkel et al., 2004). As they get to the upper end of this period of development, most children exhibit more advanced advertising knowledge (Lawlor & Prothero, 2003; Mallalieu, Palan & Laczniak, 2005). At 10–12 years, children’s cognitive functions advance still further. During this period, children learn to take into account other people’s perspectives. This means they can begin to appreciate that specific advertisements might be aimed at specific consumer groups. They can think through the implications of purchasing a specific brand for others (such as people they might be buying gifts for). Advertisements are therefore no longer assessed from a purely personal perspective. Children can also grow more cynical about advertisements at this time (Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2000). Elsewhere, when

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pre-teenage children were tested for their abilities to understand the marketing and persuasion tactics used in advertisements, those aged 10–12 were almost as capable as a comparison adult sample. Those aged eight to nine years still had some way to go. (Rozendaal, Lapierre, van Reijmersdal  & Buijzen, 2011).

Advertising literacy The acquisition of all this knowledge about consumerism and about advertising in childhood equips adults to become better informed and more judgemental consumers, and has been called “advertising …” or “consumer literacy” (Livingstone & Helsper, 2006). Given the persuasive nature of advertising, there is always a possibility that the people behind these promotional messages might be tempted to exaggerate their brands to enhance their likeability and to encourage consumers to choose them over others. It is important therefore that consumers can tell when they are being duped and to be able to “read” advertisements to judge when they are giving accurate or inaccurate impressions about products and services. In particular, knowing how to identify persuasive messages and how to critique them is the basis of informed and critical consumerism (Verhellen, Oates, De Pelsmacker & Dens, 2014). Children learn to recognise the techniques used by advertisers to craft persuasive messages. They also learn about nature and objectives of brands (Mallalieu et al., 2005; Wright et al., 2005). Even when the relationship between branding and advertising is understood in principle, this knowledge is not always enough to ensure that children are not taken in by advertising messages. Very subtle persuasive cues can still prove to be effective among young and vulnerable consumers (Panic, Cauberghe & De Pelsmacker, 2013; An, Jin & Park, 2014). Children can develop internalised defences against the influences of brand marketing. The effectiveness of these defences is limited by the level of cognitive development that a child has achieved (Moses & Baldwin, 2005). The mere fact that a child is able to articulate some of the persuasion practices used by advertisers does not mean that they always deploy this understanding when confronted with advertising in their everyday lives (Mallinckrodt & Mizerski, 2007; Rozendaal, Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2009). Some researchers have identified two components to advertising literacy. The first of these is the child’s ability to identify and understand specific attributes of advertising and their role in the persuasion process. The second is their level of literacy performance which is based on the probability they will deploy this understanding during exposure to advertising (Rozendaal et al., 2011). Children must stop and think about the advertising they see on screen, for example, in order to activate their learned and internalised cognitive defences.

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Digital advertising Growing public concern and research attention have been directed towards the nature and reception of brand promotions in the online world. This includes branding and promotional messages within and alongside web sites, within social media sites, and in online games and virtual worlds. In these contexts, advertising messages can be so subtly placed and integrated into other content that they cannot be physically differentiated as easily as they are on television (Gunter, 2016). Differentiation between advertising and surrounding non-advertising content can be difficult enough for very young children even in traditional mass media (John, 1999), but becomes even more so within new interactive screen settings (Dahl, Eagle & Baez, 2006; Gunter, 2016). Many new forms of brand promotion do not appear as distinct “messages”. Instead, brand names, logos and other symbolic representations are embedded within entertainment and information content. Although they might be noticed in these settings, they are not always recognised or defined by children (or sometimes even by adults) as “promotional” in nature (McIlrath, 2006). Hence, any learned and internalised cognitive defences against the persuasive influences of traditional advertising are not triggered because they are not perceived to be relevant (Gunter, 2016). In the context of advertising in advergames and adverworlds, existing cognitive theories that try to explain how children are influenced have been re-tested and extended (Staiano & Calvert, 2014). This observation is very important because it has been presumed that once children exhibit signs of being able to identify, interpret and critique obvious advertisements, such as those appearing in breaks within or between television programmes, these skills readily transfer to other advertising or marketing contexts and formats. We cannot presuppose that this happens by default (Oates, Blades, Gunter & Don, 2003; Andronikidis & Lambrianidou, 2010). In a study of children’s ability to identify web advertisements, researchers found that six-year-olds could only manage to recognise about a quarter of the advertisements they were shown, while by the age of 12, this figure had risen to around three-quarters. One of the most critical features here was the inclusion of price information about the advertised brand (Ali, Blades, Oates & Bloomberg, 2009). One of the most significant differences between advertising on television and that appearing on the internet is that the latter often offers the consumer an opportunity to engage with brands in an interactive way. Advertisements in and around web sites tend to be relatively passively received, much like television advertisements. Advertising in social media sites and online gaming environments, however, present children with a different type of experience. In these settings, children can actively control events on

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screen. In social media settings, they might be invited to use the interpersonal communication dimension of these sites to engage in conversations with targeted others about brands. Hence, a site such as Facebook can be used as a platform for traditional advertising notices. It can be used as an electronic billboard, if you like. In addition, the sites users can be invited to promote specific brands to their friends and are directly incentivised to do this. Similar brand “championing” on the part of young consumers occurs in other sites and also in online virtual realities in which the individual is often represented as an on-screen avatar (Gunter, 2016). Many large corporations have used social media sites such as Facebook to reach out to their consumers in a multitude of ways (Barnes & Mattson, 2008; Araujo & Neijens, 2012). Companies can promote their wares to consumers. Customers can also give direct feedback to brand suppliers. Customers, including children, can also be recruited to become part of a company’s brand campaigning (Evans, 2011). There has been special concern reserved for the use of children as brand champions on social media sites. For many youngsters, the prospect of becoming an “influencer” is an enticing one. It represents an activity that many see as an easy and glamorous way to make money. However, the use of interpersonal communication strategies to get young consumers to influence other young consumers presents a new development in child-directed marketing that turns brand promotions into a behaviour that many youngsters do not classify as “advertising”. The usual advertising regulations, which offer additional protection to children, have tended not to apply to these newer forms of marketing campaigning (Gunter, 2016). Extending the social media marketing developments, many major brands have also moved into the three-dimensional settings of online games and virtual worlds. Some brands have inserted themselves into established virtual gaming worlds and others have created their own virtual realities for self-promotion. The latter alternative realities are often referred to as “advergames” or “adverworlds”. The brand insertions within these parallel digital worlds can take many different forms. In essence, however, they represent an extension of product placement marketing that has featured as a promotional device in television programmes and movies for many decades (Winkler & Buckner, 2006; Lee & Faber, 2007). Advergames can be accessed via companies’ own web sites or they might be accessible through social media sites. A number of big brands, popular with children, such as Cadbury/Kraft, Kellogg’s, McDonald’s, Red Bull, and Walkers, have created these kinds of games as marketing vehicles. In many of these games, children can manipulate virtual products on screen. In others, players can interact with brand-related animated characters. The first such game, developed by McDonald’s, called “Donald Land”, created games in which children had to undertake challenges that involved the company’s branded products (Gunter, 2016).

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In these settings, players might engage with the games over extended periods of time during which they would receive multiple exposure to branded products, brand logos, and brand names (Ferrazzi & Benezra, 2001). In this way, much higher levels of attention to brands could be produced than was usual with standard advertising techniques (Lee & Youn, 2008). Evidence emerged from around the world that children were familiar with these games and the brands associated with them (Lee, Choi, Quilliam & Cole, 2009; Purswam, 2010; Quilliam, Lee, Cole & Kim, 2011). Children might not immediately recognise any persuasive intent in these advergames (Mallinckrodt & Mizerski, 2007; Moore & Rideout, 2007). The popularity of these games means that they draw children in and even though those youngsters may have developed some elementary or even advanced levels of advertising literacy, this learning and its associated cognitive defences are not triggered because the experience of game-playing is conceived as pure entertainment. Yet, the entertainment experience is likely to transfer also onto the brand (Hernandez & Chapa, 2010). It is not surprising therefore that advergames have emerged as an attractive marketing format for major brands, especially when they seek to appeal to children’s markets. As the production quality of advergames improves over time evidence indicates that their persuasive or brand-attention grabbing powers will also increase (Purswami, 2010). Although there is some evidence that by their teenage years, children develop some awareness that advergames have marketing intent, it has also been established that advertising literacy as a mediator of children’s reactions to brand promotions is most likely to emerge for advertisements that are separated off from surrounding content rather than when brands are integrated into entertainment material (Fielder, Gardner, Nairn & Pitt, 2007; An & Stern, 2011; Owen, Lewis, Auty & Buijzen, 2012). Yet, there is further evidence that as children become more experienced at playing advergames, they can become more critical of them and that this response can weaken the branding effects of these games (Rozendaal, Slot, van Reijmersdal & Buijzen, 2013).

Adverworlds Adverworlds represent expansions of advergames. Gaming environments are expanded beyond the playing of a single game into a parallel “virtual reality” in which a new digital world of existence is created with which users can engage via their computer screens (see Gunter, 2016). Adverworlds can be broadly divided into two types. The first evolved from major online games such as EverQuest, Lineage, and World of Warcraft. Over time, these games have evolved to become bigger and more sophisticated and to involve a range of online activities that represent different plot and sub-plots around the main game.

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The second type is the virtual world created from scratch as an environment in which online participants can engage with a wide range of activities. Such virtual worlds were not created around a single game or narrative. Instead, they provided digital environments in which participants (rather than “players”) can simply interact with other participants. Participants can also construct virtual buildings and landscaped surroundings by purchasing land using the virtual currency associated with that new world. Businesses can use such settings to create marketing opportunities through virtual world advertising and by establishing a branded physical presence on different virtual objects and entities. The best-known virtual worlds of this kind are Entropia Universe and Second Life. Among children, the most popular virtual worlds are Habbo Hotel, The Sims Online, and There. Brands have not been slow to use these virtual environments. As user bases have grown over time, adverworlds represents potentially effective platforms on which to reach consumers. Even though participants cannot spend real money in these settings, the companies behind them established transaction mechanisms through which those new currencies could be exchanged for real money. Hence, consumers in Second Life might be able to enter virtual stores operated by well-known retail brands and shop for brands that are also available on the offline world. Orders placed in the virtual setting could be delivered customers in the real physical world. The aim was to mirror as far as possible in the virtual world, the kinds of consumer behaviours people would display in the offline world (Kaltcheva & Weitz, 2006). The impact of adverworlds on children is still being understood. Certainly, the second decade of the 21st century witnessed a growth in these worlds targeted at children. Evidence also shown that these sites attracted children’s attention. Child-targeted sites varied in the extent to which children were engaged in transactions with real brands. Nonetheless, where they did, they offered their users multifaceted brand-related experiences through activities such as virtual window shopping and product browsing, “handling” products by moving them around on screen, engaging in chat with other users about brands, and even making trial brand selections that were then shared with and judged by other children online (Gunter, 2016). Some brands were also associated with the names of well-known celebrities, most especially ones known to be popular with children. Children were found to use these sites and to enjoy interacting with them (Skaar, 2009).

Final observations about children and advertising Just as digital technologies have evolved, so too opportunities for children to be exposed to advertising through their screen experiences have expanded and diversified. Not only have new screen technologies added new platforms

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to the repertoire of advertisers, but they have also introduced new ways in which children can engage with advertising. Whether exposure occurs via a television set, computer console or mobile telephone, for advertising to have any impact children must pay attention to it, they must understand what they are seeing, they must engage with it and perceive its relevance to them, and they must remember it. Children’s reactions to advertising on screen evolve with age and with advancing psychological development (Zuckerman et al., 1978; Wartella, Wackman, Ward, Shamir & Alexander, 1979; Chu et al., 2014). Early studies of children and advertising revealed that initial understanding about advertising was restricted to simple physical and perceptual judgements, for example differentiating between advertisements and programmes on television (Blatt, Spencer & Ward, 1972; Wartella & Ettema, 1974; Levin & Anderson, 1976; Blosser & Roberts, 1984). Next, children would pay closer attention to more detailed elements and ingredients of advertising messages such as the way products were demonstrated, described, and represented (Greer, Potts, Wright & Huston, 1982; Calvert & Scott, 1989; Rolandelli, 1989; Scott, 1990). Crude judgements about screen advertisements could be made by pre-schoolers (Levin et al., 1982; Kunkel & Roberts, 1991). During early and mid-school years, children display emerging abilities to make more sophisticated judgements about the message content of advertisements (Belk, Mayer & Driscoll, 1984; Nippold, Cuyler & Braumbeck-Price, 1988; Weinberg & Spotts, 1989). In particular, children’s attention is drawn by characters in advertisements (Kunkel, 1988b; Young, 1990). Where these characterisations resemble those seen in programmes on television, confusion can result (Sepstrup, 1986; Kunkel, 1991). Children also start to notice the sales arguments of advertisements and must then make judgements about whether to accept them or not (Donohue, Meyer & Hencke, 1978; Meyer, Donohue & Hencke, 1978; Gaines & Esserman, 1981; Moschis & Moore, 1982; Riecken & Yavas, 1990). During their pre-teen years, children already begin to assess advertisements by comparing the claims they make with their own direct experiences of the advertised brands (Randrup & Lac, 2000). They can display a detailed understanding of products and when it comes to information technologies, this comprehension can outstrip that of their parents (Bartholomew  & O’Donohue, 2003). Children develop their own tastes and preferences during this period of their development which they carry through into adolescence. Judgements about advertisements for brands are then assessed not just in terms of the promotional arguments about and visual representations of the brands but also in terms of associations that are formulated between brands and specific values and fashion trends that are important to youngsters (Moses & Baldwin, 2005; Wright et al., 2005; Rozendaal, Buijzen & Vlakenburg, 2010; van Reijmersdal, Rozendaal & Builzen, 2012).

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Once judgements have been made about advertisements, they along with internal representations of the commercial messages, must be committed to memory and be available for retrieval to guide future brand-related decisions (Robertson & Rossiter, 1977; Ward, Wackman & Wartella, 1977). Such memories include brand names, specific features of their promotional campaigns, their special and distinctive qualities, and values they represent (Keller, 2003; Pincott, 2009). Newer forms of advertising in online settings such as advergames and adverworlds can elicit some product recall in children after exposure, but this is not always as effective as recall of traditional forms of advertising (Grigorovich & Constantin, 2004). These forms of brand promotions can yield enhanced brand awareness among children if exposures occur often enough. There is, however, a lot of attentiondistracting content in online game and virtual reality settings and this can impede brand memory (Gunter, 2016). Screen technologies have evolved significantly during the 21st century and have, in turn, transformed the nature as well as location of advertising campaigns and promotional techniques. This new advertising landscape has posed many new questions about how children engage with and are influenced by advertising. It has offered many new opportunities to advertisers and also as many challenges to advertising regulators whose interests centre on the protection of consumers. Young consumers are regarded as being especially vulnerable because their understanding of advertising does not match that of mature consumers until they reach their early teens. With traditional forms of screen advertising found on television, children begin to question its veracity and truthfulness in their pre-teens (Bijmolt, Claasen & Brus, 1998). A critical orientation towards advertising can afford some degree of protection against it (Robinson, Saphir, Kraemer, Varady & Haydel, 2001). Even with pre-teens, it is possible to introduce interventions designed to enhance their knowledge about advertising that can reduce their susceptibility to influence (Buijzen, 2007). These abilities can mature naturally through personal experience, but educational interventions can accelerate their emergence (Livingstone & Helsper, 2006; Rozendaal, Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2011; Gunter, 2016). With new and more subtle forms of advertising on web sites and social networking sites, fresh interventions and approaches need to be developed to ensure that societies can meet the advertising literacy challenges posed by new screen platforms used by advertisers to enhance the safety of their children.

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Child consumerism  139 An, S., & Stern, S. (2011) Mitigating the effects of advergames on children: Do advertising breaks work? Journal of Advertising, 40(1), 43–56. Anderson, D. R., Alwitt, L. F., Lorch, E. P., & Levin, S. R. (1979) Watching children watch television. In G. Hale & M. Lewis (Eds.). Attention and Cognitive Development, pp. 331–361. New York, NY: Plenum. Andronikidis, A., & Lambrianidou, M. (2010) Children’s understanding of television advertising: A grounded theory approach. Psychology & Marketing, 27(4), 299–322. Araujo, T., & Neijens, P. (2012) Friend me: Which factors influence top global brands participation in social network sites. Internet Research, 22(5), 626–640. Barnes, S., & Mattson, J. (2008) Brand value in virtual worlds: An axiological approach. Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, 9(3), 195–206. Bartholomew, A., & O’Donohue, S. (2003) Everything under control: A child’s eye view of advertising. Journal of Marketing Management, 19(4), 433–457. Belk, R. W., Mayer, R., & Driscoll, A. (1984) Children’s recognition of consumption symbolism in children’s products. Journal of Consumer Research, 10, 386–397. Bijmolt, T. H. A., Claasen, W., & Brus, B. (1998) Children’s understanding of TV advertising: Effects of age, gender, and parental influence. Journal of Consumer Policy, 21, 171–194. Blatt, J., Spencer, L., & Ward, S. A. (1972) Cognitive-developmental study of children’s reaction to television advertising. In E. A. Rubinstein, G. A. Comstock & J. P. Murray (Eds.). Television and Social Behaviour, Vol. 4, Television in Day-toDay Life: Patterns of Use, pp. 452–467. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. Blosser, B. J., & Roberts, D. F. (1984) Age differences in children’s perceptions of message intent: Responses to TV news, commercials, educational spots and public service announcements. Communication Research, 12, 455–484. Brucks, M., Armstrong, G. M., & Goldberg, M. E. (1988) Children’s use of cognitive defences against television advertising: A cognitive response approach. Journal of Consumer Research, 14, 471–482. Bruner, J. (1973) Beyond the Information Given: Studies in the Psychology of Knowing. London, UK: W. W. Norton & Company. Buijzen, M. (2007) Reducing children’s susceptibility to commercials: Mechanisms of factual and evaluative advertising interventions. Media Psychology, 9, 411–430. Buijzen, M., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2000) The impact of television advertising on children’s Christmas wishes. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 44(3), 456–470. Butter, E. J., Popovich, P. M., Stackhouse, R. H., & Garner, R. K. (1981) Discrimination of television programs and commercials by pre-school children. Journal of Advertising Research, 21, 53–56. Calvert, S. K., & Scott, M. C. (1989) Sound effects for children’s temporal integration of fast-paced television content. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 33(3), 233–236. Christenson, P. G. (1982) Children’s perceptions of TV commercials and product: The effects of PSAs. Communication Research, 9(4), 491–524. Chu, M. T., Blades, M., & Herbert, J. (2014) The development of children’s scepticism about advertising. In M. Blades, C. Oates, F. Blumberg & B. Gunter (Eds.). Advertising to Children: New Directions, New Media, pp. 38–49. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

140  Child consumerism Churchill, G. A., & Moschis, G. P. (1979) Television and interpersonal influences on adolescent consumer learning. Journal of Consumer Research, 691, 23–25. Commons, M. L. (2008) Introduction to the model of hierarchical complexity and its relationship to postformal action. World Futures, 64(5–7), 305–320. Dahl, S., Eagle, L., & Baez, C. (2006) Analysing advergames: Active diversions or actually deception (Working Paper). Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/ papers.cfm?abstract_id=907841. Demetriou, A. (2003) Mind, self and personality: Dynamic interactions from late childhood to early adulthood. Journal of Adult Development, 10(3), 151–171. Donohue, T. R., Hencke, L. L., & Donohue, W. A. (1980) Non-verbal assessment of children’s understanding of television commercial content and programme market segmentation. Journal of Advertising Research, 20(5), 51–57. Donohue, T. R., Meyer, T. P., & Hencke, L. L. (1978) Black and white children’s perceptions of television commercials. Journal of Marketing, 42, 34–40. Dorr, A. (1986) Television and Children: A Special Medium for a Special Audience. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Evans, D. (2011) Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley. Ferrazzi, K., & Benezra, K. (2001) Journey to the top. Brandweek, 16th April, pp. 28–36. Fielder, A., Gardner, W., Nairn, A., & Pitt, J. (2007) Fair game? Assessing the commercial activity on children’s favourite websites and other online environments. National Consumer Council and Children International. Available at: https:// www.childnet.com/ufiles/fair-game-final.pdf. Accessed 26th August 2020. Friedstad, M., & Wright, P. (1994) The persuasion knowledge model: How people cope with persuasion attempts. Journal of Consumer Research, 21(1), 1–30. Greer, D., Potts, R., Wright, J. C., & Huston, A. C. (1982) The effects of television commercial form and commercial placement on children’s social behaviour and attention. Child Development, 53, 611–619. Grigorovici, D. M., & Constantin, C. D. (2004) Experiencing interactive advertising beyond rich media: Impacts of ad type on brand effectiveness in 3D gaming immersive virtual environments. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 5, 22–36. Gunter, B. (2016) Kids and Branding in a Digital World. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. Gunter, B., & Furnham, A. (1998) Children as Consumers: A Psychological Analysis of the Young People’s Market. London, UK: Routledge. Gunter, B., Oates, C., & Blades, M. (2005) Advertising to Children on TV: Content, Impact and Regulation. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Hernandez, M. D., & Chapa, S. (2010) Adolescents, advergames and snack foods: Effects of positive affect and experience on memory and choice. Journal of Marketing Communications, 16(1–2), 59–68. John, D. R. (1999) Consumer socialization of children: A retrospective look at twenty-five years of research. Journal of Consumer Research, 26, 183–213. Kaltcheva, V. D., & Weitz, B. A. (2006) When should a retailer create an exciting store environment? Journal of Marketing, 70(1), 107–118. Keller, K. L. (2003) Brand synthesis: The multidimensionality of brand knowledge. Journal of Consumer Research, 29, 595–600. King, L., Hebden, L., Grunseit, A., Kelly, B., Chapman, K., & Venugopal, K. (2011) Industry self-regulation of television food advertising: Responsible or responsive? International Journal of Paediatric Obesity, 6(2–2), e390–e398.

Child consumerism  141 Kunkel, D. (1988a) Children and host-selling television commercials. Communication Research, 15(1), 71–92. Kunkel, D. (1988b) From a raised eyebrow to a turned back: The FCC and children’s product-related programming. Journal of Communication, 38(4), 90–108. Kunkel, D. (1991) Crafting media policy: The genesis and implications of the Children’s Television Act of 1990. American Behavioural Scientist, 35, 181–202. Kunkel, D., & Roberts, D. (1991) Young minds and marketplace values: Issues in children’s television advertising. Journal of Social Issues, 47, 57–72. Kunkel, D., Wilcox, B. L., Cantor, J., Palmer, E., Linn, S., & Dowrick, P. (2004) Report of the APA Task Force on Advertising and Children. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Lawlor, M. A., & Prothero, A. (2003) Children’s understanding of television advertising intent. Journal of Marketing Management, 19, 411–431. Lee, M., Choi, Y., Quilliam, E. T., & Cole, R. T. (2009) Playing with food: Content analysis of food advergames. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 43(1), 129–154. Lee, M., & Faber, R. J. (2007) Effects of product placement in on-line games on brand memory: A perspective of the limited capacity model of attention. Journal of Advertising, 36(4), 75–90. Lee, M., & Youn, S. (2008) Leading national advertisers’ uses of advergames. Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, 30(2), 1–13. Levin, S. R., & Anderson, D. R. (1976) The development of attention. Journal of Communication, 26(2), 126–135. Levin, S. R., Petros, T. V., & Petrella, F. W. (1982) Preschoolers’ awareness of television advertising. Child Development, 53, 933–937. Livingstone, S., & Helsper, E. (2006) Does advertising literacy mediate the effects of advertising on children? A critical examination of two linked research literatures in relation to obesity and food choice. Journal of Communication, 56, 560–584. Macklin, M. C. (1987) Preschoolers’understanding of the informational function of television advertising. Journal of Consumer Research, 14, 229–239. Mallalieu, L., Palan, K. M., & Laczniak, R. N. (2005) Understanding children’s knowledge and beliefs about advertising: A global issue that spans generations. Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, 27(1), 53–64. Mallinckrodt, V., & Mizerski, D. (2007) The effects of playing an advergame on young children’s perceptions, preferences and requests. Journal of Advertising, 36(1), 87–100. McIlrath, M. (206) Children’s cognitive processing of internet advertising. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of California, Santa Barbara, Department of Communication. Meyer, T.P., Donohue, T. R., & Hencke, L. L. (1978) How black children see TV commercials. Journal of Advertising Research, 18(5), 51–62. Moore, E. S., & Rideout, V. (2007) The online marketing of food to children: Is it just fun and games? Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 26, 202–222. Moschis, G. P., & Moore, R. L. (1982) A longitudinal study of advertising effects. Journal of Consumer Research, 9(3), 279–286. Moses, L. J., & Baldwin, D. A. (2005) What can the study of cognitive development reveal about children’s ability to appreciate and cope with advertising? Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 24, 186–201.

142  Child consumerism Nagy, P., & Griffiths, A. K. (1982) Limitations of recent research relating Piaget’s theory to adolescent thought. Review of Educational Research, 52(4), 513–556. Nippold, M. A., Cuyler, J. S., & Braunbeck-Price, R. (1988) Explanation of ambiguous advertisements: A developmental study with children and adolescents. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 31, 466–474. Oates, C., Blades, M., Gunter, B., & Don, J. (2003) Children’s understanding of television advertising: A qualitative approach. Journal of Marketing Communications, 9, 59–71. Owen, L., Lewis, C., Auty, S., & Buijzen, M. (2012) Is children’s understanding of non-traditional advertising comparable with their understanding of television advertising? Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 32(2), 195–206. Packard, V. (1957) The Hidden Persuaders. London, UK: Longman. Panic, K., Cauberghe, V., & De Pelsmacker, P. (2013) Comparing TV ads and advergames targeting children: The impact of persuasion knowledge on behavioural responses. Journal of Advertising, 42(2–3), 264–273. Piaget, J. (1970) Piaget’s theory. In P. H. Mussen (Ed.). Carmichael’s Manual of Child Psychology, pp. 703–732. New York, NY: Wiley. Piaget, J. (1972) Intellectual evolution from adolescence to adulthood. Human Development, 15, 1–12. Pincott, G. (2009) The Keys to Brand Success. Millward-Brown: Pint of view. Available at: www.millwardbrown.com/Libraries/MB_POV_Downloads/MillwardBrown_POV_KeysToBrandSuccess. Accessed 23rd July 2013. Purswani, G. (2010) Advergames, their use and potential regulation. Asian Pacific Public Relations Journal, 11, 57–63. Quilliam, E. T., Lee, M., Cole, R. T., & Kim, M. (2011) The impetus for (and limited power of) business self-regulation: The example of advergames. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 24, 224–247. Randrup, L., & Lac, K. T. (2000) Children and TV commercials. Research paper No. 1. Department of marketing, Copenhagen Business School. Riecken, G., & Yavas, U. (1990) Children’s general product and brand-specific attitudes towards television commercials: Implications for public policy and advertising strategy. International Journal of Advertising, 9, 136–148. Robertson, T. S. (1979) Parental mediation of television advertising effects. Journal of Communication, 29, 12–25. Robertson, T. S., & Rossiter, J. R. (1977) Children’s responsiveness to commercials. Journal of Communication, 27(1), 101–106. Robinson, T. H., Saphir, M. N., Kraemer, H. C., Varady, A., & Haydel, K. F. (2001) Effects of reducing television viewing on children’s requests for toys: A randomized controlled trial. Developmental & Behavioural Paediatrics, 22(3), 179–184. Rolandelli, D. R. (1989) Children and television: The visual superiority effect reconsidered. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 33(1), 69–81. Rozendaal, E., Buijzen, M., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2009) Do children’s cognitive defences reduce their desire for advertised products? Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, 34, 287–303 Rozendaal, E., Buijzen, M., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2010) Comparing children’s and adults’ cognitive advertising competencies in the Netherlands. Journal of Children and Media, 4(1), 77–89.

Child consumerism  143 Rozendaal, E., Buijzen, M., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2011) Children’s understanding of advertisers’ persuasive tactics. International Journal of Advertising, 3(2), 329–350. Rozendaal, E., Lapierre, M. A., van Reijmersdal, E. A., & Buijzen, M. (2013) Children’s responses to advertising in social games. Media Psychology, 14(4), 333–354. Rozendaal, E., Slot, N., van Reijmersdal, E. A., & Buijzen, M. (2013) Children’s responses to advertising in social games. Journal of Advertising, 42(2–3), 142–154. Scott, L. M. (1990) Understanding jingles and needledrop: A theoretical approach to music in advertising. Journal of Consumer Research, 17, 223–236. Sepstrup, P. (1986) The electronic dilemma of television advertising. European Journal of Communication, 1, 381–405. Sharp, T., Dyer, R., & Divita, S. (1976) An experimental test of the harmful effects of premium-oriented commercials on children. Journal of Advertising Research, 3, 1–11. Skaar, H. (2009) Branded selves: How children in Norway relate to marketing on a social network site. Journal of Children and Media, 3(3), 249–267. Smith, P. K., Cowie, H., & Blades, M. (2003) Understanding Children’s Development. 4th ed. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Staiano, A. E., & Calvert, S. L. (2014) The influence of advergames on children’s consumer choices and behaviour. In M. Blades, C. Oates, F. Blumberg & B. Gunter (Eds.). Advertising to Children: New Directions, New Media, pp. 218–238. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Van Reijmersdal, E. R. A., Rozendaal, E., & Buijzen, M. (2012) Effects of prominence, involvement, and persuasion knowledge on children’s cognitive and affective responses to advergames. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 26(1), 33–42. Verhellen, Y., Oates, C., De Pelsmacker, P., & Dens, N. (2014) Children’s responses to traditional versus hybrid advertising formats: The moderating role of persuasion knowledge. Journal of Consumer Policy, 37(2), 235–255. Ward, S. (1974) Consumer socialization. Journal of Consumer Research, 1, 2–14. Ward, S., Levison, D., & Wackman, D. (1972) Children’s attention to advertising. In E. A. Rubinstein, G. A. Comstock, & J. P. Murray (Eds.). Television and Social Behaviour, Vol 4, Television in Day-to-Day Life: Patterns of Use. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. Ward, S., Wackman, D., & Wartella, E. (1975) Children Learning to Buy: The Development of Consumer Information Processing Skills. Cambridge, MA: Marketing Science Institute. Ward, S., Wackman, D., & Wartella, E. (1977) How Children Learn to Buy. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Wartella, E. (1980) Individual differences in children’s responses to television advertising. In E. L. Palmer & A. Dorr (Eds.) Children and the Faces of Television. New York, NY: Academic Press. Wartella, E. (1982) Changing conceptual views of children’s consumer information processing. In A. A. Mitchell (Ed.) Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 9, pp. 144–146. Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Consumer Research. Wartella, E., & Ettema, J. (1974) A cognitive developmental study of children’s attention to television commercials. Communication Research, 1, 46–69. Wartella, E., Wackman, D., Ward, S., Shamir, J., & Alexander, A (1979) The young child as consumer. In E. Wartella (Ed.). Children Communicating, Media and

144  Child consumerism Development of Thought, Speech, Understanding. Sage Annual Reviews of Communication Research, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Wilson, B. J., & Weiss, A. J. (1992) Developmental differences in children’s reactions to a toy advertisement linked to a toy-based cartoon. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 36(4), 371–394. Winkler, T., & Buckner, K. (2006) Receptiveness of gamers to embedded brand messages in advergames: Attitudes towards product placement. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 7(1), 37–46. Wright, P., & Barbour, F. (1975) The relevance of decision process models in structuring persuasion messages. Communication Research, 2, 246–259. Wright, P., Friestad, M., & Boush, M. (2005) The development of marketplace persuasion knowledge in children, adolescents and young adults. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 24(2), 222–233. Young, B. (1990) Children and Television Advertising. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. Zuckerman, P., Ziegler, M. E., & Stevenson, H. W. (1978) Children’s viewing of television and recognition memory for commercials. Child Development, 49, 96–104.

Chapter 9

Screen experiences and children’s health and well-being

Among young people, who have been the biggest and most enthusiastic adopters of new technologies, “screen time” is now divided between many different technologies. In examining the research literature about the impact of screen technology on children’s health and well-being, therefore, although television remains an important medium, further significant findings also derive from research into a number of other screen technologies and the distinctive content sources to which they provide access. Stiglic and Viner (2019) conducted a “review of reviews” of research into links between the time children and adolescents spend with screen technologies and measures of their health and well-being. Some studies examined screen-time links with weight and body mass index, others with sleep patterns, and others with mental health. These studies often collected additional data about youngsters’ dietary and exercise habits, home life, and school performance. Although there was some degree of variance in the findings, there was a clear pattern of results indicating that the more time children and adolescents spent in a sedentary mode with screen technology, the more likely they were to report poorer health. When exploring the reasons why this relationship consistently emerged, the reviewers noted that when more time was spent engaging with screen technologies, regardless of the content with which children engaged, ­parents tended to more around a lot less often. Watching or interacting with a screen was also often accompanied by eating. Thus, children ate more and exercised less, hence expending fewer calories when they engaged more often with screens. Inevitably therefore, some of them put weight on and became generally less fit (Stiglic & Viner, 2019). There remains a challenge for governments, health authorities, technology regulators, and parents in tackling this problem through advice or codes of practice. Research findings have demonstrated some inconsistencies which mean that not all of the evidence is sufficiently robust to yield reliable behaviour change recommendations. Sources vary in quality and Stiglic and Viner graded others’ research reviews in terms of their “quality”. It is significant that, in this “review of reviews”, the majority of sources that

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were cited were rated as being of poor quality, though it should be noted that these reviewers were evaluating the quality of other “reviews” and not ultimately the empirical quality of specific studies. One interesting aspect to the Stiglic and Viner (2019) “review of reviews” was that it differentiated the evidence discovered in terms of a number of “main effects”. Hence, studies distinguished in terms of whether they examined the effects of “overall screentime”, “television screentime”, “computer, video, mobile or other screentime”, and “dose-response effects”. Strong associations were reported between overall screen time and weight gain or higher body mass index. There was more moderate evidence for a link to obesity. Similar findings emerged in studies that focussed specifically on television screen time, although there was some variation in findings linking amount of television viewing to body mass index. Spending more time on other types of screens was also associated with being fatter and heavier. This relationship was even found to survive controls for diet and physical activity levels in at least one study (van Ekris, Alternburg, Singh, Proper, Heymans & Chinapaw, 2016). Van Ekris et al. (2016) reviewed 109 articles that reported studies from all over the world, although principally from Europe and North America. Television viewing measures were used in some of these studies as proxies for sedentary behaviour. Other sedentary behaviours included play board games, reading books, riding in a car and other pursuits that involved a lot of sitting around. Strong evidence emerged from a review of past findings and a meta-analysis in which data from the reviewed studies were combined in aggregate analyses that when children spent more time watching television, they often tended to exhibit weight gain, higher body-mass index scores and a greater propensity to be overweight and obese. There was no strong or consistent evidence that greater screen time was associated with higher blood pressure or poorer overall fitness. Some studies examined the increasing health impact of progressively heavier amounts of television viewing or of other screen-time behaviour. There was inconsistent evidence about how much screen use was “harmful” to health. Studies varied, for example, in whether weight gain occurred after just an hour a day of viewing, or only after at least two hours, three hours or four hours per day. What did emerge as a significant factor was the amount of eating that accompanied screen use. Children that watched more television and spent more time with other screen technologies often ate more as well. Furthermore, the kinds of food they ate when watching television tended to ones with high calorie values that were known to contribute to weight gain (Costiga, Barnett, Plotnikoff & Lubans, 2012). Evidence was patchy for relationships between screen-time behaviour and cardiovascular disease risk factors and general physical fitness, but there was some evidence that children that spent more time with screen technologies

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reported having lower self-esteem and a poorer quality of life (Hoare, Milton, Foster & Allender, 2016; Wu, Han, Zhang, Luo, Hu & Sun, 2017). Erin Hoare and her colleagues reviewed evidence about links between sedentary lifestyles and mental health problems. Screen-related behaviour is a sedentary activity, and some of the studies reviewed here provided evidence that heavier use of screen technologies for leisure was associated with some mental health symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. These authors conducted an extensive review of research evidence about the impact of screen-use time on users’ well-being. In the end they identified 13 reviews on this subject which formed the basis of their own review. Evidence concerned relationships between screen use and physical and mental health. Evidence was found for a link between screen time and higher levels of obesity and depression. Increased screen time exhibited modest relationships with eating more and a generally poorer quality of life. Evidence was weaker for possible effect of screen time on behaviour problems, psychosocial health, anxiety, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, cognitive ability and educational performance, cardiovascular problems, and generally poorer health and well-being. Thus, screen time can have unfortunate side-effects, but these are selective. Orden & Przybylski (2019a) conducted a specification curve analysis on data from 355,358 adolescent respondents to examine relationships between their use of digital technologies and general well-being. They critiqued past evidence and concluded that many previous studies of links between screen use and the physical and mental health of young people used problematic data on media behaviour. Orben and Przybylski found that there was evidence of a negative association between overall digital technology and measures of adolescent well-being, but the relationship was statistically very weak. In a follow-up, Orben and Przybylski (2019b) used a time-use-diary methodology coupled with questionnaires to collect behavioural and other psychological data from participants to determine whether screen use is linked to the overall well-being of adolescents. They challenged the veracity of more common self-report questionnaire measures of screen use. Their data were obtained from a large multinational sample of 17,247 adolescents drawn from Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They found little evidence for negative psychological side-effects associated with amount of screen use throughout the day or just before bedtime. In a further study, based at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, these researchers examined links between adolescents’ social media use and their life satisfaction. While there has bene widespread public concern about the role that social media play in the lives of children, this research indicated that youngsters’ general satisfaction with their lives was not substantially impacted by their use of social network sites (Orben, Dienlin & Przybylski, 2019). Once again, concerns were voiced about the

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methodologies of earlier research. Many studies were based on small and unrepresentative samples and also relied on self-reported data that had questionable veracity. In another large-scale investigation, data were obtained from 12,672 10to 15-year-olds over eight survey waves. Self-reports were obtained about social media use: “How many hours do you spend chatting or interacting with friend through a social website like (Bebo, Facebook, MySpace) on a normal day?” Time spent on social media was related to decreased satisfaction with life among boys and girls. These effects were small, however (Scharkow, 2016). In another investigation, David, Roberts & Christenson (2017) collected data about actual smartphone use and examined how this behaviour related to users’ general well-being. Despite the clams of critics that too much smartphone use is bad for well-being, the evidence found here did not give unequivocal support for this conclusion. Some apps on mobile phones can even generate positive side-effects. Hence the effects of smartphones need closer inspection. They may not be linked to overall use of this screen technology, but might be sensitive to the use of specific types of mobile technology applications. All these findings were concerned mostly with overall amount of use of screen media and general well-being. As we will see, it can be insightful to differentiate between patterns of screen use and specific health conditions.

Screen use and physical well-being The relationship between television viewing and weight gain can be explained in terms of reduced energy expenditure rates when sedentary. Research has shown that not only do energy expenditure levels among children fall when they sit in front of the television or at a computer than when moving around but that metabolic rate tends to decrease more among children with a propensity to become obese (Klesges, Shelton & Klesges, 1993). Any weight gain here can be offset by ensuring children eat a healthy diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables (Burke, Beilin, Durkin, Stritzke, Houghton & Cameron, 2006). Hence, it is important when measuring possible effects of sedentary screen use on weight gain, that leads possibly to obesity and other related health issues to separate out the impact of screen use other influences. There is also evidence that the type of content being viewed or used can have distinctive effects in addition to the sheer amount of screen behaviour. Weight gain through viewing can occur as a result of the child eating at the same time and possibly eating more than they would if they focussed more on what they were eating (Marsh, Ni Mhurchu & Maddison, 2013). Linking back to the previous chapter, exposure to food advertising while viewing television, surfing web sites or engaging with social media might

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expose the child to cues that trigger thoughts about eating. Furthermore, since much advertising aimed at children promotes foods high in sugar and fat content, youngsters might be cued to eat more foods from which they gain the most weight. Many frequently advertised foods in television programmes popular with children also contain high quantities of salt which can lead to other health problems such as hypertension which, in turn, contributes to heat disease and problems with other essential organs in the body (Gunter, 2016). There is ample evidence from research with adults to show that the likely onset of chronic and serious health conditions can be increased by leading a sedentary lifestyle and eating a poor diet with television viewing identified as a contributory factor (Jakes, Day, Khaw, Luben, Oakes, Welch, Bingham & Wareham, 2003; Healy, Dunstan, Salmon, Shaw, Zimmet & Owen, 2008; Sugiyama, Healy, Dunstan, Salmon & Owen, 2008; Dunstan, Barr, Healy, Salmon, 2010; Stamatakis, Hamer & Dunstan, 2011). Research with children, from kindergarten to adolescence, has indicated that greater amounts of television viewing and engaging with screen technologies in general have been linked to weight gain, poorer sleeping patterns, and then poorer academic performance at school (Thompson & Christakis, 2005; Danner, 2008; Yan, Zhang, Oniffrey, Chen, Wang, Wu, Zhang, Wang, Ma, Li & Moore, 2017). Elsewhere, screen-time, including television viewing, video game playing and computer use, was associated with the occurrence of metabolic problems and obesity among 14- to 18-year-olds. Greater weight problems were also associated with increased likelihood of mental health issues, such as depression. The findings also indicated that the amount of time adolescents spend using screen technology can be a risk factor associated depressive symptoms, possibly also brought on by weight gain (Goldfield, Murray, Maras, Wilson, Phillips, Kenny, Hadjiyannakis, Alberga, Cameron, Tulluch  & Sigal, 2016).

Screen use and sleep Reference has already been made to the negative impact of screen use on the quality of children’s sleep. A number of studies from around the world has confirmed that this can be a serious issue with potential knock-on health effects. American parents reported that their children sleep less when they use screens more often (Drescher, Goodwin, Silva & Quan 2011). One specific problem is that when children engage with screen technologies just before going to bed, this can be particularly disruptive to their sleep patterns. It might mean they go to bed later and that they are aroused from screen exposure and therefore not ready to go to sleep (Li, Jin, Wu, Jiang, Yan & Shen, 2007; Cain & Gradisar, 2010; Cillero & Jago, 2010; Garrison, Liekweg  & Christakis, 2011; Hale & Guan, 2015). Parents should take particular care over allowing their children to keep screen technologies in their bedrooms

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(Dennison, Erb & Jenkins, 2002; Delmas, Platat, Schweitzer, Wagner, Oujaa & Simon, 2007; Chahal, Fung, Kuhle & Veugelers, 2013). Reduced amounts of sleeping associated with screen use was observed among infants up to age two in Singapore, with the youngest being the most seriously affect (Chen, van Dam, Tan, Chua, Wong, Bernard & MullerRiemenschneider, 2019). Poor sleep patterns have, in turn, been related among children to weight gain with its contingent adverse health side-effects (Hale & Guan, 2015; Sourtiji, Hosseine, Rassafiani, Kohan, Noroozi & Motlagh, 2018). Even when television is on in the background, children’s sleep can be disturbed by it. This, once again, was found among babies. While other factors such as general sleep patterns, the nature of the home environment, night-time waking patterns, and how parents respond to these episodes all play critical roles in determining how infants sleep, the presence of screen technology enters the mix of factors that can have a significant impact (Chonchaiya, Wilaisakditipakorn, Vijakkhana & Proksananonda, 2017). Negative effects of television viewing continue to be felt after infancy among children approaching school-age and beyond (Magee, Lee & Vella, 2014; Cheung, Bedford, Saez de Urabain, Karmiloff-Smith & Smith, 2017). It is not just the amount of television viewing that can disrupt sleep patterns in children but also the type of content they watch. Research has shown that greater viewing of violent media content during the day was associated with sleep problems among preschool children (Certain & Kahn, 2002; Garrison et al., 2011). Further research conducted in India among children aged six to 16 years reported television viewing as a risk factor for disrupted sleep and also for obesity. Decreased sleep can be a risk factor for obesity in its own right, while television viewing can disrupt sleep and contribute to weight gain in children where is displaces physical activity and encourages a more sedentary lifestyle (Kuriyan, Bhat, Thomas, Vaz & Kurpad, 2007). In the next section, we take a closer look at the links between screen technology use during childhood and obesity.

Screen use and obesity Excessive use of screen technologies has been consistently linked to childhood obesity (Robinson, 2001; Utter, Neumark-Sztainer, Jeffrey & Story, 2003; Henderson, 2007; Boone, Gordon-Larsen, Adair & Popkin, 2007; Danner, 2008; Rey-Lopez, Vicente-Rodriguez, Biosca & Moreno, 2008; Jackson, Djafarian, Stewart & Speakman, 2009; Courage & Setliff, 2010; AAP Council on Communications and Media & Strasburger, 2011; Ford, Ward & White, 2012). Screen use and obesity are linked primarily through the variable of sedentariness. Engaging with screen technologies tends to be a physical passive behaviour that does not burn many calories (Marshall, Biddle, Gorely, Cameron & Murdey, 2004; Robinson, Bandam, Hale, Lu, Fleming-Milici, Calvert & Wartella, 2017).

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Given that many parents also feed their children in front of the screen, screen-related behaviour is frequently associated with eating. If children over-eat while viewing, particularly if food-related cues in televised advertising appear in front of them, we end up with a recipe for childhood weight gain (Downing, Hnatiuk & Hesket, 2015). When parents allow (and even encourage) passive screen use from an early age, longer-term health issues can be built up that stretch into adulthood (Erik Landhuis, Poulton, Welch & Hancox, 2008; Parsons, Manor & Power, 2008). If this behaviour is modified early enough, however, the health risks associated with excessive sedentary behaviour in childhood can be reduced (Epstein, Voloski, Vara, McCurley, Wisniewski, Kalarchian, Klein & Shrager, 1995; Gortmaker, Peterson, Wiecha, Sobol, Dixit, Fox & Laird, 1999; Robinson, 1999a, b; Epstein, Roemmich, Robinson, Paluch, Winiewicz, Fuerch & Robinson, 2008). Children who are sedentary because they spend a lot of time sitting around reading books and comics or doing homework have also been found to put on weight if they do not counterbalance this low-level physical activity with more vigorous exercise (Utter et al., 2003; Giammattei, Blix, Marshak, Wollitzer & Pettitt, 2003; Ford et al., 2012). In addition, however, children who watched a lot of screen entertainment have also been found to engage more often in unhealthy eating behaviours because of eating-related cues associated with viewing that come from parents and from screen content (Cox, Skouteris, Rutherford, Fuller Tyszkiewicz, Delf’Aquila & Hardy, 2012; Gunter, 2016). The link between over-viewing as part of a more sedentary lifestyle and weight gain is especially likely to occur among girls (Boone, Gorden-Lasen, Adair & Popkin, 2007). Children can burn off energy through vigorous physical exercise and those youngsters that are reportedly more physically active do exhibit greater energy expenditure levels. Despite this, if they spend a lot of time passively watching television, they are still more likely to make fat gains and physical exercise does not invariably offset this outcome (Jackson et al., 2009). Screen experiences in childhood, regardless of the time they occupy for individual children, have bene linked to specific eating patterns. In particular, greater amounts of television viewing have been found, by numerous surveys, to relate to greater consumption of foods of low nutritional quality by high calorie content (Boynton-Jarret, Thomas, Peterson, Wiecha, Sobol & Gortmaker, 2003; Larson, Neumark-Sztainer, Story, Wall, Harnack  &  Risenberg, 2008; Barr-Anderson, Larson, Nelson, NeumarkSztainer & Story, 2009). It has been suggested that because television carries a lot of advertising for poor nutritional quality foods, that it shapes children’s dietary preferences (Wiecha, Peterson, Ludwig, Kim, Sobol & Gortmaker, 2006; Ford et al., 2012). This might shape the quality of children’s diets by encouraging preferences for food of high calorific value (Downing et al., 2015; Hu, Ding, Yang, Na, Gao & Wen, 2019). At the same time, greater

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viewing has been associated with reduced tastes for healthier foods such as fruits and vegetables (Ford et al., 2012). The end-result, as confirmed by a number of studies from different parts of the world is that more viewing equates to poorer dietary habits, less exercise, body fat gain, weight gain and onset of obesity. Some evidence also emerged that reduced screen use was linked to being more physically active, eating a healthier diet and maintaining a healthy weight (Salmon, Campbell  & Crawford, 2006; Lazarou & Soteriades, 2010; Kirstiansen, Jiliusson, Eide, Roelants & Bjerknes, 2013). One study of children aged five to 13 years found that the negative effects of screen use on being overweight or obese was restricted to the use of television and not to other screen technologies (Wake, Hesketh & Waters, 2003).

Screen effects over time Much of the research about children’s use of screen technologies and their health status has relied on one-off or cross-sectional surveys. These surveys gather data from samples of children at one point in time and are reliant on self-report data provided either by children themselves (if they are old enough and sufficiently articulate to respond on their own behalf) or by others, usually parents, other caregivers or schoolteachers. A few studies have collected data from child samples over time, revisiting them after an initial survey to follow up with further questions about their screen-related behaviour, general activity levels and general state of health. Another approach has been to construct interventionist studies that investigate children under controlled conditions and take repeat measures to monitor behaviour changes contingent on specific screen experiences. Longitudinal and interventionist studies are not very numerous because of the resources they usually require to set up and implement. Nonetheless, they have confirmed the evidence from most cross-sectional surveys that there is a link between television viewing and unhealthy behaviour and weight gain in children (Council on Communications Media & Strasburger, 2011; Tremblay, LeBlanc, Kho, Saunders, Larouche, Colley, Goldfield & Gorber, 2011; Falbe, Rosner, Willett, Sonneville, Hu & Field, 2013). A controlled experiment was carried out with children aged four to seven years. Children were selected with higher BMI. Half were randomly assigned to a condition where they were encouraged to reduce their television viewing and computer use by 50% and the remainder continued to use these technologies as usual. Repeated measurements were taken at six-monthly intervals over two years with data collected on technology use, energy intake, and exercise levels. Children in the intervention condition exhibited significant reductions in sedentary behaviour and energy intake levels compared to the control group. There was no notable change in physical exercise levels (Robinson, 1999).

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Longitudinal surveys which track children over time have confirmed cross-sectional results by showing that heavier habitual use of screen technologies, such as television sets, is often significantly associated with child weight problems. Hence, children displaying heavier patterns of use of screen media at one point in time, subsequently display more weight gain over time (Proctor, Moore, Gao, Cupples, Bradlee, Hood & Ellison, 2003). Research with American teenagers aged 13–18 years found that greater screen use over time was linked with a higher probability of weight gain and obesity as adolescents approached early adulthood. If screen use was initially heavy but then gradually eased off, the probability of weight-gain also receded. Greater physical activity was negatively linked to obesity, but might not be enough to offset it where risk factors such as over-use of screen technologies was not brought under control (Boone et al., 2007). Australian research followed through the same participants over a span of 15 years and collected data at six time points about their television watching behaviour and their percentage body fat. Participants were five years old at the start and 20 years old by the final wave of data collection. The evidence showed that lighter levels of television watching during early childhood were related to low body fat levels by early adulthood even among those individuals that exhibited some increases in their screen use during their adolescence (McVeigh, Smith, Howie & Straker, 2016). The mechanisms underpinning weight gain under these circumstances, however, are believed to amount to more than simply increased sedentariness. When children spend more time with screen technologies, this might eat into their physical exercise time and it might also reduce their metabolic rate which means they store more calories rather than burn them off. Screen experiences might also cue children to eat more food and more unhealth foods that are high in calorie content (Halford, Boyland, Hughes, Oliveira & Dovey, 2007; Anschutz, Engels & Van Strien, 2009; Harris, Bargh & Brownell, 2009). So, it is through a combination of physical activity displacement and changes to eating habits that excess screen behaviour ultimately results in weight gain among children. (Marshall et al., 2004; Jenvey, 2007; Taveras, Field, Berkey, Rifas-Shiman, Frazier, Colditz & Gillman, 2007; Epstein et al., 2008). Jennifer Falbe and her colleagues conducted a cohort study with nearly over 6,000 female and nearly 5,000 male adolescents in the United States. The researchers wanted to find out if changes in food consumption patterns could be measured over a two-year period and linked to patterns of screen used over this time. The participants were aged between nine and 16 years. Screen use included television viewing and use of electronic games and digital versatile discs (DVDs)/videos. The results showed that as the use of television, electronic games, and DVDs/videos increased, so did the children consumptions of foods of low nutritional quality, such as sweet and savoury snack foods. Meanwhile, their consumption of fruit and vegetables decreased. These changes were found to occur similarly for girls and boys.

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Exposure to food consumption triggers The potential impact of television and other screen experiences on weight gain and obesity does arise only from the overall amount of time spent not moving, but also from specific food-related triggers to which viewers are exposed while viewing. These triggers tend usually to take the form of food advertisements within and in-between programmes. These messages may present direct incentives to viewers to eat even when they are not hungry. Their constant and repeated appearance might encourage viewers to continue eating or to eat more unnecessarily when they thought they had finished or were full (Strasburger, 2011). The most heavily advertised food promotion messages also tend to be products generally classed as being of poor nutritional quality. Hence, poor diets and eating habits are encouraged, especially in the vulnerable young, that have knock-on health implications (Wiecha et al., 2006; Sonnevill & Gortmaker, 2008; Miller, Taveras, Rifas-Shimon & Gillman, 2008). Greater exposure to this advertising can cultivate stronger short-term and lasting impact on food preferences and eating habits (Harris et al., 2009; Zimmerman & Bell, 2010; Speers, Harris & Schwartz, 2011).

Promoting good health and healthy screen use The rapid evolution of the digital landscape has expanded the availability of screen technologies and diversified the platforms on which screen-mediate content can be received and consumed. Children all over the world have enthusiastically adopted new digital technologies and made extensive use of them (Allen, 2017; Revoir, 2020). In consequence, many children spend disproportionate amounts of time engaging with screen-based activities which can have serious health consequences for them. Bad screen use habits can become conditioned before a child starts school. There is therefore an onus on parents and carers to monitor the use of screen technologies by children under their watch, to limit this behaviour, to talk to the child about it and to encourage other activities that may keep the child more active in relation to a diversity of physical and mental pursuits (Ponti, Belanger, Grimes, Heard, Johnson, Moreau, Norris, Shaw, Stanwick, Van Lankveld & Williams, 2017). Interventions can be introduced into children’s lives to reduce their use of screen technologies. These have been found to have some effectiveness in reducing sedentary behaviour compared with children with whom no such interventions have been applied (Epstein et al., 2008). There are good reasons for instilling internalised self-control over screen technology in children. Among these are observations that habitual sedentary behaviour developed during childhood continues into later life contributing to adult weight gain and obesity (Hu, Li, Colditz, Willett & Manson, 2003).

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Some researchers have even tested interventions that control the amount of television individuals can watch with television lock being used to incapacitate a TV set after it has been viewed for a pre-specified time period (Otten, Jones, Littenberg, Harvey-Berino, 2009). Using screen technologies tends to be sedentary in nature. There are other activities, such as reading, sitting in cars or being pushed around in mobile chairs, and lounging around at home, that are also sedentary and involve minimal physical activity on the part of the child. Although there may be good reasons for children being in the sedentary positions, but they must be counterbalanced with some degree of more physical activity that exercises their bodies. Out of many different sedentary activities, however, screen technology use is one that tends more often to be associated with becoming overweight and also as impeding some areas of cognitive development. These outcomes are caused in part by the relative inactivity of screen use and the fact that with some types of screen behaviour, especially with watching television, children often eat at the same time (Poitras, Gray, Janssen, Aubert, Carson, Faulkner, Goldfield, Reilly, Sampson & Tremblay, 2017). The evidence that this is an international problem means that parents, health educators, and government regulators around the world need to pay more attention to children’s screen-related habits.

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158  Health and well-being Healy, G., Dunstan, D., Salmon, J., Shaw, J., Zimmet, P., & Owen. N. (2008) Television time and continuous metabolic risk in physically active adults. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 40(4), 639–645. Henderson, V. R. (2007) Longitudinal associations between television viewing and body mass index among white and black girls. Journal of Adolescent Health, 41, 544–550. Hoare, E. Milton, K., Foster, C., & Allender, S. (2016) The association between sedentary behaviours and mental health among adolescents: A systematic review. International Journal of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity, 13, 108. Hu, F. B., Li, T. Y., Colditz, G. A., Willett, W. C., & Manson, J. E. (2003) Television watching and other sedentary behaviors in relation to risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus in women. Journal of the American Medical Association, 289, 1785–1791. Hu, J., Ding, N., Yang, L., Ma, Y., Gao, M., & Wen, D. (2019) Association between television viewing and early childhood overweight and obesity: A pair-matched case-control study in China. BMC Pediatrics, 19(1), 184. Jackson, D. M., Djafarian, K., Stewart, J., & Speakman, J. R. (2009) Increased television viewing is associated with elevated body fatness but not with lower total energy expenditure in children. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 89(4), 1031–1034. Jakes, R. W., Day, N. E., Khaw, K. T., Luben, R., Oakes, S., Welch, A., Bingham, S., & Wareham, N. J. (2003) Television viewing and low participation in vigorous recreation are independently associated with obesity and markers of cardiovascular disease risk: EPIC-Norfolk population-based study. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 57, 1089–1096. Jenvey, V. B. (2007) The relationship between television viewing and obesity in young children: A review of existing explanations. Early Child Development and Care, 177, 809–820. Kirstiansen, H., Juliusson, P. B., Eide, G. E., Roelants, M., & Bjerknes, R. (2013) TV viewing and obesity among Norwegian children: The importance of parental education. Acta Paediatrica, 102(2), 199–205. Klesges, R. C., Shelton, M. L., & Klesges, L. M. (1993) Effects of television on metabolic rate: Potential implications for childhood obesity. Pediatrics, 91(2), 281–286. Kuriyan, R., Bhat, S., Thomas, T., Vaz, M., & Kurpad, A. V. (2007) Television viewing and sleep are associated with overweight among urban and semi-urban South Indian children. Nutrition Journal, 6, 25. Larson, N. I., Neumark-Sztainer, D. R., Story, M. T., Wall, M. M., Harnack, L. J., & Eisenberg, M. E. (2008) Fast food intake: Longitudinal trends during the transition to young adulthood and correlates of intake. Journal of Adolescent Health, 43, 79–86. Lazarou, C., & Soteriades, E. S. (2010) Children’s physical activity, TV watching and obesity in Cyprus: The Cykids study. European Journal of Public Health, 20(1), 70–77. Li, S., Jin, X., Wu, S., Jiang, F., Yan, C., & Shen, X. (2007) The impact of media use on sleep patterns and sleep disorders among school-aged children in China. Sleep, 30(3), 361–370. Magee, C. A, Lee, J. K., & Vella, S. A. (2014) Bidrectional relationships between sleep duration and screen time in early childhood. JAMA Pediatrics, 168, 465–470.

Health and well-being  159 Marsh, S., Ni Mhurchu, C., & Maddison, R. (2013) The non-advertising effects of screen-based sedentary activities on acute eating behaviours in children, adolescents and young adults: A systematic review. Appetite, 72, 259–273. Marshall, S. J., Biddle, S. J., Gorely, T., Cameron, N., & Murdey, I. (2004) Relationships between media use, body fatness and physical activity in children and youth: A meta-analysis. International Journal of Obesity Related Metabolic Disorders, 28, 1238–1246. McVeigh, J., Smith, SA., Howie, E., & Straker, L. (2016) Trajectories of television watching from childhood to early adulthood and their association with body composition and mental health outcomes in young adults. PLoS One, 10, e0152879. Miller, S. A., Taveras, E. M., Rifas-Shiman, S. L., & Gillman, M. W. (2008) Association between television viewing and poor diet quality in young children. International Journal of Paedriatics and Obesity, 3, 168–176. Orben, A., Dienlin, T., & Przybylski, A. K. (2019) Social media’s enduring effect on adolescent life satisfaction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116(21), 10226–10228. Orben, A., & Przybylski, A. K. (2019a) The association between adolescent wellbeing and digital technology use. Nature in Human Behaviour, 3(2), 173–182. doi:10.1038/s41562-108-0506-1. Orben, A., & Przybylski, A. K. (2019b) Screens, teens, and psychological wellbeing: Evidence from three time-use-diary studies. Psychological Science, 30(5). doi:10.1177/0956797619830329. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/ full/10.1177/0956797619830329. Accessed 26th August 2020. Otten, J. J., Jones, K. E., Littenberg, B., & Harvey-Berino, J. (2009) Effects of television viewing reduction on energy intake and expenditure in overweight and obese adults: A randomized controlled trial. Archives of Internal Medicine, 169, 2109–2015. Parsons, T. J., Manor, O., & Power, C. (2008) Television viewing and obesity: A prospective study in the 1958 British birth cohort. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 62, 1355–1363. Poitras, V. J., Gray, C. E., Janssen, X., Aubert, S., Carson, V., Faulkner, G., Goldfield, G. S., Reilly, J. J., Sampson, M., & Tremblay, M. S. (2017) Systematic review of the relationships between sedentary behaviour and health indicators in the early years (0–4 years). BMC Public Health, 17, 55. Ponti, M., Belanger, S., Grimes, R., Heard, J., Johnson, M., Moreau, E., Norris, M., Shaw, A., Stanwick, R., Van Lankveld, J., & Williams, R. (2017) Screen time and young children: Promoting health and development in a digital world. Paediatrics & Child Health, 22(8), 461–468. Proctor, M. H., Moore, L. L., Gao, D., Cupples, L. A., Bradlee, M. L., Hood, M.  Y.,  & Ellison, R. C. (2003) Television viewing and change in body fat from preschool to early adolescence: The Framingham Children’s Study. International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders, 27(7), 827–833. Revoir, P. (2020, 11th February). Youngsters aged eight to 19 stare at smartphone or TV screens for 44 hours each week, new report reveals. Mail Online. Available at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7989359/Youngsters-aged-eight-19stare-smartphone-TV-screens-44-hours-week.html. Rey-Lopez, J. P., Vicente-Rodriguez, G., Biosca, M., & Moreno, L. A. (2008) Sedentary behavioural and obesity development in children and adolescents. Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Disease, 18, 242–251.

160  Health and well-being Robinson, T. N. (1999a) The role of television viewing and education in reduced body mass indexes in children. Archives on Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, 162(9), 899. Robinson, T. N. (1999b) Reducing children’s television viewing to prevent obesity: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of the American Medical Association, 282, 1561–1567. Robinson, T. N. (2001) Television viewing and childhood obesity. Pediatric Clinics of North America, 48(4), 1017–1025. Robinson, T. N., Bandam, J. A., Hale, L., Lu, A. S., Fleming-Milici, F., Calvert, S. L., & Wartella, E. (2017) Screen media exposure and obesity in children and adolescents. Pediatrics, 140 (Suppl. 2), S97–S101. Salmon, J., Campbell, K. J., & Crawford, D. A. (2006) Television viewing habits associated with obesity risk factors: A survey of Melbourne schoolchildren. Medical Journal of Australia, 184(2), 64–67. Scharkow, M. (2016) The accuracy of self-reported internet use – A validation study using client log data. Communication Methods and Measurement, 10, 13–27. Sonneville, K. R., & Gortmaker, S. L. (2008) Total energy intake, adolescent discretionary behaviors and the energy gap. International Journal of Obesity, 32(Suppl. 6), S19–627. Sourtiji, H., Hosseini, S. A., Rassafiani, M., Kohan, A., Noroozi, M., & Motlagh, M. E. (2018) The associations between screen time, sleep duration, and body mass index (BMI) in under five-year-old children. Archives of Neuroscience, 6(1) e81229. Speers, S. E., Harris, J. L., & Schwartz, M. B. (2011) Child and adolescent exposure to food and beverage brand appearances during prime-time television programming. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 41, 291–296. Stamatakis, E., Hamer, M., & Dunstan, D. W. (2011) Screen-based entertainment time, all-cause mortality, and cardiovascular events: Population-based study with ongoing mortality and hospital events follow-up. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 57(3), 292–299. Stiglic, N., & Viner, R. M. (2019) Effects of screen time on the health and wellbeing of children and adolescents: A systematic review of reviews. BMJ Open, 9(1). doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2018-023191. Available at: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/ content/9/1/e023191. Accessed 26th August 2020. Strasburger, V. C. (2011) Children, adolescents, obesity, and the media. Pediatrics, 128, 201–208. Sugiyama, T., Healy, G. N., Dunstan, D. W., Salmon, J., & Owen, N. (2008) Is television viewing time a marker of a broader pattern of sedentary behaviour? Annals of Behavioural Medicine, 35(2), 245–250. Taveras, E. M., Field, A. E., Berkey, V. S., Rifas-Shiman, S. L., Frazier, A. L., Colditz, G. A., & Gillman, M. W. (2007) Longitudinal relationship between television viewing and leisure-time physical activity during adolescence. Pediatrics, 119, e314–e319. Thompson, D. A., & Christakis, D. A. (2005) The association between television viewing and irregular sleep schedules among children less than 3 yr of age. Pediatrics, 116, 851–856. Tremblay, M. S., LeBlanc, A. G., Kho, M. E., Saunders, T. J., Larouche, R., Colley, R. C., Goldfield, G., & Gorber, S. C. (2011) Systematic review of sedentnary behaviour and health indicators in school-aged children and youth. International Journal of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity, 8, 98.

Health and well-being  161 Utter, J., Neumark-Sztainer, D. F., Jeffery, R., & Story, M. (2003) Couch potatoes or French fries: Are sedentary behaviours associated with body mass index, physical activity, and dietary behaviours among adolescents? Journal of the American Dietary Association, 103, 298–1305. Van Ekris, E., Altenburg, T. M., Singh, A. S., Proper, K. I., Heymans, M. W., & Chinapaw, M. J. M. (2016) An evidence-update on the prospective relationship between childhood sedentary behaviour and biomedical health indicators: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Obesity Reviews, 17(9), 833–849. doi:10.1111/ obr.12426. Wake, M., Hesketh, K., & Waters, E. (2003) Television, computer use and body mass index in Australian primary school children. Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health, 39(2), 130–134. Wiecha, J. L., Peterson, K. E., Ludwig, D. S., Kim, J., Sobol, A., & Gortmaker, S. L. (2006) When children eat what they watch: Impact of television viewing on dietary intake in youth. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 160, 436–442. Wu, X. Y., Han, L. H., Zhang, J. H., Luo, S., Hu, J. W., & Sun, K. (2017) The influence of physical activity, sedentary behaviour on health-related quality of life among the general population of children and adolescents: A systematic review. PLoS One, 12(11), e0187668. Yan, H., Zhang, R., Oniffrey, T. M., Chen, G., Wang, Y, Wu, Y., Zhang, X., Wang, Q., Ma, L., Li, R., & Moore, J. B. (2017) Associations among screen time and unhealthy behaviours, academic performance, and well-being in Chinese adolescents. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 14(6), 596. Zimmerman, F. J., & Bell, J. F. (2010) Associations of television content type and obesity in children. American Journal of Public Health, 100, 334–340.

Chapter 10

Screen experiences and school performance

Screen technology plays a big part in the education of children. Computers have become default educational tools in schools, colleges, and universities. The use of online repositories to access educational resources for specific courses is the norm. Universities have even supplied mobile devices, smartphones, or tablet computers as incentives to students to register on their courses. The use of screen devices, however, in both formal and informal educational settings predates the era of portable computerised technologies. The idea of using media content as educational material has been around for a long time. Long before the creation of the Internet, television screens were being used in educational contexts. Programmes were made especially for use in schools (Moss, Jones & Gunter, 1991). Research projects abounded that investigated teachers’ use of television in the classroom (Langham, 1990). Traditionally, textbooks had formed a major aspect of formal teaching and learning exercises. The use of narrative content from printed news media or audio and video broadcasts is not such a big stretch from that. By the late 1960s, educational professionals and broadcast content producers had started to work together to create television programmes that would combine entertainment formats with instruction. Initially these programmes targeted pre-school children and especially those from socially disadvantaged areas. The best known of these programmes was Sesame Street. Others such as Captain Kangaroo and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood used similar techniques with similar learning objectives. Developing at first in the United States, these programmes and others that followed on, rapidly spread around the world with, for example, multiple different language versions of Sesame Street being produced. The main aim of this “educational television” was to enhance children’s basic cognitive skills to make them more ready for school (Lesser, 1974; Lesser & Schneider, 2001). Over time, the educational objectives of these programmes shifted to reflect changes to educational policies and styles. The original focus on cognitive skills learning was supplemented and eventually largely supplanted by social and emotional learning. Children often needed to learn not just

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how to learn in the sense of possession of essential skills in literacy and numeracy through which other knowledge acquisition could take place but also how to behave in school settings. Children needed to control their base impulses and learn how to get along with others, obey rules and regulations, and internalise behaviour codes that were conducive to learning rather than being disruptive. Parents have welcomed educational television because it represents a cheap form of learning for their children helping them to perform better in school and hopefully reaping longer-term benefits in later life. Once parents started to believe in the benefits for their children of watching educational television, the more they would encourage their children to tune in. American research found that parental beliefs that educational videos brought real learning benefits to their children motivated their purchase and use (Rideout, Vandewater & Wartella, 2003). Educational media are widely used by pre-schoolers but tend to lose their appeal after children have started school and develop new viewing tastes. This pattern has persisted even during the digital era where educational media content has moved online or is available through mobiles “apps”. While educationally oriented television programmes continued to bring learning benefits to children if they watched these programmes, over time, these television shows proved less attractive than general entertainment programmes (Calvert & Kotler, 2003). Ultimately the impact of educational media depended upon whether it provided relevant behavioural models or cognitively storable scripts concerning how to handle specific situations. There needed to be evidence that outcomes following on from specific behavioural sequences were sufficiently rewarded or resulted in punishment or penalties. An educational programme also needed to engage children sufficiently that they would learn from it because they devoted enough cognitive effort in doing so. It was also important that the narrative entertainment component and the educational messages did not cognitively overload the child to a point where information was lost (Fisch, 2000). A general learning model was developed to explain learning from interactive media experiences such as playing video games. These media environments can be highly engaging for children and therefore potentially represent powerful learning settings. Once again, this model conceives of learning in the form of behavioural scripts where specific benefits accrue from specific behavioural responses (Buckley & Anderson, 2006). Research evidence accumulated over time to support this type of learning from media outputs including television and interactive screen technologies (Lapierre & Vaala, 2015). DeLoache and Chiong (2009) reviewed evidence about the effects on young children of playing with interactive media with learning applications. Youngsters can benefit from playing with some of these products. Elsewhere, it has been acknowledged that as well as learning

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from television, children can also learn factual knowledge and cognitive skills from digital interactive games (Oliver & Pelletier, 2006). We saw in Chapter 4 that children’s cognitive development can be influenced by their screen experiences. These experiences can help to condition specific cognitive skills but might impede the development of others. The overall impact of screen use on cognitive development, however, depends in the end on whether children achieve the right balance of learning experiences through different media. The mere experience of screen use can itself have a range of effects on child development, at least as far as information processing skills are concerned. In addition, the specific content experiences via screens exert another layer of influences by imparting different types of information to youngsters which they must learn how to process and to evaluate. Programmes such as Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Feeling Good, and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood were produced with input from educational professionals and child psychologists to be both entertaining and engaging for children and also educational. The Children’s Television Workshop in New York was the key production house here. It combined creativity with educational analysis and regular systematic audience research to test the success of its programming in educational achievement terms. Studies conducted over this period repeatedly confirmed that children benefited from watching these programmes in terms of their basic learning skills. These programmes could also promote positive social and health behaviours and assist children from disadvantaged backgrounds to make up lost ground at school (Ball & Bogatz, 1973; Lesser, 1974; Sproull, Ward & Ward, 1976; Bryant, Alexander & Brown, 1983). Educational programmes had been developed specially to help children learn specific cognitive skills which, in turn, underpinned learning in formal school settings. Later research found that programmes on the mainstream output could also have educational objectives but needed also to be entertaining to command the attention of the general audience. Programmes made specifically for educational purposes were found to be successful, for example, at imparting science knowledge to children (Mielke & Chen, 1980). Knowledge tests conducted with children before and after viewing programmes about science made for the general television audience showed that these productions could also enhance children’s science knowledge and understanding (Clifford, Gunter & McAleer, 1995).

Screen presentations versus other modalities Despite the widespread use of screen technology in educational contexts, some critics of the medium have questioned whether it is effective for promoting or enhancing all forms of learning. Screen presentations, such as televised programmes or films, have their own distinctive symbol systems

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and narrative structures. These attributes may render these presentations effective for some kinds of learning but not so much for other kinds (Salomon, 1979). Research found that when children were presented with common narrative content in audio-visual audio-only or written formats, recall accounts could vary with the nature of the presentation conditions. Some explicit details of stories were equally well-remembered from audio-visual and audio-only presentation modalities. Some forms of linguistic expression were noticed and retained better from an audio-only presentation. Making sense of a story through physical actions, however, benefited from audio-visual presentation (Meringoff, 1980). Comparisons of story learning from televised presentations as compared to reading confirmed that subsequent recall accounts generated by children relied more on action sequences when they saw the televised version. Overall, pre-teens remembered a story better when they had watched it being performed or reported than read it quietly by themselves (Beentjes & van der Voort, 1991a, b). When children read a story with pictures, the images drew their attention to specific story elements that subsequently stood out in memory. Hence, pictures can play an important part in the way story memories are constructed. Although images can support specific parts of a story that they illustrate, some story elements, for example that comprise the use of figurative language benefit from being spoken only or read-out (Beagle-Roos & Gat, 1983). Television is a medium that can mislead people into falsely believing they are good at learning from it, when they are not. This observation was empirically demonstrated by research that compared children’s learning from televised and print versions of stories. Children often reported making more effort when reading than they did when viewing. This “effort” was eventually reflected in performance, with factual recall of many story details being superior among the readers over the viewers (Salomon, 1983). There was also an intrinsic child ability factor at play here as a mediating variable. Specifically, it was the more able children that performed better when reading because they believed that written text was worth making extra effort over. Less able children, preferred learning audio-visually because they thought it was easier and generally made less effort with printed material from which their learning performance was generally much poorer (Salomon, 1983).

Screen use and academic performance Over the years, there has been a persistent interest in the impact that screen use can have upon children academic performance. In the pre-Internet era, the focus of most of this attention centred on television viewing. Latterly, the use of other screen technologies has been foregrounded, although in many instances, these newer digital devices are used for watching the same kinds

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of content as television sets. Reviews of the evidence have concluded that how much time children spend with screen technologies can affect how well they perform in school (Falloon, 2013; Blackwell, Lauricella & Wartella, 2014; Crescenzi, Jewitt & Price, 2014). Of course, television does not enter children’s lives in a complete vacuum. The way screen technologies, especially television sets, are used can vary from household to household. There is a tendency that has been consistently found in different parts of the world, that children from poorer backgrounds who tend to exhibit generally poorer education performance also watch more television than do child high academic achievers (Housden, 1991). One major review of evidence concluded there was a curvilinear relationship between television viewing and academic achievement (Thomson & Auston, 2003). Moderate levels of viewing were better than heavy viewing or very little viewing. Ultimately, however, it is not the amount of television viewing overall that is critical to children’s scholarly performance, but the types of programmes viewed. Watching programmes with a lot of information content can be beneficial. Watching a lot of programming that is low in its information content was linked to poorer educational performance, but it was not clear whether television was a causal agent here or an outcome of poor performance in school. There were variances between children from different socio-economic and cultural groups in the nature of links between television viewing patterns and academic achievement. Households that allow adolescents children to stay up later to watch television tend to produce the heaviest viewers in their age group (Potter, 1987). This does not invariably need to be a bad thing. However, there is empirical evidence with both pre-teenage and teenage children that as television viewing hours increase academic achievement often declines (Chernin & Nichols, 2005). In contrast, other studies found no significant relationships between amount of television viewing and educational performance (Gortmaker, Salter, Walker & Dietz, 1990; Hagborg, 1995; Shastri & Mohite, 1997). There is a further body of evidence that watching more television and performance in school are negatively related, but that the link is weak (Angle, 1981; Cooper & Valentine, 1999). There is further evidence that children who watch greater amounts of television display poorer social skills in school (Clark, Comstock, Dorr, Medrich & Salomon, 1978; Levine & Levine, 1996). Sharman (1979) reported that children who spent a lot of time watching cartoons displayed lower self-esteem. Among those children who lack self-confidence therefore animated forms of entertainment might represent a form of escapism. Some researchers have investigated relationships between television viewing and reading scores. The evidence here is equivocal with the eventual education impact of screen behaviour being linked to the types of screen experiences as much as the overall time spent in front of the screen (Beentjes, 1988; Wober, 1992; Razel, 2001; Van den Broek,

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2001). Watching television programmes that promote specific skills in children can encourage them to read more and achieve higher grades at school (Anderson, Huston, Schmitt, Linebarger & Wright, 2001). Television-viewing alone may not be the only issue. If there are already low expectations about children on the part of their teachers, and a child’s parents do not push the child to take school seriously, heavier television watching can work in tandem with these other factors to diminish school performance. In some American families, for instance, there was evidence that children used television as a form of escapism from dysfunctional family circumstances (Caldas & Blankston, 1999). Parents can set an important example to their children or establish rules that control youngsters’ viewing habits. Children of better educated fathers have been found to watch less television, but marital breakdown was associated with children watching more (Henggeler & Cohen, 1991). Ultimately, parents usually represent the first role models from whom children learn. If parents spend a lot of time mindlessly watching television, they may instil similar habits in their children (Lauricella, Wartella & Rideout, 2015).

Screen use and pre-school children Research with pre-school children has been concerned with whether early screen experiences can play a significant part in moulding the brains of youngsters during critical initial stages of their psychological development (Linebarger & Vaala, 2010). The research literature has yielded extensive and yet mixed evidence on whether early screen experiences are beneficial or harmful. Ultimately, it may turn out that they can be both. From research reviewed earlier about children’s developing understanding of screen content and formats, we know that children begin to comprehend what is happening on a screen within the first few years of their lives. This understanding is initially very crude, but quickly evolves (Courage & Howe, 2010; Duch, Fisher, Ensari & Harrington, 2013). Children can begin to imitate the things they see on screen before they are two years old (Lerner & Barr, 2014). Although they learn better from face-to-face interactions with people, they soon begin to transfer learning from the screen to the physical world where they can perceive similarities between the two settings and some relevance in screen learning to real-world situations and problems (Common Sense Media, 2013; Roy & Paradis, 2015). As they become more sophisticated in understanding screen formats and in manipulating them in the case of interactive media, so their screen-related learning grows (Roseberry, Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 2014). As the evidence mounts, however, it is apparent that screen experiences can have good or bad effects, but many effects still remain unclear (Thakkar, Garrison & Christakis, 2006; Lerner & Barr, 2014; Radesky, Schumacher & Zuckerman, 2015).

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Over-use of television among infants aged two to four has been linked to poorer adjustment to school. Reports were obtained from parents and teachers about the children’s academic performance, health and social behaviour, and use of television. When adjustments were made for each child’s individual characteristics and family background and environment, evidence emerged that increased time devoted to watching television resulted in the child being generally less physically active and was associated with poorer academic performance, particularly in relation to maths (Pagani, Fitzpatrick, Barnett & Dubow, 2010).

Screen use among early schoolers and pre-teens Although habitually excessive television is known to have a negative impact on children’s intellectual development and school performance, the overall effects can be selective and affect some aspects of academic performance more than others. This impact can occur directly by delaying cognitive skills development and also indirectly by social skills growth that undermines interpersonal relationship-making at school (Pagani, LevesqueSeck & Fitzpatrick, 2016). It is also important to remember that the effects of television viewing do not occur in a social vacuum. The type of family structure and household environment in which a child is raised can play very important roles in shaping a child’s behaviour, world outlook, and performance in school. These social factors also mediate the way screen technologies are used. We saw earlier in this book that cognitive development can be impeded by excessive screen use during critical phases of psychological development and the effects can be manifest in terms of a child’s observed language development. Other research has also linked poorer mathematics performance with heavier television viewing (Ribner, Fitzpatrick & Blair, 2017). Research with 10–13-year-olds found that the children that watched greater amounts of television tended to perform less well at school. However, parental interventions with rules that restricted their children’s viewing could offset the negative effects of television viewing on academic performance. Despite the nature of the overall relationship between viewing and school performance, children that preferred watching sports, family and game shows on television, and even cartoons tended to score higher maths grades (Ridley-Johnson, Cooper & Chance, 2014).

Screen use by adolescents Even in adolescence, continued over-use of screen technologies, especially television, has been linked to poorer school in the longer term. If television viewing can be brought under control, however, its use per se does not need to result in poorer academic achievements. Selective use in terms of the

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amount of time it occupies as well as in terms of the types of content consumed can make a difference to the overall impact of the media on young people’s educational performance. One American study found that children with lower IQs on average watched greater amounts of television than did those with higher IQs. It was found also that among those with lower IQs had poorer reading skills. The most interesting finding to come out of this study was that when the IQ of children was statistically controlled, a negative relationship persisted between the amount of television they reported viewing and their reading comprehension scores. What was not clear from this study was whether it indicated that when children watched more television, their reading suffered or whether those who did not read well to begin with tended also to watch more television (Morgan & Gross, 1979). Another American study followed a cohort of young people from the age of 14 until they reached 22. When children were found to watch a lot of television at the start of this study, their ability to focus on their studies was found to be poorer during subsequent years, as compared to same-age counterparts who watched less. Children that watched more than three hours a day at 14 displayed poorer homework completion, a poorer attitude towards school, poorer grades and in the longer term were more likely to experience educational failure. One interesting finding was that the negative impact of television viewing on school performance was greater among brighter teenagers. By reducing their amount of viewing these youngsters were able to decrease their risk of academic failure by up to half (Johnson, Cohen, Kasen & Brook, 2007). Similar longitudinal research in New Zealand followed through a sample from birth to age 26. Individuals that watched greater amounts of television during their childhood exhibited higher likelihood of poor educational performance that followed them through into early adulthood. Hence, heavier viewers as children got poor degree results even if they still went to university. Heavier viewing during the five to seven period was most strongly predictive of poor academic performance in later life. Meanwhile heavier viewing during early adolescent years predicted higher likelihood of terminating full-time education earlier (Hancox, Milne & Poulton, 2005). Further evidence from New Zealand based on data from a cohort of children at age 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15 reported that those youngsters that watched the greatest amounts of television during the pre-teen years displayed poorer attention to their school studies in adolescence (Landhuis, Poulton, Welch & Hancox, 2007). Finding correlational relationships between reported amount of television viewing and academic performance is interesting and important but does not by itself explain what is going on. One further possibility is that extensive and regular use of screen technologies can shape emergent cognitive skills. It can train specific skills at the expense of others. It can, in particular,

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render youngsters well able to process from rapidly changing visual displays but leaves them less well-equipped to engage with slower-paced sequential learning. The latter requires a particular kind of sustained attention, and the rapid-fire presentation formats associated with modern screen displays train a different type of cognitive skillsets.

Interactive screen use The contemporary screen experiences of young people go beyond traditional television watching. These experiences can be enjoyed via a number of computerised and increasingly portable technology interfaces. Young people use these technologies to search for information via the Internet and spend considerable amounts of time on sites collectively known as “social media”. Teenagers have become especially enthusiastic users of these sites and this phenomenon raises important questions about the impact of these screen experiences on their lives, including their educational lives. One important review of extant evidence found that whether or not extensive and regular use of social media by children impedes their school performance depends significantly on the way they use these applications rather than the amount to which they use them. Children who engage with fellow pupils through social media to discuss school work, actually exhibit educational benefits from using them. On the other hand, for pupils who engage with sites such as Instagram for general social purposes, especially while doing their homework, social media can become a distraction that means they pay insufficient attention to their school work. Children who are frequent and habitual users of social media sites and use them to pose messages and images from their lives and to communicate socially with others tend to have slightly lower school grades than average. What was interesting however was the finding that children who spent the most time on social media did not necessarily spend the least time doing their school work. There was no evidence that social media were “stealing time” from academic studies (Marker, Gnambs & Appel, 2017). A longitudinal study of the screen experiences of 6,000 children aged 10– 14 years over a 24-months period showed that greater screen exposure was related to poorer school performance over time, largely because it triggered sensation seeking urges in children that led them to pursue other activities that were distractions from serious study. The latter effect was particularly likely to occur if children watched movies that were not appropriate for them in term of age classification. Adolescents with poor from households with parental disciplines and who exhibited poor self-control were the most likely to succumb to these effects (Sharif, Wills & Sargent, 2010). Leyrer-Jackson and Wilson (2017) were interested in both the beneficial and detrimental effects of social media use among young, specifically in

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terms of their school performance. Their research was conducted among undergraduates, so technically did not concern children. Nonetheless, its findings are worth noting. Data were collected about the students’ reported use of social media and their grade point averages on their university courses. Female students used social media sites more often than did male students. Meanwhile, regardless of gender, grade point average tended to be worse for students that subscribed to the most social media sites. Just as the number of social media sites used increased, so too the amount of time spent with these sites increased. In a further study, data were obtained from over 34,000 school children in Abu Dhabi and included school performance data and data about social media use. Social media use was differentiated into different types of application and were supplemented by data about children’s attitudes towards social media. Evidence emerged that social media use and school can work together and be mutually supportive, but when time is devoted to activities online not linked to school, the result can be poorer educational performance. It is the nature of social media use that is really important here, however, rather than simply the amount of time overall spent with these applications (Badri, Nuami, Guang & Al Tashedi, 2017). Research by Dina Borzekowski and her colleagues of elementary school pupils, attendant at six public schools in California, found that those who had television sets in their bedroom scored lower on school achievement tests that children who did not. Having a computer in the home, however, was associated with higher scores on school tests. Those with television sets scored an average of eight points lower than those without. The gap between these two groups on reading tests was seven points. The presence of a television set is one thing, how often it is used is something else. This research found no relationship between reported amount of time spent viewing TV and school performance (Borzekowski, 2005).

Lessons learned In weighing up the evidence in more general terms, Schmidt and Vandewater (2008) concluded that it was often the content delivered by electronic screen media and not simply levels of overall exposure to specific media that played the most significant part in shaping children’s cognitive development. Exposure to more content of an educational nature was positively related to enhanced cognitive skills development and contingent academic performance. Exposure to more entertainment content exhibited the opposite statistical relationship. What also emerged from a review of extant evidence was that some screen experiences could benefit specific types of cognitive skills development. Hence, greater amounts of playing interactive video games was associated with more advanced visual skills development. What still remained to be

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clarified were the mechanisms underpinning the transfer of specific skills learning from one setting to another. What it is possible to conclude, however, is that the news about screen habits on children’s school performance was not all bad. More research was needed to establish the specific learning benefits that interactive technologies can bring into children’s lives to enhance their academic performance. Subsequently, empirical evidence emerged from studies of children around the world that youngsters’ involvement with screen technology, while not invariably positive, was not especially negative either. Drummond and Sauer reported data from a major international study which collected data from 192,000 adolescents in 22 countries. They found negligible evidence that playing video games impaired academic performance in maths, science, and reading. There was some weak evidence that heavier playing of video games was associated with poorer reading development, but the link was not statistically strong. Meanwhile, mathematics and science-related performance appeared to be unaffected by video game playing habits (Drummond & Saur, 2014). A more specific educational application of interactive screen technology is the presentation of electronic books in multimedia formats. As well as the usual text content, they might also contain drawings, animation, music, sound effects, spoken dialogue, and other visual effects. These books can be read in a conventional linear fashion or consumed more non-linearly if the reader wishes. Young children can receive a boost to their language skills during their early developmental years because vocabulary and grammar can be taught in a more dynamic and multifaceted way. The interactive functionalities of these new text delivery formats can engage readers more creatively in consuming the text and draw their attention to different linguistic features via different modalities (Neuman, 1997, 2008; Verhallen, Bus & de Jong, 2006). It is also important to recognise, as with all other forms of screen content produced for child audiences, that not all children are the same. They can differ in terms of their social background, family circumstances, ethnicity and cultural origins, stage of psychological development, personality, cognitive abilities, and general interests. Hence, the production of multimodal e-books for distribution and consumption via screen technologies must recognise audience diversity and the existence of segmented and niche audiences with specific tastes and abilities (Segal-Drori, Korat, Shamir & Klein, 2010; Korat & Shamir, 2012; Korat, Shamir & Heibal, 2013; Shamir, Korat & Fellah, 2013). Effective use of multimedia elements such as animation and narration, however, can enhance the cognitive impact of the text and bring learning benefits that may even exceed those of ordinary reading (Takacs, Swart & Bus, 2014, 2015). Educational media can be used constructively to enhance the language and other cognitive development of young children during pre-school and

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early school years. Screen-based reaching of reading skills, however, must not over-use interactive production techniques. The use of multimodal forms of presentation can create parallel streams of processing of the same content. Vocabulary, grammar, and other linguistic elements that can be illustrated in more than one format can generate multimodal memories of the same concepts and principles resulting in more robust and longer-lasting learning (Paivio, 1986; Verhallen & Bus, 2010; Silverman, 2013).

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174  School performance Chernin, A. R., & Nichols, D. (2005) The relationship between children’s television viewing and academic performance. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 159(7), 687–689. Clark, R. E., Comstock, G., Dorr, A., Hornik, R., Levie, H., Medrich, E., & Salomon, G. (1978) Schooling and leisure time uses of television. (Report No. IR-005841) San Diego, CA: San Diego Conference on Television and Learning. ERIC Document Reproduction Services No. ED152317). Clifford, B. R., Gunter, B., & McAleer, J. L. (1995) Television and Children: Program Evaluation, Comprehension and Impact. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Common Sense Media. (2013) Zero to Eight: Children’s Media use in America 2013: A Common Sense Study. Available at: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/ research/zero-to-eight-childrens-media-use-in-america-2013. Courage, M. L., & Howe, M. L. (2010) To watch or not to watch: Infants and toddlers in a brave new electronic world. Developmental Review, 30(2), 101–105. Crescenzi, L., Jewitt, C., & Price, S. (2014) The role of touch in preschool children’s learning using iPad versus paper interaction. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 37(2), 86–95. DeLoache, J., & Chiong, J. (2009) Babies and media. American Behavioral Scientist, 52(8), 1115–1135. Drummond, A., & Sauer, J. D. (2014) Video-games do not negatively impact adolescent academic performance in science, mathematics or reading. PLoS One, 9(4), e7943. doi:10.137/journal.pone.0087943. Duch, H., Fisher, E. M., Ensari, I., & Harrington, A. (2013) Screen time use in children under 3 years old: A systematic review of correlates. International Journal Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity, 10, 102. Falloon, G. (2013) Young students using iPads. Computers and Education, 68, 505–521. Fisch, S. M. (2000) A capacity model of children’s comprehension of educational content on television. Media Psychology, 2(1), 63–91. Gortmaker, S. L., Salter, C. A., Walker, D. K., & Dietz, W. H. (1990) The impact of television on mental aptitude and achievement: A longitudinal study. Public Opinion Quarterly, 54, 594–604. Hagborg, W. J. (1995) High school television viewing time: A study of school performance and adjustment. Child Study Journal, 25, 155–167. Hancox, R. J., Milne, B. J., & Poulton, R. (2005) Association of television viewing during childhood with poor educational achievement. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 159(7), 614–618. Henggeler, S., & Cohen, R. (1991) Family stress as a link in the association between television viewing and achievement. Child Study Journal, 21(1), 11–20. Housden, T. (1991) Television viewing habits of San Juan students related to achievement. (Report No. PS-020611) San Juan, CA: ERIC Document Reproductive Service No. ED-345874. Johnson, J. G., Cohen, P., Kasen, S., & Brook, J. S. (2007) Extensive television and the development of attention and learning difficulties during adolescence. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 161(5), 480–486. Korat, O., & Shamir, A. (2012) Direct and indirect teaching: Using for supporting vocabulary, word reading and story comprehension for young children. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 46, 135–152.

School performance  175 Korat, O., Shamir, A., & Heibal, S. (2013) Expanding the boundaries of shared book reading: E-books and printed books in parent–Child reading as support for children’s language. First Language, 33(5), 504–523. Landhuis, C. E., Poulton, R., Welch, D., & Hancox, R. J. (2007) Does childhood television viewing lead to attention problems in adolescence? Results from a prospective longitudinal study. Pediatrics, 120(3), 532–537. Langham, J. (1990) Teachers and Television: A History of the IBA’s Educational Fellowship Scheme. London, UK: John Libbey. Lapierre, M. A., & Vaala, S. E. (2015) Predictors of baby video/DVD ownership: Findings from a national sample of American parents with young children. Journal of Children and Media, 9(2), 212–230. Lauricella, A. R., Wartella, E. A., & Rideout, V. J. (2015) Young children’s screen time: The complex role of parent and child factors. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 36, 11–17. Lerner, C., & Barr, R. (2014) Screen sense: Setting the record straight: Researchbased guidelines for screen use for children under 3 years old. Zero to Three 2014. Available at: http://www.zerotothree.org/resources/series/screen-sense-settingthe-record-straight. Lesser, G. (1974) Children and Television: Lessons from ‘Sesame Street.’ New York, NY: Random House. Lesser, G. S., & Schneider, J. (2001) Creation and evolution of the Sesame Street curriculum. In S. M. Fisch & R. Truglio (Eds.). “G” is for Growing, pp. 25–38. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Levine, D. U., & Levine, R. F. (1996) Society and Education (9th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, pp. 121–124. Leyrer-Jackson, J. M., & Wilson, A. K. (2017) The associations between socialmedia use and academic performance among undergraduate students in biology. Journal of Biological Education, 52(2), 221–230. Linebarger, D. L., & Vaala, S. E. (2010) Screen media and language development in infants and toddlers: An ecological perspective. Developmental Review, 30(2), 176–202. Marker, C., Gnambs, T., & Appel, M. (2017) Active on Facebook and failing at school? Meta-analytic findings on the relationship between online social networking activities and academic achievement. Educational Psychology Review. doi:10.1007/s10648-017-9430-6. Mielke, K, W., & Chen, M. (1980) Formative research for 3-2-1: Methods and insights. In M. J. A. Howe (Ed.). Learning from Television: Psychological and Educational Research, pp. 31–55. London, UK: Academic Press. Morgan, M., & Gross, L. (1979) Television viewing, IQ and academic achievement. Journal of Broadcasting, 24(2), 117–133. Moss, R., Jones, C., & Gunter, B. (1991) Television in Schools. London, UK: John Libbey. Neuman, S. B. (1997) Television as a learning environment: A theory of synergy. In J. Flood, S. B. Heath, & D. Lapp (Eds.). Handbook of Research on Teaching Literacy Through the Communicative and Visual Arts, pp. 15–30. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Neuman, S. B. T. (2008) The case for multi-media presentation in learning: A theory of synergy. In A. G. Bus & S. B. Neuman (Eds.). Multimedia and Literacy Development: Improving Achievement for Young Learners, pp. 44–56. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis Group.

176  School performance Oliver, M., & Pelletier, C. (2006) Activity theory and learning from digital games: Developing an analytical methodology. In D. Buckingham & R. Willett (Eds.). Digital Generations: Children, Young People and New Media, pp. 67–88. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Pagani, L. D., Fitzpatrick, C., Barnett, T. A., & Dubow, E. (2010) Prospective associations between early childhood television exposure and academic, psychosocial, and physical well-being by middle childhood. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 164(5), 425. Pagani, L. S., Levesque-Seck, F., & Fitzpatrick, C. (2016) Prospective associations between televiewing at toddlerhood and later self-reported social impairment at middle school in a Canadian longitudinal cohort born in 1997/1998. Psychological Medicine, 46(16), 3329–3337. Paivio, A. (1986) Mental Representations. A Dual Coding Approach. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Radesky, J. S., Schmuacher, J., & Zuckerman, B. (2015) Mobile and interactive media use by young children: The good, the bad and the unknown. Pediatrics, 135(1), 1–3. Razel, M. (2001) The complex model of television viewing and educational achievement. Journal of Educational Research, 94(4), 371–380. Ribner, A., Fitzpatrick, C., & Blair, C. (2017) Family socioeconomic status moderates association between television viewing and school readiness skills. Journal of Development Behaviour and Pediatrics, 38(3), 233–239. Rideout, V. J., Vandewater, E. A., & Wartella, E. (2003) Zero to Six: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers. Menlo Park, CA: Kaiser Family Foundation. Ridley-Johnson, R., Cooper, H., & Chance, J. (2014) The relation of children’s television viewing to school achievement and I.Q. The Journal of Educational Research, 76(5), 294–297. Roseberry, S., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Golinkoff, R. M. (2014) Skype me! Socially contingent interactions help toddlers learn language. Child Development, 85(3), 956–970. Roy, R., & Paradis, G. (2015) Smartphone use in the daily interactions between parents and young children. Philadelphia, PA: Society for Research in Child Development 2015. Available at: http://www.custan.edu/sites/default/files/groups/ Child%20Development/scrd_poster_2014_smartphones.pdf. Salomon, G. (1979) Interaction of Media, Cognition and Learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Salomon, G. (1983) Beyond the formats of television: The effects of student preconceptions on the experience of televiewing. In M. Meyer (Ed.). Children and the Formal Features of Television, pp. 89–102. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Schmidt, M. E., & Vandewater, E. A. (2008) Media and attention, cognition, and school achievement. Future Child, 18(1), 63–85. Segal-Drori, O., Korat, O., Shamir, A., & Klein, P. S. (2010) Reading e-books with and without adult instruction: Effects on emergent reading. Reading and Writing, 23, 913–930. Shamir, A., Korat, O., & Fellah, R. (2013) Promoting emergent literacy of children at risk for learning disabilities: Do e-books make a difference? In A. Shamir & O. Korat (Eds.). Technology as a Support for Literacy Achievements for Children at Risk, pp. 173–186. New York, NY: Springer Publishing.

School performance  177 Sharif, I., Wills, T. A., & Sargent, J. D. (2010) Effect of visual media use on school performance: A prospective study. The Journal of Adolescent Health, 46(1), 52. Shastri, J., & Mohite, P. (1997) Television viewing pattern of primary school children and its relationship to academic performance and cognitive skills. International Journal of Early Years Education, 5(2), 152–160. Silverman, R. (2013) Investigating video as a means to promote vocabulary for atrisk children. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 38(3), 170–179. Sproull, N. L., Ward, E. F., & Ward, M. D. (1976) Reading Behaviours of Young Children Who Viewed ‘The Electric Company’. New York, NY: Children’s Television Workshop. Takacs, Z. K., Swart, E. K., Bus, A. G. (2014) Can the computer replace the adult for storybook reading? A meta-analysis on the effects of multimedia stories as compared to sharing print stories with an adult. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1366. Takacs, Z. K., Swart, E. K., & Bus, A. G. (2015) Benefits and pitfalls of multimedia and interactive features in technology-enhanced storybooks a meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 85(4), 698–739. Thakkar, R. R., Garrison, M. M., & Christakis, D. A. (2006) A systematic review for the effects of television viewing by infants and pre-schoolers. Pediatrics, 118(5), 2025–2031. Thompson, F. T., & Austin, W. P. (2003) Television viewing and academic achievement revisited. Education, 124(1), 194–202. Van den Broek, P. (2001) The role of television viewing in the development of reading comprehension. (Report No CS-014521) Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ERIC Document reproductive Service No. ED458552.) Verhallen, M. J., & Bus, A. G. (2010) Low-income immigrant pupils learning vocabulary through digital picture storybooks. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102(1), 54. Verhallen, J. A. J., Bus, A. G., & Jong, M. T. (2006) The promise of multimedia stories for kindergarten children at risk. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98(2), 410-419. Wober, J. M. (1992) Text in a texture of television: Children’s homework experience. Journal of Educational Television, 18(1), 23–35.

Chapter 11

Parental mediation of children’s screen experiences

As evidence examined so far has indicated, close attachment to screen technologies begins early in life even before children have started school (Lauricella, Wartella & Rideout, 2015). Parents have been identified as having a particularly important part to play in this process throughout a child’s development, but especially during a child’s earliest years of life when basic rules governing social behaviour are initially established (Jago, Stamatakos, Gama, Carvalhal, Nogueira, Rosado & Padez, 2012). This means that parents can play a key part in helping children to control screen use in a number of ways. Parents can provide rules about screen behaviour but also by example. Telling their children that they can only watch limited amounts of television is all very well. Getting the child to internalise this control, however, is less likely to occur if parents themselves watch to excess (see Chiu, Li, Wu & Chiang, 2017). Parental mediation has long been recognised as a key controlling mechanism over excess media consumption by children not just in relation to overall use but also in relation to the types of content children consume. Although many television programmes, video games, and other forms of screen entertainment are likely to be relatively harmless, there is still much content out there that is not. As earlier chapters have shown, some content themes, such as violent, sexual, and commercial ones, have been empirically linked to potentially harmful effects on children. The “harm” in this context might comprise the triggering of upsetting emotional reactions, the learning of inappropriate or high-risk behaviour, the cultivation of distorted perceptions of society, and encouragement to engage in antisocial conduct. The emergence of newer digital media with many new screen interfaces and content formats has magnified public and academic concerns about harmful effects. If worries about the potential harms of children’s exposure to violent television content were not already enough, there is evidence that engagement with violent themes in interactive video games can command children’s attention even more acutely (Melzer, Happ & Steffen, 2010).

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Parental mediation styles Parental mediation of children’s screen use has two major purposes. The first is to ensure that children’s media experiences are positive and enjoyable. The second is to attempt to minimise adverse reactions and longerterm harmful effects. The influences that parents have on their children’s use of screen media can vary between being overbearing, firm but fair, or laissez-faire. Much depends on the style of parenting more generally that a family household adopts. What is also important is the way parents usually communicate with their children and set examples of how to behave through their own conduct. This is especially pertinent when it comes to use of screen technologies. Early research into the nature of family television viewing found that households varied in the degree to which the use of television was underpinned by specific sets of house rules. The nature of choices about what to watch could also vary by time of day when different family members were present. During the daytime, for example, in settings in which most people had just one television set, individuals who were around would decide what to watch during the day. In the evening, however, and at weekends, when more family members were present, more viewing decisions would be the outcome of family-wide negotiations (Niven, 1960). There was also evidence from many family households that when multiple family members were present together, there was a hierarchy of authority. This usually meant that the father held sway in the evening, while the mother decided more about what to watch during the day (when the father was at work). Children would sometimes be allowed to decide what to watch, but only on a minority of occasions (Smith, 1961). Choice-makers might also vary with time of day, with children holding sway during “children’s hour”, but adults in control later on (Chaffee & Tims, 1976). In the days when most households had just one television set, control was biased towards adults, and in particular towards male adults. Hence, the father could overrule everyone else, while the mother could mostly overrule the kids and older children would dominate over younger children (Bower, 1973). When questioned, many mothers and their children said they would defer to their husband/father over what to watch (Lull, 1978, 1982). This did not mean that decisions were always reached without some internal conflict. Family disagreements could occur over what to watch and the television did not always bring the family together (Wand, 1968). In the 21st century, most households in developed countries have multiple television sets and other technologies through which television signals can be received. This provides the scope for everyone to watch their own “picks” whenever they want to. Further evidence has revealed that decision-making about the use of television was often shaped by complex family dynamics and social interaction processes. The nature of interpersonal relationships between family

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members and in particular the extent to which a family engages in democratic decision-making can result in different style of engagement with the television. There can also be social class factors at play here. Working class households tended to differ from middle class households in their parenting styles (Gunter & Svennevig, 1987). One model of family communications differentiated between sociooriented and concept-oriented interactions. Socio-orientation encouraged harmonious relationships within the family and in general tried to avoid arguments. This might often be achieved by some family members recognising the need to defer to the decisions of others, rather than “arguing back”. This style of communication tended to characterise working-class households more. Concept-orientation invited children to express their own thoughts and feelings and to negotiate their own positions regardless of their parents’ wishes. This style or parenting encouraged arguments, though not aggressive conflicts and was more likely to be present in middle-class households (Chaffee, McLeod & Atkins, 1971; Chaffee, McLeod & Wackman, 1973; Wade, 1973; Chaffee & Tims, 1976). Socio-orientation and concept-orientation could also both be present in varying degrees. Depending of their relative presence, a four-way typology of family types was developed to define family household communication and decision-making styles. These were labelled as laissez-faire, protective, consensual, and pluralistic. In laissez-faire families there were few or no signs of socio-orientation or concept-orientation. There was little parent-child communication and no clear set of parental guidelines laid down concerning how the children should behave. In protective families, socio-orientation was emphasised and this tended to result in parents stipulating a set of prescriptive rules concerning behaviour that the children were expected to follow. In consensual families, socio- and concept-orientation occurred together and while parents imposed specific sets of rules for children to follow, they also allowed for the children to express some of their own views as well. In pluralistic families, concept-orientation was the dominant mode of decision-making and children were encouraged to discover their own rules through observing their parents and from their own unique experiences. Children could challenge existing norms and rules, but were expected to come up with well-thought-through alternatives (Chaffee et al., 1971, 1973; Fry & McCain, 1980). Parents provide the most important role models for children in their early lives. This is true of how children approach television as it is of other behaviour. Researchers found that children were most likely to follow their parents’ lead in their own viewing patterns in socio-oriented homes. Simply copying their parents’ behaviour was less likely to occur in concept-oriented households where children were encouraged to challenge established rules and behaviour patterns (Abel, 1976). In households that set restrictions on

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children’s television viewing, there would often be a degree of “push-back” by young viewers once they had reached their more rebellious teenage years. The result would be that in defiance the children would seek to watch more television when parents tried to encourage less viewing (McLeod & Brown, 1976; Hedinsson, 1981). Over time, the screen technology environment in the home has grown more varied and complex. Households have acquired more television sets and are also adorned with a multitude of other screen-based technologies through which audio-visual entertainment and information can be received. Children often have their own television sets in their bedrooms and have access to many other sets elsewhere in the house. Watching television programmes is no longer restricted to television sets. They can be viewed through desk-top, lap-top and tablet computers and on more advanced generation mobile telephones. Under these conditions, the challenges for parents in controlling their children’s media consumption have grown. Models of parental disciplinary practices have also evolved over time. Nonetheless, despite apparently different outward appearances largely defined by the use of different terminology or labels for key concepts, the fundamental principles remain largely the same as those conceived in research conducted during a much simpler media age before the era of online communications and massive multichannel television packages. It has been argued that the emergence of complex communication technologies that have become tightly integrated into family lives, and especially into the lives of children, require some revision to traditional models of parental mediation. Original models were built on the conceptual primacy of face-to-face interactions. In the digital era, many interpersonal communications behaviours take place in technologically mediated settings such as through mobile phones and portable computers. New models of parental mediation must be able to accommodate new forms of routine mediated interpersonal interactions (Clark, 2011). Parents can either restrict their children’s use of screen technologies through prescribed sets of rules that must be obeyed and not questioned. They can engage in active negotiation with their children of how screen technologies should and will be used to derive agreed sets of principles which hopefully will be internalised by the children. Parents can also engage in extensive co-use of media with their children. Through this behaviour they can set examples of how media should be used but can also directly monitor their children’s viewing and engage in active discussion of the content being watched (Chakroff & Nathanson, 2008). Parents can also facilitate their children’s learning from screen experiences simply by co-viewing. Parents can direct their children’s attention towards specific on-screen events, talk about what is being shown with their children, and explain things to them. These interactions can be especially helpful to the very youngest of viewers who have yet to start school. The

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learning benefits might include understanding better how to interpret what is happening in on-screen story-telling and also boosting specific learning benefits such as gaining new vocabulary (Richert, Robb & Smith, 2011; Strouse, O’Doherty & Troseth, 2013; Roseberry, Hirsch-Pasek & Golinkoff, 2014; Strouse & Troseth, 2014; Kirkorian, Choi & Pempek, 2016). Some parents prefer to set rules that place restrictions on the amount of time their children watch television or use or media technologies or target specific types of media content. Hence, they try to shield their children from seeing specific movies or movie genres, types of programme and other content which they believe to be inappropriate, distasteful, or potentially harmful (Padilla-Walker & Coyne, 2010). This approach to control over children’s use of screen technologies is especially likely to be found in households where parents are particularly fearful of harmful side-effects (Valkenburg, Krcmar, Peeters & Marseille, 1999). Using an approach called “active mediation”, parents interact with their children to explain and discuss the things they see on the screen. Hence, parents might talk to their children about news stories in the media, about the storyline in a drama, or about the way a video game is played. Parents and children can learn from each other through these conversations and principles for use and for interpretation of media and their contents emerge without being forced into place. This approach can cultivate a critical orientation to all media on the part of children and could render them less susceptible to media influences (Austin, Bolls, Fujioka & Engelbertson, 1999; Nikken & Jansz, 2006, 2007). Going beyond conversations about screen technologies and media content, parents and children can engage in co-viewing or co-playing experiences. This can take the form of simply viewing or playing together for the simple pleasure of doing so or it might involve parents taking the lead in inviting their children to join them in a viewing or playing experience. There is no attempt usually on the part of parents to discuss media experiences with their children in this context. Six focus groups with Maori, Pacific, and non-Maori non-Pacific parents were conducted to investigate their perceptions of their children’s television watching behaviour (Dorey, Roberts, Maddison, Meagher-Lundberg, Dixon & Nu Mhurchu, 2010). The groups also explored strategies for reducing children’s viewing. Television was described as playing a major part in family life. Controlling children’s viewing was not easy especially when parents themselves were unwilling to reduce their own viewing. Strategies might include limiting access to television, using television as a reward for doing other things, and finding alternative activities to entertain the kids with. Using electronic monitors to control children’s viewing received fairly muted support. A study of 306 low-income mainly African American mothers investigated whether or not these mothers actively controlled their children’s

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viewing behaviour depended on other factors in their lives, and in particular the length of their typical working day. If the mothers were away from home a lot working, their children were more likely to be left to their own devices when it came to television watching. The author called for more co-viewing between children and their parents to introduce more viewing controls and to encourage internalisation of self-imposed restrictions on viewing among children (Warren, 2005). Understanding whether, why, and how parents control their children’s use of screen technologies can be enhanced by studying and getting them to articulate their own reasons and the beliefs which underpin these reasons for doing so. Conducting a study which adopted the Theory of Planned behaviour model as its theoretical underpinning, Hamilton and her colleagues questioned Australian parents about the decisions they took regarding their children’s media habits. The subjective norms of child-rearing, beliefs about risks and benefits of different media, awareness of social pressures to engage with their children in specific ways, and their own local needs given other pressures of life could all come into play in this context. How parents perceived their own role in relation to their children’s upbringing and beliefs about disciplinary practices and about allowing their children to have choices and to have the freedom to express themselves also mediated parental thinking about the media and their children’s well-being (Hamilton, Spinks, White, Kavanagh & Walsh, 2016).

Parental influences and television viewing Evidence has emerged that more detailed aspects of children’s screen-related behaviours are modelled on those of their parents. When parents do more viewing, so too do their children. Children were more likely to be heavier viewers if their father was and even more likely when their mother was. This pattern was found both on weekdays and at weekends. If confirmed, this finding is important because it shows that parents can put a brake on their children’s viewing by example as much as by making restrictive rules. Screen exposure can affect the development of preschool children if parents/carers allow regular use to the exclusion of other forms of stimulation (Courage & Howe, 2010). It is important that parents are aware of the developmental risks it poses at critical stages of child development. Infants aged 12 months to 18 months were found to pay more attention to videos they had seen before over ones that were completely new to them and that this attentional behaviour could be further enhanced when their parents made comments to them or asked the questions while they were watching (Barr, Zack, Muentener, & Garcia, 2008). Infants aged between 15 and 35 months in Taiwan were found to experience delays in their language and other cognitive development when they watched TV for over an hour every day as compared to seeing little

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or no TV (Lin, Cherng, Chen & Yang, 2015). Longitudinal research with pre-schoolers in Singapore found that greater TV exposure from one year to four years when combined with poorer maternal education and more laxity of control over their children’s behaviour predicted delayed cognitive development (Aishworiya, Cai, Chen, Phua, Broekman, Daniel, Chong, Shek, Yap, Chan, Meaney & Law, 2019). Parents should watch with children. In that way they can monitor what their children are watching and also talk to their children about what’s happening on screen. These conversations can help children understand how to interpret what they are seeing. It is also a useful way for parents to find out how much attention their children to different types of content (Mendelsohn, Brockmeyer, Dreyera, Fiermana, Berkule-Silberman & Tomopoulosa, 2010; Liliard & Boguszewski, 2015). It is a good idea to combine screen technology use with other activities in the physical world. As already noted, co-viewing with children can enhance their learning from video materials. The importance of parental cues that a video may contain material that children can learn from is especially significant when the video itself does not provide appropriate cues. In other words, if the video appears to the child like a piece of entertainment to be enjoyed light-heartedly but not as something that needs to command their committed attention (Marsh, Plowman, Ymada-Rice, Bishop, Lahmar, Scott, Davenport, Davis, French, Piras, Thornhill, Robinson & Winter, 2017). It has been known for a while that children’s learning from instructional presentations can be promoted by their awareness that the experience with which they are confronted is a learning exercise. When “pedagogical cues” are largely absent, children may fail to engage with the right mindset to enhance learning (Csibra & Gergely, 2006; Gergely, Egyed & Troseth, 2013). Furthermore, in the context of video learning materials, active parental mediation is known to improve the learning performance of preschool children (Watkins, Calvert, Huston-Stein & Wright, 1980; Reiser, Williamson & Suzuki, 1988). Georgina Strouse and her colleagues conducted an experiment in which two versions of a video were produced along with two different parental coviewing conditions. In one version of the video, an on-screen actress engaged directly with the children in a labelling exercise in which objects were named and children had to remember the names (Strouse, Troseth, O’Doherty  & Saylor, 2018). This was achieved through a Skype-type of Facetime-like link. In another version, the actress presented objects and their labels without directly addressing the children in a more interactive way. In one parental condition, parents engaged with the child over the video labelling and reinforced it and in a second condition, the parents passively co-viewed with their children without comment. In the direct address and parental intervention conditions, the actress or parents made a point of placing additional emphasis on labelled objects by re-naming them and by

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trying to gain the child’s attention by calling on the child to notice the object being presented and named. The direct address version of the video proved to be the most effective video presentation in terms of the children’s subsequent object labelling performance. That performance was further enhanced if parents had actively engaged with their children during the learning process (Strouse et al., 2018). Despite the increased diversity of media technologies in the home, the positioning of the main television set in the main living room remains normative. In this setting, parents can monitor what their children watch. The presence of television sets and other screen technologies in children’s bedrooms can mean that parents are frequently not aware of what their children are tuning into (Nikken & Jansz, 2006). Schaan and Melzer (2014) studied 158 dyads of German parents of children aged 9–12 years in relation to their children’s time spent watching television and playing video games. Parents who believed television and video games could do harm to their children were more likely to co-watch or coplay with them. When parents paid more attention to their children’s media habits and got involved with them in a way that children themselves welcomed, there was a greater likelihood that stronger self-control among children would emerge.

Interactive screen technology Interactive screen experiences depart from conventional television viewing in that “viewers” can also become “actors” and have some degree of control over what happens on screen. Hence, the nature of the psychological experience is different in both cases. Wahl, Parkin, Beyene, Uleryk and Birken (2011) examined evidence from a fairly modest sample of 13 studies of youngsters’ use of interactive screen devices. These studies had investigated children aged between three and 12 years. Sample sizes varied from small (under-50 participants) to large (2000+ participants). These studies were characterised by being longitudinal and tests and re-tests were used with children that were between one month and two years apart. The review of evidence failed to yield conclusive evidence that parental interventions designed to influence BMI gains had worked. A further review of evidence by Friedrich and co-workers examined 16 studies from over 1,500 initially identified. These studies had used randomised control trials and showed significant effects of parental interventions in reducing screen time among children (Friedrich, Polet, Schich & Wagner, 2014). A subsequent meta-analysis examined the effectiveness of interventions designed to reduce screen-viewing time. Studies were reviewed that deployed intervention and control groups over varying periods of time that were designed to address viewing time and BMI. This collection of evidence did indicate some success of interventions in bringing children’s overall

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television viewing down and then in turn having an impact on gains in BMI. For television viewing interventions to show substantial effects, however, they needed to be deployed for at least seven months (Wu, Sun, He & Jiang, 2016). The authors analysed from a large European Union study (n = 13,176) and a smaller British survey (n = 1,004) of adolescents. The British survey also collected data from parents and caregivers. Interest centred on the risk of young people being exposure to online sexual material and the effectiveness of Internet filters. Caregivers use of filters had inconsistent effects on youngsters’ use of the Internet and exposure to sexual content (Przybylski & Nash, 2018). Parents and caregivers can regulate the online behaviour of their children in different ways. Technologies themselves often provide tools to assist parents in this endeavour. The study here was framed within self-determination theory and compared different styles of control over adolescents’ Internet use, ranging from pressuring, coercive, and punitive styles of control to empathic, choice-promoting styles. The researchers also examined how much caregivers were trusted and also the occurrence of psychological reactance among teenagers when confronted with restrictions over their online activities (Weinstein & Przybylski, 2018). Despite the availability of technologies such as Internet filters that can be deployed to restrict young person’s access to restricted content such as pornography, many caregivers utilise these devices sparingly. Many young people encounter extreme sexual material because there are no checks or interventions consistently in place and applied either by technology platforms, search engines or parents or other caregivers (Przybylski & Nash, 2018).

Effects on parent-child relations Parents are important socialising agents in their children’s lives. They set the tone for how their children should behave. This control over children’s behaviour extends to the use of screen technologies. The examples that parents set with their own behaviour provide role models for their children to follow. The setting of “house rules” around media use formalise the parameters that parents impose on their children that will generally place more restrictions around use of screens than parents impose on themselves. This process can begin during the very earliest years. Yet, there are also risks about which parents need to be informed. Co-watching television with their children can enable parents to know what their child are exposed to. At the same time, the screen can be a distraction to parents as well such that they engage in fewer and less elaborate conversations with their child when they are also viewing (Lavigne, Hanson & Anderson, 2015). The presence of television in a room can interfere with the quality of mother-child toy play as it disrupts communication between them. In a

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study of 25 mothers with infants aged 13–17 months, when television was switched on in the background, the mothers produced fewer words while interacting with their children as compared to interaction in a room setting with no television switched on (Lavigne et al., 2015). If the quantity and diversity of language produced by mothers is impeded by the presence of a television playing in the background this affects the quality of communication between mother and child (Kirkorian, Pempek, Murphy, Schmidt & Anderson, 2009). Given that these early interactions are crucial to a child initial language development, it provides a possible explanatory mechanism for the negative relationships frequently found between television viewing in youngsters and delayed language development (Mendelsohn et al., 2010; Lapierre, Piotrowski & Linebarger, 2012).

Conclusions about parents as mediators of children’s viewing experiences If parents can influence their children’s viewing, there can be many spin-off benefits from doing so. Too much time spent in front of screen technologies can result in health problems, the seeds of which are sown during childhood years. Children that watch large amounts of television, for example, have been found to have a large probability of becoming overweight. If parents are willing to impose rule-based restrictions that include limits on overall viewing time, removing screen technologies from children’s bedrooms, and no viewing at mealtimes, and also set an example by restricting their own use of screen technologies, they can bring their children’s viewing habits under control (Schmidt, Haines, O’Brien, McDonald, Price, Sherry & Taveras, 2012; Asplund, Kair, Arain, Cervantes, Oreskovic & Zuckerman, 2015; Jago, Wood, Zahra, Thompson & Sebire, 2015). Research has produced mixed evidence of the effectiveness of parental or care-giver mediation of children’s behaviour. There is evidence that parents can actively intervene to control the physical use of screen technologies, but their effectiveness as mediators of effects of specific content can vary. Parents have been surveyed about their perceptions of the control they can and do exert over their children’s use of screen technologies. Parents can offer reactions to programmes on television when viewing alongside their children. Older siblings can also take on the role of taste arbiters as well by commenting on whether specific programmes are good or bad (Messaris & Sarrett, 1981; Messaris & Kerr, 1983). Parents were also found to offer moral judgements about television characters and their on-screen behaviour in front of their children (Abel, 1976; Collins & Westby, 1981). Parents can therefore impose various restrictions on the children’s television viewing, but the reality is that many do not bother. Parents can comment on the content of programmes both positively and negatively, they can restrict the overall amount of time their children watch television, they can

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decide on bedtimes and when viewing must stop, and they can ensure that their children do not have screen technologies in their bedrooms. Parents can construct and impose specific rules concerning the use of screens in the home. How they do this is usually shaped by the general style of parenting they adopt and how disciplinarian this is. Parenting practices can mediate the way children use screen media, but not all styles of parent-child communication or rule-making are effective. Parents can explain to their children why one course of action is likely to lead to better results for them than another. A different approach is to try to scare children that certain choices on their part could lead to harmful outcomes. If they want to avoid external threats, then they should follow parental rules. Rational decision-making and rules that are negotiated between parents and children tend to work best (Desmond, Singer, Singer, Calam & Colimore, 1985). Rules about screen use need to be internalised by children and the chances of this happening are greater when parents and children co-view and discuss together what they are watching (Bybee, Robinson & Turow, 1982; Van der Voort, Nikken & van Lil, 1992). Parenting practices in which parents provided support for the children without imposing lots of restrictive rules generally led to a developmental environment in which children were more likely to display prosocial behaviour and were less likely to show antisocial behaviour. (Valkenburg, Piotrowski, Hermanns & de Leeuw, 2013). The way families resolved internal conflicts could also make a difference to children’s willingness to display aggression (Fikkers, Piotrowski, Weeda, Vossen & Valkenburg, 2013). Fikkers, Piotrowski, and Valkenburg (2017) conducted a two-wave longitudinal panel study of the impact of different parenting styles on adolescents’ exposure to media violence and its links their aggression. Their sample was almost equally split between boys and girls and the agerange covered was 10–14 years. The parenting styles were classified into “autonomy-supportive”, “controlling”, or “inconsistent”. Restrictive parenting could work to control children’s exposure to media violence and to moderate any apparent relationships between such exposure and the children’s propensities to behave aggressively, but the specific style of control emerged as a critical factor. The autonomy-supportive style showed the most positive results in moderating any effects of media violence exposure on child aggression. This style placed parental restrictions on children’s viewing but also explained the reasons for doing so and entered into negotiated settlements with children about what they should and should not watch. When parents were inconsistent in their style of control, there was evidence that when their children watched more screen violence their personal aggressiveness scores also increased. Control which focussed on exclusively on a “do-as-I-say” restrictive style proved to be ineffective in reducing screen exposure to violence, but did not worsen the propensity of children to display negative effects as a consequence of such exposure.

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The quality of childcare has been found to make a difference to children’s viewing habits. Children cared for in their own homes were compared with those in family day care centres and others in care centres. Those who were cared for at home watched the most television. What this investigation failed to establish was whether there were variances in degree of attention to the screen in different locations. Was television simply on in the background while children engaged in other activities in front of it, or were they watching the screen attentively? It is possible, for instance, that viewing in day care centres was directed and involved children watching programmes that were designed to have some positive learning impact (Von Stauffenberg & Campbell, 2004). Ultimately, parents cannot expect to command total control over their children’s screen-related activities throughout their childhood. Such control may be feasible early in life when parents do have physical control over a child’s media activities, because they can determine whether specific technologies are made available in the home. As children grow older and become more independent and as they spend more time outside the sight of their parents, they will determine their own screen experience more often. Parents must seek therefore to have reached a pointed where their children have internalised reasonable and effective rules of screen use that permit self-governing of this behaviour and also awareness of potential psychological social and physical risks associated with it. More restrictive regulation of screen use is likely to trigger increase psychological reactance from children, especially as they grow older and seek more self-determination over their behaviour, which means they will push back against parental or other authorities’ restrictions on the screen use. Parents must allow their children to explore the benefits of different kinds of screen experiences, but also be mindful of the downside of over-use. Parents must cultivate an environment in which non-screen activities hold as much appeal to their children as do screen activities. They should avoid indiscriminate use of screen technologies, especially television, when their children are young as a respite from childcare. They should discuss programmes and games, and other content, with their children and encourage a healthy scepticism about viewing experiences. These approaches have generally been found to reap the best benefits in terms of child safety and well-being. These are not easy goals to achieve, however, in a world in which screen technologies are so ubiquitous and so central to children’s lives.

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190  Parental mediation Television viewing and child cognition in a longitudinal birth cohort in Singapore: The role of maternal factors. BMC Pediatrics, 19(1), 286. Asplund, K. M., Kair, L. R., Arain, Y. H., Cervantes, M., Oreskovic, N. M., & Zuckerman, K. E. (2015) Early childhood screen time and parental attitudes toward child television viewing in a low-income Latino population attending the special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children. Childhood Obesity, 11(5), 590–599. Austin, E. W., Bolls, P., Fujioka, Y., & Engelbertson, J. (1999). How and why parents take on the tube. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 43(2), 175–192. Barr, R., Zack, E., Muentener, P., & Garcia, A. (2008) Infants’ attention and responsiveness to television increases with prior exposure and parental interaction. Infancy, 13(1), 3–56. Bower, R. T. (1973) Television and the Public. New York, NY: Holt- Rinehart & Winston. Bybee, C., Robinson, D., & Turow, J. (1982) Determinants of parental guidance of children’s television viewing for a special subgroup: Mass media scholars. Journal of Broadcasting, 26, 697–710. Chaffee, S. H., McLeod, J. M., & Atkin, C. K. (1971) Parental influences on adolescent media use. American Behavioural Scientist, 14, 323–340. Chaffee, S. H., McLeod, J. M., & Wackman, D. (1973) Family communication patterns and adolescent political participation. In J. Dennis (Ed.). Socialisation to Politics, pp. 349–364. New York, NY: John Wiley. Chaffee, S. H., & Tims, A. R. (1976) Interpersonal factors in adolescent TV use. Journal of Social Issues, 32, 98–115. Chakroff, J. L., & Nathanson, A. I. (2008). Parent and school interventions: Mediation and media literacy. In S. L. Calvert & B. J. Wilson (Eds.). The Handbook of Children, Media, and Development, pp. 552–576. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Chiu, Y. C., Li, Y. F., Wu, W. C., & Chiang, T. L. (2017) The amount of television that infants and their parents watched influenced children’s viewing habits when they got older. Acta Paediatrica, 106(6), 984–990. Clark, L. S. (2011). Parental mediation theory for the digital age. Communication Theory, 21, 323–343. Collins, W. A., & Westby, S. (1981, April) Moral judgments of television characters as a function of program comprehension. Paper presented at the Society for Research in Child Development biennial meeting, Boston, MA. Courage, M. L., & Howe, M. L. (2010) To watch or not to watch: Infants and toddlers in a brave new electronic world. Developmental Review, 30(2), 101–115. Csibra, G., & Gergely, G. (2006) Social learning and social cognition: The case for pedagogy. In Y. Munkata & M. J. Johnson (Eds.). Processes of Change in Brain and Cognitive Development: Attention and Performance, pp. 249–274. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Desmond, R. J., Singer, J. L., Singer, D. G., Calam, R., & Colimore, K. (1985) Family mediation patterns and television viewing: Young children’s use and grasp of the medium. Human Communication Research, 11(4), 461–480. Dorey, E., Roberts, V., Maddison, R., Meagher-Lundberg, P., Dixon, R., & Ni Mhurchu, C. (2010) Children and television watching: A qualitative study of New Zealand parents’ perceptions and views. Child Care Health Development, 36(3), 414–420.

Parental mediation  191 Fikkers, K. M., Piotrowski, J. T., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2017) A matter of style? Exploring the effects of parental mediation styles on early adolescents’ media violence exposure and aggression. Computers in Human Behavior, 70, 407–415. Fikkers, K. M., Piotrowski, J. T., Weeda W. D., Helen G. M., Vossen, H. G. M., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2013). Double dose: High family conflict enhances the effect of media violence exposure on adolescents’ aggression. Societies, 3(3), 280–292. Friedrich, R. R., Polet, J. P., Schich, I., & Wagner, M. N. (2014) Effect of intervention programs in schools to reduce screen time: A meta-analysis. Journal of Pediatrics, 90(3), 232–241. Fry, D., & McCain, T. (1980) Controlling children’s television viewing: Predictors of family television rules and their relationship to family communication patterns. Paper presented at the meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism, Boston, MA. Gergely, G., Egyed, K., & Kiraly, L. (2007) On pedagogy. Developmental Science, 10, 139–146. Gunter, B., & Svennevig, M. (1987) Behind and in Front of the Screen: Television’s Involvement with Family Life. London, UK: John Libbey. Hamilton, K., Spinks, T., White, K. M., Kavanagh, D. J., & Walsh, A. M. (2016) A psychosocial analysis of parents’ decisions for limiting their young child’s screen time: An examination of attitudes, social norms and roles, and control perceptions. British Journal of Health Psychology, 21(2), 285–301. Hedinsson, E. (1981) TV, family and society: The social origins and effects of adolescents’ TV use. Stockholm, Sweden: Almqvist & Wiksell International. Jago, R., Stamatakos, E., Gama, A., Carvalhal, I. M., Nogueira, H., Rosado, V., & Padez, C. (2012) Parent and child screen-viewing time and home media environment. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 43, 150–158. Jago, R., Wood, L., Zahra, J., Thompson, J. L., & Sebire, S. J. (2015) Parental control, nurturance, self-efficacy, and screen viewing among 5- to 6-year-old children: A cross-sectional mediation analysis to inform potential behaviour change strategies. Childhood Obesity, 11(2), 139–147. Kirkorian, H. L., Choi, K., & Pempek, T. A. (2016) Toddlers’ word learning from contingent and noncontingent video on touchscreens. Child Development, 87(2), 405–413. Kirkorian, H. L., Pempek, T. A., Murphy, L. A., Schmidt, M. E., & Anderson, D. R. (2009) The impact of background television on parent-child interaction. Child Development, 80, 135–139. Lapierre, M. A., Piotrowski, J. T., & Linebarger, D. L. (2012) Background television in the homes of US children. Pediatrics, 130, 839–846. Lauricella, A. R., Wartella, E. A., & Rideout, V. J. (2015) Young children’s screen time: The complex role of parent and child factors. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 36, 11–17. Lavigne, H. J., Hanson, K. G., Anderson, D. R. (2015) The influence of television coviewing on parent language directed at toddlers. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 36(1), 1–10. Lin, L. Y., Cherng, R. J., Chen, Y. J., & Yang, H. M. (2015) Effects of television exposure on developmental skills among young children. Infant Behavior and Development, 38, 20–26.

192  Parental mediation Lull, J. (1978) Choosing television programmes by family vote. Communication Quarterly, 26, 53–57. Lull, J. (1980) The social uses of television. Human Communication Research, 6, 97–109. Lull, J. (1982) How families select television programmes: A mass observational study. Journal of Broadcasting, 26, 801–811. Marsh, J., Plowman, L., Yamada-Rice, D., Bishop, J. C., Lahmar, J., Scott, F., Davenport, A., Davis, S., French, K., Piras, M., Thornhill, S., Robinson, P., & Winter, P. (2017) Exploring play and creativity in preschoolers’ use of apps: A report for early years practitioners. Available at: http://www.techandplay.org/ reports/TAP_Final_Report.pdf. Accessed 26th August 2020. McLeod, J., & Brown, J. D. (1976) The family environment and adolescent television use. In R. Brown (Ed.). Children and Television, pp. 199–233. London, UK: Collier Macmillan. Melzer, A., Happ, C., & Seffen, G. (2010) Violence for the masses: The impact of violence in electronic mass media. In M. Herzog-Evans (Ed.). Transnational Criminology Manual, pp. 701–718. Nijmegen, The Netherlands: Wolf Legal Publishers. Mendelsohn, A., Brockmeyer, C. A., Dreyera, B. P., Fiermana, A., Berkule-Silberman, S., & Tomopoulosa, S. (2010) Do verbal interactions with infants during electronic media exposure mitigate adverse impacts on their language development as toddlers? Infant and Child Development, 19, 577–593. Messaris, P., & Kerr, D. (1983) Others’ comments about TV: Relation to family communication patterns. Communication Research, 10(2), 175–194. Messaris, P., & Sarrett, C. (1981) On the consequences of television-related parent-child interactions. Human Communication Research, 7(3), 226–244. Nikken, P., & Jansz, J. (2006). Parental mediation of children’s videogame playing: A comparison of the reports by parents and children. Learning, Media and Technology, 31(2), 181–202. Nikken, P., & Jansz, J. (2007). Playing restricted videogames: Relations with game ratings and parental mediation. Journal of Children and Media, 1(3), 227–243. Niven, H. (1960) Who in the family selects TV programmes? Journalism Quarterly, 37, 110–111. Padilla-Walker, L. M., & Coyne, S. M. (2010). “Turn that thing off!” parent and adolescent predictors of proactive media monitoring. Journal of Adolescence, 34(4), 705–715. Przybylski, A. K., & Nash, V. (2018) Internet filtering and adolescent exposure to online sexual material. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 21(7), 405–410. Reiser, R. A., Williamson, N., & Suzuki, K. (1988) Using Sesame Street to facilitate children’s recognition of letters and numbers. Educational Communication and Technology Journal, 36, 15–21. Richert, R. A., Robb, M. B., & Smith, E. I. (2011) Media as social partners: The social nature of young children’s learning from screen media. Child Development, 82(1), 82–95. Roseberry, S., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Golinkoff, R. M. (2014) Skype me! Socially contingent interactions help toddlers learn language. Child Development, 85(3), 956–970. Schaan, V., & Melzer, A. (2014) Parental mediation of children’s television and video game use in Germany: Active and embedded in family processes. Paper presented at the International Communication Association conference in Seattle, 22–26 May.

Parental mediation  193 Schmidt, M. E., Haines, J., O’Brien, A., McDonald, J., Price, S., Sherry, B., & Taveras, E. M. (2012) Systematic review of effective strategies for reducing screen time among young children. Obesity, 20(7), 1338–1354. Smith, D. C. (1961) The selection of television programmes. Journal of Broadcasting, 6, 35–44. Strouse, G. A., O’Doherty, K., & Troseth, G. L. (2013) Effective co-viewing: Preschoolers’ learning from video after a dialogic questioning intervention. Developmental Psychology, 49, 2368–2382. Strouse, G. A., & Troseth, G. L. (2014) Supporting toddlers’ transfer of word learning from video. Cognitive Development, 30, 47–64. Strouse, G. A., Troseth, G., O’Doherty, K. D., & Saylor, M. M. (2018) Co-viewing supports toddlers’ word learning from contingent and noncontingent video. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 166, 310–326. Valkenburg, P. M., Krcmar, M., Peeters, A., & Marseille, N. (1999). Developing a scale to assess three styles of television mediation: “Instructive mediation”, “restrictive mediation”, and “social coviewing.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 43, 52–66. Valkenburg, P. M., Piotrowski, J. T., Hermanns, J., & de Leeuw, R. (2013). Developing and validating the perceived parental media mediation scale: A self-determination perspective. Human Communication Research, 39(4), 445–469. Van der Voort, T. H. A., Nikken, P., & van Lil, J. E. (1992) Determinants of parental guidance of children’s television viewing: A Dutch replication study. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 36(1), 61–74. Von Stauffenberg, C., & Campbell, S. B. (2004) Television watching associated with the quality of childcare and cognitive outcomes in children. Paper presented at the Biennial Conference for Infant Studies, Chicago, IL. Wade, S. E. (1973) Interpersonal discussions: A critical predictor of leisure activity. Journal of Communication, 23, 426–445. Wahl, G., Parkin, P. C., Beyene, J., Uleryk, E. M., & Birken, C. S. (2011) Effectiveness of interventions aimed at reduced screen time in children: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, 165, 979–986. Wand, B. (1968) Television viewing and family differences. Public Opinion Quarterly, 32, 84–94. Warren, R. (2005) Parental mediation of children’s television viewing in low-income families. Journal of Communication, 55(4), 847–863. Watkins, B., Calvert, S. L., Huston-Stein, A. C., & Wright, J. L. (1980) Children’s recall of television material: Effects of presentation mode and adult labelling. Developmental Psychology, 16, 672–674. Weinstein, N., & Przybylski, A. K. (2018) The impacts of motivational framing of technology restrictions on adolescent concealment: Evidence from a preregistered experimental study. Computers in Human Behavior, 90, 170–180. doi:10.1016/j. chb.2018.08.053. Wu, L., Sun, S., He, Y., & Jiang, B. (2016) The effect of interventions targeting screen time reductions: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Medicine (Baltimore), 95(27), e4029.

Chapter 12

Cultivating screen literacy among children

Chapter 12 turns to the challenges of regulating a rapidly changing media world. This chapter, however, offers a different perspective – one of consumer empowerment. Can children be taught to self-control their use of screen technologies? Can they be encouraged to be selective in the things they watch? Can they learn how to discriminate between content that is truthful or dishonest or fake? In sum, is there a level of understanding they can develop about screen technologies and the different kinds of content these devices deliver that enables them to use the technologies sparingly, to avoid specific types of material, and to know how to judge for themselves the veracity of different depictions and to inoculate themselves psychologically from becoming distressed or adversely influenced by the things they see and hear? Can children become technology or screen literate? The evidence examined in this chapter will show that the answer to these questions is affirmative. Children can learn to become discerning screen technology users. This learning can result in an understanding that can, in turn, enable them to become discerning media consumers and better able to control their own screen behaviour. We have witnessed a rapid expansion of new screen technologies from the late 20th century. With this, many of the concerns parents and carers had about children’s use of television sets have migrated across to the latter’s use of newer interactive screen technologies (Radesky, Schumacher & Zuckerman, 2014). When television was a new medium there were concerns about whether it would displace other child activities and about the ultimate effects this would have on children’s psychological development (Gunter & McAleer, 1997). With greater use of screen technology there is also an increased risk that youngsters will become exposed to content that is not suitable for them. Greater screen use enhances the risk of exposure to disturbing or upsetting content or to content that teaches them the wrong lessons in life and encourages them to engage in behaviour that could be potentially harmful to themselves or others (Buckingham, Banaji, Carr, Cranmer & Willett, 2005; Potter, 2010; Hobbs, 2011).

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Children have embraced the expanded availability of old technologies as well as the introduction of new ones with considerable enthusiasm. The contemporary media landscape has given children more content choices and more control over content reception. As the last chapter showed, parents can still play an important role in helping their children to acquire, internalise and deploy control over their screen behaviour (see Ofcom, 2017). Given that interactive screen technologies supply applications designed for very young children, to be used long before they start school, learning to manage these begins early in a child’s life (Herodotou, 2018). Although television and other screen technologies can be used to bring many benefits into people’s lives, they also present many risks and challenges for young users who need to be equipped with internalised psychological mechanisms for coping with them (Kellner & Share, 2007). Children need to be provided with the intellectual tools or “literacies” to understand how new communications technologies work and how to use them responsibly to enhance their benefits and minimise harms. Newtechnology–related literacies need to be taught as skills alongside the more traditional “literacies” (and “numeracies”) as basic skillsets which children must learn as early as possible, especially given that these technologies can become established aspects of children’s before they even start school. The idea here is to establish built-in safeguards against harmful influences of media on children rather than to rely only on parental judgement and control.

The nature of media understanding The emergence of new screen technologies, new suppliers of video content, new tools that enable children to produce and distribute their own video materials, and increasingly sophisticated mechanisms for children as audiences to interact with mediated content, have all meant that new media skillsets must be learned. The expansion of video content supply sources has also meant increased risks to young media consumers because the editorial and regulatory controls that apply to the best-known media brands often do not apply to new suppliers that are not part of the mainstream. Research with children in the UK, aged five to 15 years, found that their reported use of new video streams, most especially YouTube, was far more widespread than their reported use of mainstream broadcast television. This pattern of media behaviour became more and more prevalent from pre-teen into teenage years (Ofcom, 2019). The use of social media sites was also very prominent among teenagers. While flatlining in its popularity, more than seven in ten early adolescents (aged 12–15 years) with a social media profile said they used the world’s biggest social media site, Facebook, two-thirds said they used Instagram, and over four in ten used WhatsApp (Ofcom, 2019).

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There are socially significant issues arising from this behaviour. Nine in ten teenage social media users said they were mean to others sometimes and nearly eight in ten (78%) said that being on these sites placed them under pressure to be popular. This pressure was most likely to be felt by teenage girls. The messages and images they post are designed to make their lives look more interesting and exciting and they recognise that there is a great deal of exaggeration in this respect on these sites, not least because they, themselves, engage in it (Ofcom, 2019). Yet, many children acquire an early “literacy” concerning what is and is not “authentic” on new media. Personal profiles are recognised as being highly curated to enhance personal image. Despite the pressures that being on social media sites can bring, the use of these sites was also identified by British teenagers (by 90%+) as making them happy and bringing them closer to their friends (Ofcom, 2019). While many youngsters are not usually known for their interest in the news, Ofcom’s research found that many identified both television and social media sites as important information sources. Over six in ten (62%) of those aged 12–15 years said they actively looked for news every week. Television (68%) was ahead of family (64%) and social media site and friends (both 56%) as news sources. Social media sites were widely used as news sources, but many youngsters did not trust the content they found there. Among social media news consumers, 45% had faith in the accuracy of this news source and 41% trusted it. Comparable figures for television were 86% and 85%. Nearly eight in ten British teenagers (78%) questioned by Ofcom (2019) had heard about “fake news” and more than four in ten (43%) said they had seen a news story online they thought was fake. Nearly three in four (74%) knew that “fake news” was made up news designed to mislead people. Nearly s even in ten (69%) of these same teens said they approach new web sites with a critical gaze and did not accept information from such site at face value. Another experience reported by both pre-teenage and teenage children when online was unwanted attention and, in particular, bullying. This kind of attention was mentioned by one in ten eight- to 11-year-olds and one in five aged 12–15 years. As well as bullying, children reported being sent inappropriate pictures and being contacted by someone they did not know. The children interviewed by Ofcom, however, displayed a clear awareness of the risks posed by these contacts and knew what steps they should take next. They had learned such lessons from their friends, online influencers, and others offline (Ofcom, 2019). What also emerged, however, was a multimedia world occupied even by quite young children in which they were given considerable freedom by their parents in terms of their use of new technologies. Clear majorities of those aged 12–15 years who owned such devices said they were allowed to take their smartphones (71%) and tablets (61%) to bed. The ubiquity of these technologies and freedom to use them meant that they represented ever constant

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temptations. Nearly two-thirds of teenagers thought that they had achieved the right balance between using screen technologies and other activities, and many of their parents agreed. Even so, parents exhibited evidence of growing concern. There was a big drop from 2014 to 2018 in the percentage of parents of teenagers saying the benefits of their children’s Internet use outweighed the risks (67%–54%) (Ofcom, 2019). In light of these findings, we can conclude that children are not unwitting dupes of screen technologies. Yet there are growing risks to youngsters posed by the much-expanded array of video content to which they have gained access across the first two decades of the 21st century. Children have some awareness of these risks, but this understanding does not extend to all of them, especially among pre-teens. This means there is plenty of scope for further regulatory intervention and education to protect youngsters. The challenges that a much expanded and globally run media world presents to regulatory systems means that attention must be given to helping children to self-protect through internalised learning about problematic content and the different risks it can present (Buckingham, 2019).

Identifying relevant forms of literacy “Literacy” in the traditional sense has referred to children’s abilities to read and write. These skills have been linked to their propensity to read books. If new technologies displace these traditional media, does this undermine children’s language literacy because they fail to practice relevant skills sufficiently? We have seen earlier in this book, that this negative cognitive impact of screen technology has been evidenced. This does not invariably follow from lack of availability of books, however. Researchers have reported, for example, that possession of mobile screen technologies by pre-teenage children was negatively related to their possession of a book. Yet, among teenagers, while most said they had their own mobile phone, nearly as many also claimed to read books (Paton, 2010). Literacy has a broader meaning in the context of screen technologies. It is not only defined by children’s language abilities but also by their competencies to use these technologies and interpret non-linguistic, mostly picture content. This alternative “media literacy” or “technology literacy” has as much currency intellectually in the digital era, as do traditional linguistic abilities. Technology literacy can enable children to cope better with controlling their own screen habits and promote abilities to interpret the content they receive in more sophisticated ways. There are different media education approaches. One form seeks to offer literacy skills training as a protectionist activity designed to enable young viewers to become internally inoculated against potential harmful effects. Some understanding must be imparted to young media consumers about specific content and message features that can potentially trigger

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audience responses (Kellner, 1995; Hobbs, 2007). It is important here to understand not just specific evidence about media effects but also the way the media fit institutionally, culturally, and politically with broader society (Ferguson, 2004). Another approach treats media outputs as artforms and aims to educate children to appreciate the aesthetics of production techniques and outputs. The media literacy movement that has emerged in the United States brings to children’s attention specific competencies associated with media production enabling them to make judgements about the quality of specific media outputs, but divorced from critiques of potential social, cultural, or political influences of media (Harding, 2004). Critical media literacy approaches focus on media representations of social, cultural, and political issues, events, and institutions, and the ability of these representations to distort young viewers’ impressions and concepts of different social realities. Techniques discussed by this approach derive from critical and cultural studies schools of social scientific analysis of social institutions such as the media. Some analysts have observed that cultural differences in the construction and reception of media require educational sensitivities to these idiosyncrasies (Ang, 2002). Some approaches to media literacy have conceived of it as a discipline that imparts a specific body of knowledge and skills, whereas others regard it as a broad framework for analysis and understanding of the media and their outputs (Masterman, 1985; Buckingham, 2003). While some methods of teaching literacy rely mostly on instruction in specific knowledge or skillsets, others embrace more discursive approaches in which students and tutors engage in exchanges about specific media outputs and share their ideas about what they have experienced under a more broadly guided framework (Luke, 1997).

The drive for centralised control In societies with highly developed media systems and extensive screen technology provision a widespread belief that has gained currency is that children need to be safeguarded. Some authorities believe either that more centralised regulatory controls over media are needed or that parents and schools must be more proactive in controlling children’s screen behaviour. These debates focussed, for many years, on children’s use of television. Then, as screen technologies evolved and became integrated with computer technologies, there were similar concerns voiced about playing computer or video games, and accessing the Internet and World Wide Web via desktop, laptop and tablet computers, and mobile phones. Some of these authorities tried to develop codes of practice for recommended “healthy” levels of use. The World Health Organization recommended that children aged under three years should be kept away completely from watching television

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or playing with games on tablet computers and that by the age of three to four years, their use of these technologies should be restricted to one hour per day. Experts from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health disputed these recommendations, however, on the grounds that their evidence base was weakly established and that it failed to take into account that screen technologies can deliver different content experiences to children that cannot all be deemed to be bad or harmful (Boseley, 2019). British medical professionals have warned parents and carers against allowing children to have screen technologies in their bedrooms which they then use before bedtime (Davis, 2019) The UK’s chief medical officer, Sally Davies, issued official guidance to British parents to restrict their children’s use of screen technologies by enforcing breaks in use at least every two hours and to prohibit use of social media at bedtime. This advice came after a number of real-life incidents in which children had taken extreme measures such as committing suicide after being bullied or harassed online and amidst emergent research showing that screen use at bedtime can disturb children’s sleep patterns leaving the too tired to concentrate properly at school the next day (Doyle & Spencer, 2019). The British Psychological Society produced a brief review of relevant empirical evidence about the potential harms and risks to children of screen technology use and recognised that beneficial effects could emerge as well as harmful ones. Parents were advised to watch over the screen use of young children, to discuss screen experiences with their children, and also to limit screen use at bedtime (Galpin & Taylor, 2016). In the United States, various professional bodies such as the American Psychological Association and the American Society of Pediatrics have recommended time limits of children’s use of screen technologies. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) (2001) issued advice on how much television infants and very young children should watch. The AAP recommended one to two hours a day for children older than two years and none at all for younger infants (Jusoff & Sahmi, 2009). A few years later, the same august body warned about the risks of children’s exposure to unsafe content and contacts via screen technologies (Council on Communication and Media, 2016). The AAP subsequently amended their recommendations to recognise that given the ubiquity of screen technologies, it may be difficult to completely restrict their use. Moreover, not all screen content can be regarded as harmful and some might even be beneficial to children (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2019). Despite recommendations such as these, the reality in most family households in developed countries is that children watch more than the optimal amounts. Given the prevalence of multiple-technologies across family households, some professional bodies have openly acknowledged that it may be impractical and unrealistic to recommend specific time limits on children’s

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screen use (BBC Newsround, 2019). Reassuringly, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in the UK challenged the claims that screen use by children almost invariably presents toxic threats to their well-being (Royal College of Paediatricians and Child Health, 2019). Some researchers found that parents reported two hours a day on average of television exposure among their under-2s (Pierroutsakos, Hanna, Self, Lewis & Brewer, 2004). One investigation found that a child would spend an average of 900 hours a year in school and then would spend an average of 1,023 hours in front of the television (Gavin, 2005). If we assume that, in the average family household, the television is switched on for around seven hours a day, it is possible that by the time they finish high-school, the average American child might have watched 15,000 hours of programmes (Sparrow, 2007). For some parents, sitting the child in front of the television is an easy option. It keeps the kids quiet and amused, and calms them down when they get over-excited (Hadberry, 1974; Certain & Kahn, 2002). There may not be a problem with this behaviour provided it is not done to excess. If parents become overly dependent on television to amuse the children, there could be longer-term consequences for their youngsters’ health and well-being (Hapkiewicz, 1979; Anderson, Huston, Schmitt, Linebarger & Wright, 2001; Healy, 2004; DeLoache & Chiong, 2009).

The importance of screen technology literacy Media literacy is the ability to critique media content and to understand different formats and genres and the production conventions they traditionally follow. It is about asking questions about the veracity of media content, even when it purports to be factual (Burton, 2005). Debates about media education began long before the digital technology era. These were triggered extensively by growing concerns about the harmful effects on children of watching television programmes with violent, sexual, profane, and other potentially problematic content. One solution, other than increased regulation, was to equip children with the skills and the will to internalise control over their own viewing habits and to critically appraise the content they consumed (Buckingham, 1995, 2007). In a digital world, screen literacy also encompasses understanding about how to use complex interactive technology and its various applications. Hence, children need not only to know how to use the functions on the remote controls of smart, computerised television sets, they also need to know how to use other screen devices such as desktop and laptop computers, tablet computers and smartphones. Studies of children in relation to these technologies have frequently revealed that they know their way around them better than do their parents and/or caregivers (Livingstone, Haddon, Gorzig & Olafsson, 2011). Youngsters themselves often claim to be well aware of these risks and know how to cope with them or circumvent them

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(Livingstone et al., 2011). Many of these risks derive from children seeking out new “friendships” online with unknown others, at least some of whom might be disguising who and what they really are. There is some evidence that as children gain experience with different screen technologies and interfaces, they learn for themselves different ways of reducing risk exposure likelihood (Staksrud, Olafsson & Livingstone, 2013). Not all youngsters acquire these competencies through their own experiences, but reassuringly, evidence has emerged that this kind of “literacy” does tend to improve with age (Madden, Lenhart, Cortesi & Gasser, 2013). Even so, many children can be duped into revealing information about themselves via screen technologies to strangers when they do not know who they are dealing with or what strangers’ ultimate motives might be (Ben Abdesslem, Parris & Henderson, 2010). Much of the early tuition about the media, and especially about television, drew on an understanding of production processes and story-telling techniques. Formal courses in media studies were established to teach children not just how to make programmes but also how to critique them (Blanchard, 1989; Stafford, 1990). Courses that focussed on production skills training were designed to enable children to gain skills through which they could express themselves creatively (Dowmunt, 1980). Learning about how to make films and television programmes was also believed to have spin-off benefits in enhancing children’s understanding of finished productions and in enhancing their abilities to deconstruct these productions rather than simply letting their contents wash over them or influence them (Masterman, 1980; Ferguson, 1981). In the United, States, during the 1970s and 1980s, school curricula emerged in which teachers taught media production lessons in which children learned practical skills and also different perspectives for critiquing finished programmes. They also learned about the economics of the media industries and about how specific media outputs could influence audiences (Dorr, Graves  & Phelps, 1980; Singer, Zuckerman & Singer, 1980; Abelman & Courtright, 1983; Anderson, 1983). Sometimes, these curricula were utilised as intervention exercises to offset the perceived harmful effects of television – especially purported effects of televised advertising and depictions of violence in televised drama (Blessington, 1981; Anderson, 1983). Measures of course effectiveness found that participants frequently exhibited enhanced abilities to question the veracity of specific programmes and their characterisations and settings (Dorr et al., 1980; Abelman, 1987). Similar literacy tuition approaches proved effective in cultivating greater scepticism among children about televised advertising (Christenson, 1982; Abelman & Courtright, 1983). Courses that focussed children’s attention on production practices that were used in different programme genres, including drama and news, enabled youngsters to make more refined judgements about these programmes

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and discouraged blind acceptance of their contents (Kelley, Gunter & Kelley, 1985; Kelley, Buckle & Gunter, 1986; Kelley, 1991). Evidence emerged from The Netherlands that educational television programmes that explain broadcast production techniques to six- to 12-yearold children could change their perceptions of programmes. Lessons taught by these programmes focussed on whether depicted screen violence was justified” by the perpetrators or by the storyline, the behaviour of fictional and real-life police officers, and encouraged the children to take a critical stance when evaluating on-screen action sequences. The children were shown interviews with real police officers who had actually shot someone in the line of duty, victims of real-life violence describing both the physical and emotional consequences for them, and a doctor talking about the medical consequences of real violence. The children taking part in this exercise had follow-up lessons and workbooks designed to reinforce the messages put out by the programmes. Their teachers also had a specially designed manual to guide their tuition methods in this context. The outcome was that children were less willing to take everything they saw on screen at face value (Vooijs & van der Voort, 1993). Similar effects arose from a course designed to teach children about the making of televised news programmes (Vooijs, van der Voort & Hoogeweij, 1995).

Mediating roles of parents and schools Parents and schools both have parts to play in the cultivation of screen technology literacy. Parents can begin the process of encouraging children to think critically about their use of screen technologies from an early age. They can create rules that limit use and exposure to such technologies (Sparrow, 2007). They can set examples through their own behaviour. They can also talk to their children about screen technologies and when and how they might be used and for what purposes. Parental interactions with their children should extend to discussions about content. These dialogues might not occur in many households as parents are reluctant to discipline their children too much. It is certainly the case that if anything in a child’s life is defined as “off-limits” by parents, the youngster’s curiosity about what they are missing could be heightened. Furthermore, as children get older and become more independent physically and psychologically, they may object to having their freedoms to choose how they behave curtailed by parents (Berks, 1994). A degree of subtlety might therefore be needed in cultivating internalised self-control in children. They need to be taught to be questioning about the things they experience via screen technologies and not take anything at face value. This should be an orientation adopted naturally and automatically and children must believe for themselves that this is their choice in how to approach different media.

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Impact of media literacy on risky behaviour Ultimately, whether media literacy initiatives and interventions are effective must be determined by relevant evidence. In particular, in addition to imparting specific skills and understanding about media productions, can media literacy interventions modify attitudes towards and intentions to engage in risky behaviour? Reviews of relevant empirical evidence have produced some positive results, but by no means consistently so. Jeong, Cho, and Hwang (2012) re-examined data from 51 media literacy intervention studies and found that overall media literacy education produced consistent and significant positive effects on media knowledge, critical abilities, judgements about realism, and recognition of where potential psychological effects might occur through exposure to specific kinds of media content. There appeared also to be a dose effect in terms of media literacy efficacy. The more the number of training sessions children received, the more powerful were the measured intervention effects. Vahedi, Sibalis, and Sutherland (2018) reported a similar analysis of 35 studies that had variously investigated the educational effectiveness of media literacy programmes and its mediating effects on adolescents’ attitudes and behaviour. They found that these programmes could significantly improve teenagers’ media understanding but often had more modest impact on softening their attitudes and orientations towards risky behaviour. Research that focussed more specifically on the mediating effects of media literacy interventions on the orientations of early adolescents towards media violence found that these programmes could reduce amount of consumption of violently themed programmes and video games and change attitudes towards aggression (Moller, Krahe, Busching & Krause, 2012; Rivera, Santos, Brandle & Cardoba, 2012).

Motor skills proficiency and screen media An important part of children being able to understand how to use screen technologies is the acquisition of the physical motor skills that underpin their interactions with technologies. There have been two aspects to this issue that have attracted the attention of researchers. The first of these concerns children’s acquisition of skills needed to use screen technologies, especially as they become more diverse and versatile in their functionalities. The second is the possibility that if very young children spend disproportionate amounts of time with screen technologies to the detriment of time spent doing other things such as playing physical games with other children that involve them running around with each other or engaging in rough and tumble activities, then their offline physical dexterity might suffer. Evidence has emerged to substantiate the latter effects.

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One longitudinal study that examined relationships between screen time and the motor proficiency of four- to seven-year-olds in relation to television watching, use of computers, and playing video games. The results showed that children who spent more time in screen-related activities at age four also did so at ages five and seven. A negative relationship was found between screen time at ages four and five and motor proficiency at age seven (Cadoret, Bigras, Lemay, Leher & Meire, 2016). A further study of children who were or were not exposed to television between the ages of 15 months and 35 months found that general cognitive, language, and motor development were all slowed among children that watched well over an hour of television per day compared to those who were virtual non-viewers. This investigation restricted its interest to the overall amount of screen exposure and did not differentiate between different kinds of viewing experience (Lin, Cherng, Chen & Yang, 2015). Children who were touchscreen tablet users were compared with sameage children who were non-users of these technologies. Pre-tests showed no differences between these groups in motor performance. Post-tests taken 24 weeks later found significant differences between these groups of children in terms of their fine motor precision, fine motor integration, and manual dexterity while at play. In each instance, technology users performed more poorly than did users. The researcher concluded that their findings indicated that while young users of screen technologies such as tablets acquire skills in the control of screen actions, they may subsequently display poorer motor dexterity in their offline activities if their preoccupation with screen leisure use reduced their devotion to other play behaviours (Lin, Cherng & Chen, 2017).

Importance of screen literacy This chapter has focussed on the subject of empowering children as users of television and other screen technologies. Parents can play an important independent role as mediators of children’s media habits. They cannot be all-seeing and all-knowing about the ways their children utilise different screen media throughout all their childhood years. It is essential then that children internalise media management and media interpretation skills and impose their own controls on this behaviour. Concerns about the negative impact of screen use on the pace of cognitive skills development in early childhood are underpinned by scientific evidence of their occurrence. Yet, the use of screen technologies in the digital media era requires a new kind of literacy that comprises a range of cognitive abilities that enhance learning about and from computerised technologies that convey massive quantities of diverse content to children. Finding their way around this content, using complex facilities within technologies for engaging interactively with screen materials, and processing inputs from more

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than one screen at a time all require distinctive cognitive information processing skills. Physically, many screen technologies present complex interfaces and are controlled by contact points that require new forms of manual physical dexterity. Hence a range of new motor skills as well as cognitive skills has evolved with these technologies. To ensure that children reap maximum intellectual, social and recreational benefits from screen technologies, new forms of “literacy” are essential. Children must therefore be given the opportunity to develop these skillsets. Yet, the old forms of “literacy” associated with reading and numeracy remain as significant as ever within formal educational settings and in life more generally. Undermining the development of older literacies through over liberal use of screen technologies will not help children in the longer term. The right balance must therefore be struck between these different literacies, and appropriate encouragement to practice all of them is important to balanced child cognitive and social development. While efforts to cultivate internalised skillsets and behavioural orientations in children can go a long way towards achieving this objective, they may not always be sufficient on their own. It may be necessary for centralised authorities occasionally to step in and create legislative parameters around screen technologies and content providers to safeguard the interests of children. This is the subject dealt with in the final chapter of this book.

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Cultivating screen literacy  207 Dowmunt, T. (1980) Video with Young People. London, UK: Interaction Imprint. Doyle, J., & Spencer, B. (2019, 1st February) Screen limits for children; Government lays out its first official guidelines for youngsters’ web use – As it tells parents to enforce breaks every two hours and BAN social media use at bedtime. Mail Online. Available at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6659257/Screenlimit-children-New-official-guidelines-state-youngsters-need-break-phones.html. Accessed 5th April 2019. Ferguson, R. (1981) Practical work and pedagogy. Screen Education, 38, 42–55. Ferguson, R. (2004) The Media in Question. London, UK: Arnold. Gadberry, S. (1974) Television as baby-sitter: A field comparison of preschoolers’ behaviour during playtime and during television viewing. Child Development, 45, 1132–1136. Galpin, A., & Taylor, G. (2016) Changing behaviour: Children, adolescents and screen use. British Psychological Society. Available at: https://www.bps.org.uk/sites/bps.org. uk/files/Policy/Policy%20-%20Files/Changing%20behaviour%20-%20children,%20 adolescents,%20and%20screen%20use.pdf. Accessed 20th September 2019. Gavin, M. L. (2005) How TV affects your child. Nemours Foundation. Available at: http://www.kidshealth.org/index.html. Gunter, B., & McAleer, J. (1997) Children and Television (2nd ed.). London, UK: Routledge. Hapkiewicz, W. G. (1979) Children’s reactions to cartoon violence. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 8(1), 30–34. Harding, S. (Ed.) (2004). Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader: Intellectual and Political Controversies. New York, NY: Routledge. Healy, J. M. (2004) Early television exposure and subsequent attention problems in children. American Academy of Pediatrics, 113(4), 917–918. Herodotou, C. (2018) Young children and tablets: A systematic review of effects on learning and development. Journal of Computer-Assisted Learning, 34, 1–9. Hobbs, R. (2007) Reading the Media: Media Literacy in High School English. New York, NY: The Teachers College Press. Hobbs, R. (2011) Digital and Media Literacy: Connecting Culture in the Classroom. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Jeong, S. H., Cho, H., & Hwang, Y. (2012) Media literacy interventions: A metaanalytic review. Journal of Communication, 62(3), 454–472. Jusoff, K., & Sahmi, N. N. (2009) Television and media literacy in young children: Issues and effects in early childhood. International Education Studies, 2(3), 151–157. Kelley, P. (1991) Failing our children? The comprehension of younger viewers. Journal of Educational Television, 17(3), 149–157. Kelley, P., Buckle, L., & Gunter, B. (1986) The television literacy project. Secondary Education Journal, 15, 21–22. Kelley, P., Gunter, B., & Kelley, C. (1985) Teaching television in the classroom: Results of a preliminary study. Journal of Educational Television, 11, 57–63. Kellner, D. (1995) Media Culture: Cultural Studies, Identity and Politics Between the Modern and the Postmodern. London, UK: Routledge. Kellner, D., & Share, J. (2007) Critical media literacy is not an option. Learning Inquiry, 1, 59–69. Klesges, R. C., Shelton, M. L., & Klesges, L. M. (1993) Effects of television on metabolic rate: Potential implications for childhood obesity. Pediatrics, 91, 281–286.

208  Cultivating screen literacy Lin, L. Y., Cherng, R. J., & Chen, Y. J. (2017) Effect of touch screen tablet use on fine motor development of young children. Physical and Occupational Therapy in Pediatrics, 37(5), 457–467. Lin, L. Y., Cherng, R. J., Chen, Y. J., Chen, Y. J., & Yang, H. M. (2015) Effects of television exposure on developmental skills among young children. Infant Behavior and Development, 38, 20–26. Livingstone, S., Haddon, L., Gorzig, A., & Olafsson, K. (2011) Risks and safety on the internet: The perspective of European children. Available at: http://www.eukidsonline.net. Luke, C. (1997) Media literacy and cultural studies. In S. Muspratt, A. Luke & P. Freebody (Eds.). Constructing Critical Literacies: Teaching and Learning Textual Practice, pp. 19–49. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, Inc. Madden, M., Lenhart, A., Cotesi, S., & Gasser, U. (2013) Teens and mobile apps privacy. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center and The Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University. Available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/ Reports/2013/Teenes-and-Mobile-Apps-Privacy.aspx. Masterman, L. (1985) Teaching the Media. New York, NY: Macmillan. Masterman, L. (1980) Teaching About Television. London, UK: Macmillan. Moller, I., Krahe, B., Busching, R., & Krause, C. (2012) Efficacy of an intervention to reduce the use of media violence and aggression: An experimental evaluation with adolescents in Germany. Journal of Youth & Adolescence, 41(2), 105–120. Ofcom. (2004) The Media Literacy of Children and Young People. London, UK: Office of Communications. Ofcom. (2017) Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report 2017. London, UK: Office of Communications. Ofcom. (2019) Children and Parents: Media use and Attitudes Report 2019. London, UK: Office of Communications. Paton, G. (2010, May 26th) Children ‘more likely to own a mobile phone than a book’. The Telegraph. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7763811/Children-more-likely-to-own-a-mobile-phone-than-a-book.html. Pierroutsakos, S. K., Hanna, M. M., Self, J. A., Lewis, E. N., & Brewer, C. J. (2004) Baby Einstein’s everywhere: The amount and nature of television and video viewing of infants, birth to 2 years. Paper presented at the Biennial International Conference for Infant Studies, Chicago, IL. Pine, K. J., & Nash, A. (2002) Dear Santa: The effects of television advertising on young children. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 26(6), 529–539. Potter, W. J. (2010) The state of media literacy. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 54(4), 675–696. Radesky, J. S., Schumacher, J., & Zuckerman, N. B. (2014) Mobile and interactive media use by young children: The good, the bad, and the unknown. Pediatrics, 135(1), Available at: http://pedistrics.aappublications.org/content/135/1/1. Rivera, R., Santos, D., Brandle, G., & Cardoba, M. A. (2012) Design effectiveness analysis of a media literacy intervention to reduce violent video games consumption among adolescents: The relevance of lifestyles segmentation. Evaluation Review, 40(2), 142–161. Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. (2019, January) The health impacts of screen time: A guide for clinicians and parents. Available at: https://www.rcpch. ac.uk/resources/health-impacts-screen-time-guide-clinicians-parents. Accessed 20th September 2019.

Cultivating screen literacy  209 Singer, D. G., Zuckerman, D. M., & Singer, J. L. (1980) Helping elementary school children learn about TV. Journal of Communication, 30(3), 84–93. Sparrow, J. (2007). Small screen, big impact. Scholastic Parent and Child, April, pp. 48–50. Stafford, R. (1990) Redefining creativity: Extended project work in GCSE media studies. In D. Buckingham (Ed.). Watching Media Learning. London, UK: Falmer Press, pp. 81–100. Staksrud, E., Olafsson, K., & Livingstone, S. (2013) Dies the use of social networking sites increase children’s risk of harm? Computes in Human Behavior, 29(1), 40–50. Vahedi, Z., Sibalis, A., & Sutherland, J. E. (2018) Are media literacy interventions effective at changing attitudes and intentions towards risky behaviours in adolescents: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Adolescence, 67, 140–152. Vooijs, M. W., & van der Voort, T. H. A. (1993) Teaching children to evaluate television violence critically: The impact of a Dutch schools television project. Journal of Educational Television, 19(3), 139–152. Vooijs, M. W., van der Voort, T. H. A., & Hoogeweij, J. (1995) Critical viewing of television news: The impact of a Dutch schools television project. Journal of Educational Television, 21(1), 23–36.

Chapter 13

The challenges of regulating children’s screen experiences

Today, children are born into a world where communications technologies are diverse and ubiquitous and are accepted as normal and integral aspects of everyday life. Initial exposure to screen technologies, usually in the form of television and then, following on quite soon after, game devices, tablet computers, and mobile phones, introduces children, in infancy, to a range of applications that are sources of entertainment and information and interpersonal communication. Understandably, given their ubiquity, there have been many concerns raised about the impact such technologies have on children’s development. This book has traced research into these various concerns covering its history and contemporary status. The screen media landscape available to children in the 2000s looks significantly different from that they enjoyed even as recently as 1990 when the author first examined this subject (Gunter  & McAleer, 1990). Many of the concerns from the pre-digital era prevail, but new ones have emerged because screen technologies have become more diverse and sophisticated, and therefore the experiences that they bring into children’s lives have expanded and can be profound. Moreover, technology-related behaviour has evolved to a point where the nature of the psychological experience has also altered. Understandably, much public concern has focussed on the negative effects of screen experiences for children, but as this book has shown, there can also be many positive benefits. One key aspect of the changes witnessed over time is the merger of previously distinct technologies and systems, namely telecommunications, computing and broadcasting/publishing. What were once distinct systems of interpersonal and mass communication have merged and operate via the same multifunctional technologies. There is more mass communication but we have also witnessed interpersonal communication becoming massified through online virtual systems. This is a dynamic game-changer in that media users have become empowered as prosumers (who produce and consume) and traditional media producers and distributors no longer have exclusive control over access to mass audiences and consumption.

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The growth of screen media and the diversification of content producing systems operating through them pose challenges for researchers seeking to understand how these mediated experiences influence children and shape their psychological and social development. Past lessons from cruder media systems still have some currency, and early established knowledge about the effects of television still has some relevance in understanding children’s engagement with contemporary media systems. However, it cannot be assumed that modern interactive and multifunctional screen technologies engage children psychologically in the same way as did the relatively passive reception of old broadcast content.

Limiting screen time There has been much debate about the amount of time children spend with screen technology. An early consensus was reached during the television era, that “too much” viewing was bad for children. Within the contemporary multiscreen digital-technology era, some experts have reached a different conclusion. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in the UK claimed that evidence of harm from amount of screen use per se was overstated. Although there was some statistical evidence of links between amount of screen time and specific health conditions, many alleged effects of screen use stemmed more from the nature of the content being consumed than from the sheer amount of time spent absorbing images from the screen (Baker, 2019). Yet, research from the American National Institutes of Health in the United States concluded that consumption of more than an optimal amount of screen time could damage children’s brains. This research followed over 11,000 American children for a decade and monitored their use of a range of screen technologies including smartphones, video games and tablet computers. Questionnaire and brain scan data were collected from the children and indicated that when youngsters routinely watched screens for more than seven hours a day, they could display a thinning of the cortex, while those averaging more than two hours of screen-time per day scored more poorly on tests of cognitive and language skills. New screen-time guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics emphasised the importance of face-toface interactions for very young children and even recommended avoiding all screen contact for infants aged 18–24 months (Naftulin, 2018). For parents, controlling their children’s screen-time is easier to talk about than to implement. The temptations to engage with screen technologies is ever-present in children’s lives from early on. Parents will often find themselves fighting against peer-group pressures on their children to watch specific screen outputs. Moreover, many children simply do not like having their freedom to choose restricted at all. Over time, different

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national authorities have offered up prescriptions for the optimal or maximum number of hours children should spend with screens. Advice on upper limits has varied between two hours and six hours and can vary with the age of the child and, of course, the nature of the content with which the child is engaging (MacDonald, 2018). One national U.S. survey of one million plus children aged 13, 15 and 17 years, covering 1991–2016, observed a decrease in youngsters’ reported self-esteem, life satisfaction and happiness scores after 2012. Psychological well-being was, on average, lower among those youngsters reporting the greatest amounts of time spent using screen technologies. There was also a linear relationship between gradually decreasing life satisfaction and increased devotion to screen activities and decreased time spent with nonscreen activities (Twenge, Martin & Campbell, 2018).

Controlling how much television children watch Infants as young as six months old can begin to identify objects on screen while watching television. Toddlers at two years can begin to copy some of the things they see on screen, although they generally perform better with real-life demonstrations that appear in front of them (Anderson & Hanson, 2010). Yet, it is also known that television viewing can contribute to child behavioural problems between the ages of two and half years and five and a half years. Children’s behaviour seems to be sensitive to the amount of viewing parents permit among their children. Taking steps to reduce their children’s use of screen technologies can bring positive behavioural and cognitive-developmental results. Researchers have also found that allowing children to have a television set in their bedroom is not a good idea because this arrangement increases viewing temptations and can disrupt sleep with further knock-on effects on behaviour (Anderson, Huston, Schmitt, Linebarger & Wright, 2001). Regular exposure to screen content, whether on television or via computer screens or smartphones, can pose another problem. Children might see or hear things that are upsetting to them or that are simply inappropriate for their age group. What can be done about it? Parents can play an important role in controlling this behaviour. Research has shown that parental interventions can prove to be effective in ensuring that children do not over-use screen technologies or witness content that might not be appropriate for them. Such interventions do not need to be rigidly rule-based. Simply viewing alongside their children can enable parents to monitor what their children watch and subtly bring it under control (De Decker, De Craemer, De Bourdeaudhuij, Wijndexeli, Duvinage, Koletzko, Grammatikaki, Iotova, Usheva, Fernandez-Alvire, Zyck, Manios, Cardon & ToyBox-study.org, 2012; Latomme, Van Stappen, Casrdon, Morgan, Lateva, Chakarova, Kivelä, Lindström, Androutsos, González-Gil, De Miguel-Etayo, Nánási, Kolozsvári, Manios & De Craemer, 2018).

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Screen use and risks Children are enthusiastic users of many screen technologies. Screen use patterns change as children grow up, but they can start to become established during infancy. Once in place, early habits can persist across childhood at least as far as general screen orientations are concerned. Optimal and managed screen use, integrated with other non-screen activities, some mental and others physical, can create the right recipe for healthy child development. Over-use and excessive dependence on screen amusement are not so good. There is a rich and varied research literature on screen technology and children and making sense of all the findings is not easy. As we round up what has been learned from the evidence reviewed in this book, it is pertinent to consider the risks screen use can pose to children. What becomes clear is that researchers are continuing to debate many screen effects on children and that this is important given the rapid and persistent evolution of screen technologies in children’s lives.

Putting screen risks in perspective One of the major concerns about over-use of screen technology has been that it can have physical health impacts on children. Among the most serious negative side-effects is sleep loss. The light stimulation of a screen, especially just before bedtime, arouse the brain in a way that can be disruptive to getting to sleep and then subsequently sleeping well. Research has shown that late-night use of screen technology use is one of the principal reasons for children losing sleep and then being too tired the next day to concentrate properly at school. This can result in poor educational performance and disruptive social behaviour. One review of 67 studies found that although screen-sleep relationships fluctuated with the overall amount and nature of screen use, the overall conclusions showed that screen use before bedtime was not conducive to getting a good night’s sleep (Hale & Guan, 2014). Further research has challenged this proposition. Scientists based at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford collected a large amount of data from thousands of children in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Using data specifically from the United States 2016 National Survey of Children’s Health, Andrew Przybylski and his colleagues found that although there was some evidence that when children used screen technologies shortly before bed time they lost some sleep, this amounted to only a modest sleep loss (between 3 and 8 minutes) that could be accounted for specifically by screen use. While a screen-user might on average exhibit average nightly sleep that was 30 minutes less than a screen technology abstainer, that apparent sleep “loss” could also, in part, be explained by other factors, such as an early start time to the school day. Adolescents who complied with the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended amount of

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screen time slept between 20 and 26 minutes more than did those who were non-compliant. Overall, however, the impact specifically of screen technology use on sleeping patterns was modest (Pryzbyski, 2019). Such findings should not be taken to mean that parents ought to be relaxed about their children using screen technologies when going to bed or for the final hours before doing so, but it does indicate that there may be other factors at play that underpin poor sleeping patterns. Parents should be advised of these if they are to receive comprehensive guidance about interventions most likely to have beneficial impact on their children’s sleep. Further data analysis from the same study with three national datasets totalling 17,000+ participants, revealed that there was little evidence to conclude that screen use at bedtime had a negative impact on children’s mental health (Gabbattiss, 2019). There are methodological and analytical issues to be considered here. At the level of measuring screen effects on child well-being, multiple factors may be at play at the same time that could act independently or interdependently or may even cancel each other out. These nuances are not always fully identified and separated out. Moreover, results from large datasets can yield statistically significant findings that are nevertheless small in terms of their social significance (Orben & Pryzbylski, 2018, 2019). In another massive sample study in which data were examined for over 120,000 adolescents in England, statistical relationships between reported screen use and personal health measures attained statistical significance, but varied with different patterns of screen activity. Time of week of screen use and other social context factors associated with it mediated the strength of relationships between screen behaviour and other behaviour. What these findings indicated was that to understand the potential impact of screen technology use, it will be increasingly important to move away from a focus on overall screen behaviour and to distinguish between different types of screen activity. In more general terms, moderate screen use was not found to be a significant risk factor in relation to potential harms of viewing (Pryzbylski & Weinstein, 2017).

Guidance on children’s screen behaviour Many professional bodies in different parts of the world have offered guidance to parents and care-givers about children’s use of screen technology. Unfortunately, this advice has often been conflicted. Sometimes this can be blamed on contradictory research evidence or disagreements between experts about the quality and conclusions of key studies. On other occasions, policy-makers have drawn up codes of practice on the basis of political expediency. In the UK, the Royal College of Paediatricians and Child Health (RCPCH) presented a cautionary position about the evidence for harms of screen use among children. The RCPCH could have been influenced by

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emergent evidence that regular screen use by children does not invariably result in harmful side-effects. Even where there is some empirical evidence of such effects, they tend to be modest. Hence, screen technology might disrupt sleep patterns but not in a major way. There could be some displacement of non-screen activities by screen behaviour, but this consequence is by no means universal or invariably substantial in impact. The RCPCH (2018) noted a number of key conclusions about the association between screen time and harmful effects on children. 1 2

3

4

“Screen time is directly ‘toxic’ to health. This view is popular outside the scientific literature, but has essentially no evidence to support it. Screen time alters behaviour and thus leads to negative outcomes. There is some evidence for this when it comes to diet: watching screens can distract children from feeling full, and this may be contributing towards the increased energy intake mentioned above. Also, children are often exposed to advertising while using screens, which appears to lead to higher intake of unhealthy foods. Screen use exposes children and young people to harmful content, through cyberbullying, watching violence or pornography, unrealistic imagery (unrealistic body shapes) or through monitoring online status (e.g. ‘likes’) with their peers. Screen time displaces positive activities. Analysis of what leads to positive wellbeing has consistently supported socialising, good sleep, diet and exercise as positive influences. All of these can be displaced by screen-based activities, which may lead to an ‘opportunity cost’ in terms of other beneficial activities. For this reason, we feel that this is the main way in which screen time and negative outcomes may be linked.”

The RCPCH was at pains to advise, however, that “associations” between variables, such as those reported on above, neither demonstrate nor prove causality. Its own research with children found that they can self-report that it is possible to spend “too much time” using screen technologies and that to do so did carry certain risks. Although some physical reactions, such as sore eyes, were reported, most perceived risks derived from the types of content to which they were exposed, especially when going online. Blanket rules concerning screen-use time did not always provide acceptable or manageable solutions. Instead, parents should seek to negotiate with their children how often and when they could or should use screen technologies with good reasons given for controlling this behaviour. Education and health authorities in different countries have adopted varying guidelines relating to control of children’s screen behaviour. Digital screen technologies can bring huge benefits to the lives of children, but the extent to which these benefits are experienced depends a great deal on

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patterns of use. Access to technologies such as mobile phones, tablet computers and laptop computers has grown immensely across the first two decades of the 21st century. In developed countries, substantial majorities of children possess these technologies and use them daily as do rapidly growing numbers in developing countries (Canadian Paediatric Society Digital Health Task Force, 2017; Department of Health, 2017). As these screen technologies have become more prevalent, they also consume more time. Children can spend many hours per day using these technologies and this behaviour can displace other important activities that can prove harmful to their development. Although harm is not always a “given” as an outcome, children who devote disproportionate amounts of time staring at or interacting with a screen can experience a range of physical and psychological side-effects that are not good for them. It is not simply the amount of time children spend with these technologies that is critical, it is also the nature of the online activities in which they engage that can cause problems. Their exposure to undesirable content can be directly upsetting or produce longerterm cognitive or behaviour changes that affect children’s intellectual development and social interaction patterns (Tremblay, Chaput, Adamo, Aubert, Barnes, Choquette, Duggan, Faulkner, Goldfield, Gray, Gruber, Janson, Janssen, Janssen, Garcia, Kuzik, LeBlanc, MacLean, Okely, Poitras, Rayner, Reilly, Sampson, Spence, Timmons & Carson, 2017). Tensions can be created between different stakeholder groups in this context. Digital technologies have spawned new industries that provide important sources of employment and create new opportunities for children to learn and gain new skills unavailable through any other means. Counter-posed to these initiatives and benefits, educational and health professionals are concerned that children’s mental and physical well-being and development can be undermined by over-use and misuse. In Australia, The Early Years Learning Framework and the Australian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for the Early Years provide educational and health professionals with advice concerning the use of digital technologies by early years children. Educational professionals are encouraged to use digital technologies as learning tools among children. It is recognised that screen technologies can provide access to diverse sources of valuable educational content and cultivate the growth of specific cognitive skills that have value in both the offline and online worlds. At the same time, these guidelines note that screen technologies are used at home as access points for all kinds of entertainment content and that their over-use in this context can undermine some areas of cognitive and social development. It is therefore important that the right balance is struck by parents in permitting their children access to these technologies and for the amount they are used for a specific and narrow range of applications (Straker, Maslen, Burgess-Limerick, Johnson  & Dennerlein, 2010; Straker, Abbott, Collins & Campbell, 2014; Straker & Howie, 2016; Straker, Zabatiero, Fanby, Thorpe & Edwards, 2018).

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Over-use of screen technologies by children at a very basic level can bring physical problems because it is a sedentary behaviour. Children must be encouraged to move around and take exercise and most screen engagement (the exceptions being Wii-type games in which the players must physically move in time with and to control the movements of on-screen actors or objects) does not encourage much physical activity. Straker and colleagues working in Australia have argued that parents have a duty of responsibility to introduce their children to the digital world and lay down early lessons in their use. Digital literacy is essential in the modern world and yet it is important also to strike the right balance between technology use and non-use to gain the maximum benefits (Straker et al., 2018). Professional advice explains to parents that screen technologies should be introduced to their children gradually during their earliest years and that during the first two years technology use and exposure should be kept to a minimum. Thereafter, parents can expand their children’s engagement with screen technologies and initially focus on controlled use of programmes likely to bring the most development benefits. Content that causes children to exercise basic cognitive skills in language and numeracy or which encourages children to think about interpersonal relations in positive way should be emphasised. Exposure to fast-paced, entertainment-oriented should be kept to a minimum because it creates information-processing and brain stimulation conditions that undermine the development of the mental skills that will serve children better at school (Nikoloupoulou & Gailamas, 2015; Blum-Ross & Livingstone, 2016; Livingstone & Sefton-Green, 2016; Zabatiero, Mantilla, Edwards, Danby & Straker, 2018). The idea that firmer centralised regulation of screen technologies is needed begs the question of how harmful are they? There is a presumption that there is harm and that to deal with it, societies need to strengthen their laws and accompanying regulations and codes of practice and the penalties attached to breaches of these restrictions. Before enacting any of these practices, however, it is important that we all have confidence that specific harms are real. It is important also to recognise at this point the switch in language from the singular “harm” to the plural “harms”. This is critical because “harm” can come in many forms. In a psychological sense, which is the perspective laced centre-stage in this book, harm can occur at cognitive or mental, affective or emotional and behavioural levels. New rules or codes must acknowledge these distinctions, understand what they mean and articulate prohibitions and restrictions as necessary and relevant in each case. As the evidence reviewed in this book has indicated, there have been many concerns about the impact of screen technologies on children. In some instances, these concerns have centred on a child’s cognitive development which covers their literacy and numeracy abilities, their problem-solving skills, their abilities to process different kinds of information in different modalities and formats, and their internalisation of rules and traditions

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linked to their outward behaviour. In addition, children must develop social relationships with others which often have a strong emotional component. They must therefore learn how to understand their emotional reactions to different social stimuli, how to interpret the emotional responses of others, and how to cope with situations and experiences that trigger strong emotional reactions that might be unpleasant or pleasant (but potentially harmful if overindulged). Finally, child development has important behavioural components. Children’s behaviour changes as they mature physically and mentally. Behavioural responses are internally controlled at a cognitive level as children learn which actions or reactions are most effective or appropriate in different settings. The latter judgements are underpinned by internalised behavioural scripts or by rules attached to specific social settings and the kinds of behaviour deemed to be most acceptable or appropriate. Statistical associations between screen use and measures of child well-being have been reported, but these are not always consistent in direction or magnitude (Parkes, Sweeting, Wight & Henderson, 2013; Etchells, Gage, Rutherford & Munafo, 2016; Smith, Ferguson & Beaver, 2018; Orben & Przybylski, 2019). It is also important to look beyond the extent of use or degree of involvement on the part of children with specific screen technologies and to consider the nature of the applications or contents with which they engage within specific media experiences. Hence, research with video games, for instance, has shown links between playing these games and adverse behaviour effects on adolescents was specifically linked to the amount of violently-themed game playing. However, this effect was weak when compared with the impact of playing competitive games. It seems likely therefore that both violence and the competitive nature of these games might contribute towards behaviour disorders (Etchells et al., 2016). Research with younger children aged five to seven years contradicted the findings just mentioned. This study with American children found little or no evidence that heavier use of television or electronic games was significantly connected to subsequent behaviour disorder developments such as attention deficit disorder or propensity to misbehave. There was little evidence of prosocial behavioural either (Parkes et al., 2013). In the United States, analysis of data from a large longitudinal study of children that examined their mental health found evidence that a number of psychological problems were prevalent and that early onset of some of these, such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and depression, predicted criminal activity in teen years. Alongside these factors, however, exposure to “shoot ‘em up” video games exhibited no significant link with antisocial behaviour during adolescence (Smith et al., 2018). Elsewhere analysis of a large dataset that recorded among other things the use of digital technologies by children and measures of their general psychological well-being revealed evidence of weak links between these variables.

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The researchers concluded that although specific correlations were evident, the findings in general were too weak to warrant any social policy action to correct them (Orben & Przybylski, 2019).

Getting to grips with accurate measurement of screen use Researchers have questioned the veracity of empirical evidence about the psychological effects of screen technology use particularly in relation to the validity of their measures of screen time use. Without good quality assessments of the amount of time children critically use screen technologies and are exposed to specific types of content via these technologies, findings about screen impact count for little. This observation holds whether we are talking about the positive effects or negative effects of screen use (Przybylski & Weinstein, 2017). It is especially important that we can have confidence in measures of television and other screen technology exposure when many of the effects reported by researchers are negative. In much of the research literature, screen behaviour has been extensively assessed via self-reports of technology use that are dependent on respondents’ memories of their own past behaviour patterns. Frequently, these memories are inaccurate. Seldom do these studies provide independent validation of these self-reports (Scharkow, 2016). Yet, most of us are bad at cataloguing the time we devote to routine behaviours (Grondin, 2010; Araujo, Wonneberger, Niejens & de Vreese, 2017). The consequence is that many research findings about the effects of television and other screen experiences are built on questionable measures of children’s actual amount and nature of screen exposure. Direct measures of screen activity, by observing it as it occurs, provide an alternative way of validating behaviour. This approach, however, is not without its faults and limitations. In relation to television, some researchers, going back more than 50 years have deployed photographic and filming or video-recording techniques to monitor householders’ viewing behaviour in front of their television sets (Bechtel, Achelpohl & Akers, 1972; Anderson, Alwitt, Lorch & Levin, 1979; Gunter, Furnham & Lineton, 1995). These studies and subsequent research with newer screen technologies have indicated that while self-report measures might be adequate for indicating general trends in screen-usership, for more precise indications of this behaviour, continuous measures provided either by human observers in situ with the viewers being assessed or by automated electronic video-recording systems that monitor screen-related behaviour as it happens are better (Miller, 2012, Junco, 2013; Andrews, Ellis, Shaw & Piwek, 2015). The fact is, however, that most studies of screen technology use have relied on self-report measures than on actual observations or ongoing recordings of behaviour (Boase & Ling, 2013). Self-report measures also can vary

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in their form. Most popularly, these measures require research participants to provide personal estimates are how often (frequency measures) or how much (quantity measures) they use specific screen technologies or applications or view specific content. Frequency measures can be framed differently at the question stage and at the response stage. Participants might be asked how often they used a specific screen technology: “today”, “yesterday”, “on an average day”, “during an average week”, “last week”, “on an average day last week”, and “on an average week over the past month or three months or year”. In reply, participants might have to generate a number of their own or choose from those given to them, for example, “once”, “twice”,” three times”, “more often than three times”. Or they might be given frequency ranges: “One to three times”; “Four to six times”, “seven to ten times”, and so on. Similarly, “quantity” or “duration” questions might ask participants to estimate the amount of time they spend with a screen technology within the sorts of time frames mentioned above. Once again, participants might be invited to provide their own estimate or to choose one from a range of options given to them. Diaries represent another more detailed measure of screen technology behaviour. Sometimes diaries are regarded as continuous records of screen activity, not unlike observational measures or other automated continuous recording methods. This belief presumes that participants diligently record their ongoing behaviour as it happens in their diary. The reality is that many research participants do not use diaries in this way. Instead, many might wait until the end of the day or the end of the week before completing their diary entries. They then become dependent on memories of recent-past screen behaviour much as questionnaire self-report measures are. In this way inaccuracies can creep in even to diary reports of screen behaviour, and specific aspects or attributes of viewing behaviour can be either underrepresented or over-represented (Collett & Lamb, 1986). Evidence concerning the efficacy of self-report measures has varied. Many early studies of television viewing found that both questionnaire self-report measures and diary measures were not invariably validated by direct observational measures. The latter often comprised photographic or video evidence of people watching television which they then later reported on using questionnaires or diaries (Allen, 1965; Bechtel et al., 1972; Anderson, Field, Collins, Lorch & Nathan, 1985). Studies of mobile screen technologies, such as smartphones, have produce more mixed evidence concerning the accuracy of self-report measures when validated against automatic tracking measures of technology use. Some researchers have found that self-reports and independent continuous measures do bear sufficient resemblance for self-reports to have some usefulness (Cohen & Lemish, 2003). Other researchers, often using more interventionist experimental methodologies, have found that self-report measures contain multiple and sometimes significant errors when compared with direct observations

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and continuous user tracking records (Bernard, Killworth & Sailer, 1982; Freeman, Romney & Freeman, 1987). In one comparison of self-reported data on Facebook use with data based on electronically record logins to the site, a strong positive correlation was found between the two, meaning that increased use recorded in one system was reflected in increased use registered by the other system. There was, however, a significant margin of difference between the actual amounts of use recorded in each case. Digitally recorded login data showed that participants (all university students) spent an average of 26 minutes per day on Facebook, but the students themselves self-reported a much higher level of use at around 145 minutes per day (Junco, 2013). Similarly, with smartphone use, actual behaviour monitored internally by the technology generated more precise and accurate measures of usership than did self-reports from smartphone users. Self-reports proved inaccurate, for example, when called on to produce accurate measure of frequency of mobile phone use across any given day (Andrews, et al., 2015). Further research has revealed, however, that some self-report measures exhibit stronger relationships to continuous tracking measures than do others. One such study found that reporting on how often a mobile phone was used “yesterday” was less accurate than reporting on average usage frequencies per week using a scale (10+ times a day, 5–10 times a day, 2–4 times a day, at least once a day, 3–6 times a week, 1.2 times a week, Less often, Never). These patterns were found both for making voice calls and sending text messages. However, it was at the extremes that the biggest inaccuracies occurred. The most frequent self-report users over-estimated how often they used their mobile phones and the least frequent users under-estimated their use (Boase & Ling, 2013). Simple self-report measures obtained through questionnaires are therefore problematic. Time-use diaries are another paper-based method of screen behaviour measurement that can be more accurate but only if respondents follow instructions about their use. With diaries, respondents should complete a record of their behaviour as they go along. This means that when they turn on a screen technology, they should record the time periods and dates when this behaviour takes place. Sometimes, however, respondents they do not complete these returns “live” as they are performing the behaviour but at some later point. The longer diary completion is left after a specific behaviour has occurred, the greater the likelihood that the paper record will be inaccurate (Verduyn, Lee, Park, Shablack, Orvell, Bayer & Kross, 2015). For some research questions, methodologies that depend on quantitative measures of behaviour lack the sensitivity needed. One example of this might be understanding the reasons why children perform certain behaviours with screen technologies. Getting to the root of a question such as why children are driven to engage with their social media sites just before bedtime, when

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this behaviour is known to disrupt their sleep and therefore have potential long-term consequences for their general health and well-being. One approach to this problem is for researchers to interact with children in a more open-ended way by getting them to talk openly and in their own terms about this activity. A study with children aged 11–17 years revealed that failure to remain connected with their online social network even late at night could result in negative consequences such as social disapproval. This social conformity, that in turn underpinned personal reputation outweighed the need to sleep (Scott, Biello & Cleland, 2018). There are many potential issues confronting researchers attempting to measure the way young people use screen technologies. Many of these issues stem from the reliance on potentially problematic self-report measures. These measures are dependent on participants’ memories of their past behaviour. Often, these behaviours are not clearly and explicitly catalogued in memory by the individual. This observation is not only true of children but of adults also. The most up-to-date screen technologies now provide a multitude of automatic digital recordings of users’ screen technology behaviour. These measures can circumvent the need for self-report data in some research studies. However, where researchers need to be able to integrate measures of user behaviours with the personal characteristics of those users or with those users’ evaluations of the technologies and applications they have used, behavioural data are needed from a common source that can be integrated for analysis purposes. As things stand, researchers all too often must rely on the less than perfect self-report data of their research participants’ behaviour. With very young children, of course, there is a further potential problem that they cannot answer for themselves and so researchers are then dependent on “other reports” from parents, caregivers or other adult observers of a child’s behaviour (Schwartz & Oysterman, 2001). In the end, researchers can only take whatever steps are feasible to improve the accuracy and meaningfulness of self-report measures by pre-testing different question and response frames with participants and validating them as best they can against other reliable sources. In the meantime, it is important that research into children’s screen behaviour continues to deliver data and new knowledge and at the same to evolve through the development of ever-better methodologies. Television continues to play an important part in children’s lives and children’s relationship with it and with other screen technologies that also deliver broadcast content and massive and diverse arrays of other content starts very early in their lives. By mid-childhood, for the majority of children in the developed world, their everyday activities are intimately intertwined with screen technologies. They might already be highly skilled in their use of these technologies, but this does not change the inherent fact that they are still children and therefore still developing cognitively, emotionally and behaviourally.

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Not all screen experiences pose risks and there are many that can be beneficial to a child’s development. The expansion of screen technologies and the diverse contents they relay to screen users, however, coupled with the greater control end-users now have over the content they choose to receive, means that old media content safeguards are no longer effective. The vast amount of easily accessible material through screen devices that are ever-present in children’s lives, many of which move around with them, creates greater challenges for parents and for regulatory authorities in terms of finding acceptable, workable and effective ways of protecting youngsters from media influences that are not good for them.

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226  Regulating screen experiences Straker, L., Zabatiero, K., Fanby, S., Thorpe, K., & Edwards, S. (2018) Conflicting guidelines on young children’s screen time and use of digital technology create policy and practice dilemmas. Journal of Pediatrics, 202, 300–303. doi:10.1016/j. jpeds.2018.07.019. Straker, L. M., & Howie, E. K. (2016) Young children and screen time: It is time to consider healthy bodies as well as healthy minds. Journal of Developmental Behavior and Paediatrics, 37, 265. Tremblay, M. S., Chaput, J. P., Adamo, K. B., Aubert, S., Barnes, J. D., Choquette, L., Duggan, M., Faulkner, G., Goldfield, G. S., Gray, C. E., Gruber, R., Janson, K., Janssen, I., Janssen, X., Garcia, A. J., Kuzik, N., LeBlanc, C., MacLean, J., Okely, A. D., Poitras, V. J., Rayner, M., Reilly, J. J., Sampson, M., Spence, J. C., Timmons, B. W., & Carson, V. (2017) Canadian 24-hour movement guidelines for the early years (0–4 years): An integration of physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep. BMC Public Health, 17, 874. Twenge, J. M., Martin, G. N., & Campbell, W. K. (2018) Decreases in psychological well-being among American adolescents after 2012 and links to screen time during the rise of smartphone technology. Emotion, 18(6), 765–780. Verduyn, P., Lee, D. S., Park, J., Shablack., H., Orvell, A., Bayer, J., & Kross, E. (2015) Passive Facebook usage undermines affective well-being: Experimental and longitudinal evidence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144, 480–488. Zabatiero, J., Mantilla, A., Edwards, S., Danby, S., & Straker, L. (2018) Young children and digital technology: Australian early childhood education and care sector adults’ perspectives. Australian Journal of Early Childhood, 43, 14–22.

Index

academic achievement 166 academic performance 165–167, 172 active mediation 182 activity 4, 29, 134; brain 27, 40, 93; interpersonal 9; neural 27, 28; physical 146, 150, 151, 153, 155, 217; prosocial 112; screen 10–11, 214, 219, 220; sedentary 5, 147; sexual 81, 83 ADHD see attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) adolescents: antisocial behaviour 218; attention 30–31; cognitive ability 46; households 166, 170; identity exploration 46; multiple screen technologies 46; online porn 83; parenting styles 188; screen use 168–170; screen time slept 213–214; sex-related attitudes and behaviours 81 advergames 134, 135, 138 advertisers’ selling techniques 128 advertising: campaigns and promotional techniques 138; child cognitive understanding 130–132; children as consumers 128–130; digital 133–135; literacy 132; media 128; observations 136–138; regulators 127 adverworlds 134–136, 138 age-related responses 96–97 aggression script 91 Ahammer, I. M. 114 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) 98, 199, 211, 213 American National Institutes of Health 211 American Psychological Association 98, 199 American Society of Pediatrics 199

An, S. 131 Anderson, C. A. 100 Anderson, D. R. 29 antisocial behaviour: age-related responses, televised violence 96–97; crime and violence themes 89; evidence 100–101; exposure 115; interactive screen technology 97–100; large scale social scientific enquiry 89; post-viewing 109; prosocial behaviour 121; research programmes 90; theories of mediated violence effects 90–96; violence 90 antisocial conduct 178 attentional inertia 26 attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) 67–68, 218 attention distraction 62–64 attention to the screen: beginning 23–25; cognition and learning 26–31; cognitively active and passive 23; computer-assisted 21; content types 25–26; digital interventions 22; interactive screen technology and young children 31–32; observational research 23; physical stimulation 22; pre-digital broadcasting formats and systems 21; television viewing 21; video on-demand streaming services 22 audio-visual content services 127 audio-visual entertainment 118, 181 autism 67 automated electronic video-recording systems 219 availability factor 8–9 availability heuristic 94

228 Index Baarda, B. 121 Bailenson, J. N. 79 Bandura, A. 79 Barr, R. 96 behavioural responses 163, 218 behavioural scripts 92–93 behaviour disorder developments 218 Belton, T. 66 Beyene, J. 185 binge viewing 11 Birken, C. S. 185 body mass index (BMI) 145, 146, 152, 185, 186 Borzekowski, D. 171 The Brady Bunch 114 brain activity 27, 40, 93 brain stimulation 66 brand champions 127 brand marketing 132 British Psychological Society 199 broadband telecommunications 3 broadcasting/publishing 210 broadcasting reception technologies 3 broadcast programmes 112–113 Browne, K. D. 97 Bushman, B. J. 100 Bussey, K. 79 Canadian Sedentary Behaviour Guidelines 6 Captain Kangaroo 162 catalyst model 96 catharsis 109–110 centralised regulatory controls 198–200 childcare, quality 189 child cognitive understanding 130–132 child protectionism 1 children: behaviour changes 218; intellectual development 216; moral development 115–116; psychological development 128, 194; viewing experiences 187–189 children’s health/well-being: food consumption triggers 154; healthy screen use 154–155; independently/ interdependently 214; mental health symptoms 147; promoting good health 154–155; quality 145–146; review of reviews 145, 146; safety 189; screen effects over time 152–153; screen time 145; screen use and measures 218; sedentary behaviours

146, 147; self-reports, social media 148; specification curve analysis 147; statistically/social significance 214; time-use-diary methodology 147; weight gain 146; see also screen usage children’s screen experiences: behaviour 214–219; controlling, watching television 212; grips with accurate measurement 219–223; growth 211; interpersonal and mass communication 210; limiting screen time 211–212; parental mediation (see parental mediation); producers and distributors 210; prosumers 210; risks 213–214; usage 213; see also screen technologies children’s viewing behaviour: attitudes 1; availability factor 8–9; binge 11; diverse screen world 7–8; early conditioning 6–7; evolution of viewing experiences 3–6; mainstream television programmes 2; measurement challenges 13–15; multi-screen access 9–11; Netflix effect 11–12; niche channels 2; non-linear 11; shared screen 12–13; social constructs 1; television 2–3 Chiong, J. 163 Cho, H. 203 Christakis, D. 64 Christenson, B. 148 Cingel, D. P. 120 cognitive development: attention distraction by screens 62–64; controlling screen distraction 64–65; early education, television viewing 59–60; infants 69; informationprocessing activities 58; learning experiences 58; mental health and screen use 66–67; pre-school children 58; screen entertainment 58; screen experience 60; screen exposure and early vocabulary development 61–62; self-reported/other-reported exposure 59; television and attentiondeficit disorder 67–68; television and language development 60–61; using television 65–66 cognitive psychology 94, 129 cognitive skills learning 162 Collins, P. A. 29 comprehension of TV 26–27

Index 229 computer/video/mobile screentime 146 computing 3, 210 concept-orientation 180 concrete operational stage 129 conservation of mass 129 construct accessibility 94 consumer empowerment 194, 204 consumerism 132 consumer literacy 132 consumers 2, 128–130, 136, 196 consuming pornography 80 controlling screen distraction 64–65 conventional television: attention 39–40; characters and actions 43–44; format features 40; narrative features 41; reality vs. fantasy 41–43 The Cosby Show 113 counter-stereotyped images 76 co-viewing 181–184 Coyne, S. M. 119, 120 cultivate sex-stereotyped beliefs 77 cultivating screen literacy: centralised control 198–200; identification 197–198; importance 200–202, 204–205; intellectual tools 195; internalised psychological mechanisms 195; media understanding 195–197; motor skills proficiency and screen media 203–204; parents and schools 202; risky behaviour 203; see also literacy cultivation effects 93–94 customised educational television programmes 39 David, M. E. 148 Davies, S. 199 decision-making styles 179, 180 DeLoache, J. 163 depression 30, 147, 149, 218 desensitisation 93 digital advertising: advergames 134, 135; brand championing 134; branding and promotional messages 133; children’s ability 133; influencer 134; interpersonal communication dimension 134; learned and internalised cognitive defences 133; virtual realities 134 digital literacy 217 digitally recorded login data 221 digital screen technologies 215–216 Dill, J. C. 97

Dill, K. E. 97 distributors 210 “Donald Land” 134 Donnellan, M. B. 61 dose-response effects 146 Drummond, A. 172 educational media: impact 163; preschoolers 163; young children 172–173 educational professionals 164, 216 educational programmes 64, 111–112, 164 educational television 60, 162, 163, 202 The Electric Company 111, 164 emotional responses 44, 218 Engelhardt, C. R. 100 ethnicity 75, 172 executive functioning development 50 experiments, prosocial video game effects 117 eye-movement-tracking research 25 fake news 196 Falbe, J. 153 family disagreements 179 family household communication 179, 180 Feeling Good 164 Ferguson, C. J. 61, 98 Feshbach, S. 110 Fikkers, K. M. 188 food consumption triggers 154 formal operational stage 129 format features 28, 40, 41 4-back working memory task 80 Fox, J. 79 Friedrich, R. R. 185 gender issues 75 gender stereotyping 75, 77–79 general aggression model (GAM) 95–96, 98 Hamilton, K. 183 Hamilton-Giachritsis, C. 97 Hayne, H. 96 health professionals 216 Hilgard, J. 100 Hoare, E. 147 Huston, A. C. 121 Hwang, Y. 203 Hynh, H. K. 80

230 Index Ihori, N. 100 imitation effects 90–91 impulse control 91 information services 127 intellectual development 24 interactive screen technologies 9, 23, 39, 47, 50, 51, 68, 63, 194, 195 internalised behavioural scripts 218 interpersonal activity 9 interpersonal communication 134, 181, 210 interventionist experimental methodologies 220 Jeong, S. H. 203 John, D. R. 131 knowledge acquisition 163 Koletic, G. 84 Krcmar, M. 62, 120 Kuttschreuter, M. 121 language acquisition 49, 62 Lassie 114 learning interactively from screens: knowledge transfer 48; mental effort and comprehension 48–50; parental viewing behaviour and rules 47; physical smaller-scale model 47–48; preschool children’s 47; psychological impact 47; video vs. live presentations 48 Leyrer-Jackson, J. M. 170 linear/non-linear viewing 4 linguistic skills 5 literacy: advertising 132; authentic 196; consumer 132; digital 217; identification 197–198; media 197, 198, 200, 203; new communications technologies 195; screen technology 200–202; technology 197 Locke, J. 1 Lovelace, V. O. 121 main television set 14–15, 185 Mares, M. L. 119 mass communication 210 massive multichannel television packages 181 media advertising 128 media consumption 12 media content 32, 118, 162, 182, 200, 203

media education approaches 197 media literacy 197, 198, 200, 203 media multitasking 50–51, 68, 69 mediated violence effects: behavioural scripts 92–93; catalyst model 96; cultivation effects 93–94; desensitisation 93; GAM 95–96; imitation effects 90–91; impulse control 91; managing mood states 94–95; triggering aggressive thoughts 91–92 media understanding: bullying 196; information sources 196; internalised learning 197; socially significant issues 196; video content supply sources 195; video streams 195 Melzer, A. 185 mental effort/comprehension 48–50 mental health 66–67, 145, 147, 214, 218 mental skills 217 meta-analysis 100 Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood 111, 113, 162, 164 mood management theory 98 mood states 94–95 moral codes 45, 46 moral reasoning 116 Morgan, M. 77 multimedia presentation styles 32 multimodal e-books 172 multi-screen access 9–11 multi-screen world 12 Murray, J. P. 114 narrative features 40, 41 Nash, V. 80 National Survey of Children’s Health 213 Netflix 11–12, 22 neural activity 27, 28 non-linear viewing 11 obesity 150–152 off-limits 202 online communications 181 online pornography 81, 84 online repositories 162 online virtual systems 210 on-screen scenarios 116 Orben, A. 147 overall screentime 146 over-the-top services 8

Index 231 parental cues 44, 184 parental disciplinary practices 181 parental influences 183–185 parental control of children’s screen behaviour 47 parental mediation: children’s viewing experiences 187–189; content children consume 178; content themes 178; influences and television viewing 183–185; interactive screen technology 185–186; parent-child relations 186–187; styles 179–183 parent-child communication 65 parent-child relations 186–187 parenting styles: autonomy-supportive 188; controlling 188; inconsistent 188 Parkin, P. C. 185 patterns of TV use 213 The Payne Fund 89 pedagogical cues 184 people meter technology 14 persuasion knowledge model 131 Pew Research Center 9 physical activity 146, 150, 151, 153, 155, 217 physical sensory stimulation 39 physical well-being 148–149 Piaget, J. 128–130 Piagetian stage theory 131 Piotrowski, J. T. 188 plausible reality 44 political expediency 214 pornography 82; consuming 80; online 81, 84 positive psychology 119 preoperational stage 129 pre-school children 24, 26–28, 58, 60, 68, 167–168 pre-teenage years 28–30 primary visual cortex 80 priming 91 private ownership 3 producers 127, 210 production skills training 201 prosocial behaviour: catharsis 109–110; children’s moral development 115–116; interactive screen experiences 116–119; laboratory, influences outside 115; modelling good behaviour on screen 111; offset antisocial behaviour 121; popular programmes effects 113–114; principal

tracks 109; research with broadcast programmes 112–113; research with educational programmes 111–112 prosocial video game effects 117 prosocial vs. antisocial screen experiences 119–121 prosumers 4, 210 Przybylski, A. K. 80, 99, 147, 213 psychological well-being 212, 218 publicly funded screen entertainment 127 RCPCH see Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) reactive/active viewing 24 reality judgements 44–46 reality vs. fantasy 41–43, 51 remote-control device 15 restrictive parenting 188 Roberts, J. A. 148 Rothstein, H. R. 100 Rouder, J. N. 100 Rousseau, J.-J. 1 Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH): causality 215; cautionary position 214; content experiences 199; education and health authorities 215; evidence of harm 211; screen time and harmful effects 215 Sakamot, A. 100 Saleem, M. 100 Sauer, J. D. 172 Schaan, V. 185 Schmidt, M. E. 171 Schmitt, K. L. 29 school performance: beneficial and detrimental effects 170–171; children’s intellectual development 168; screen exposure 170; television viewing 169; see also screen usage screen activity 10–11, 214, 219, 220 screen entertainment 4, 32, 41, 43, 58, 66, 67, 75, 127, 178 screen presentations vs. modalities 164–165 screen-sleep relationships 213 screen technologies: attention 22–25; behavioural and cognitivedevelopmental results 212; British medical professionals 199; children education 162; diversity 7; environment 181; exposure 210;

232 Index firmer centralised regulation 217; household television set 3; interactive 31–32, 172, 185–186; interfaces 201; over-use 213, 217; professional advice 217; psychological effects 219; selfreport measures 219–222; sexism and sexualisation 75–79; sleeping patterns 214, 215; temptations 211 screen usage: academic performance 165–167; adolescents 168–170; early schoolers and pre-teens 168; interactive 170–171; obesity 150–152; physical well-being 148–149; promoting good health and healthy 154–155; pre-school children 167–168; sexualisation 79–80; sleep 149–150 sedentary activity 5, 147 self-determination theory 98, 186 sensori-motor stage 129 sensory stimulation 22, 24, 28, 31 Sesame Street 24, 59, 61, 111, 113, 162, 164 sex: circularity 81; feminine role orientation 84; mainstream 81; pornography 82; reality television shows 81; self-presentations 82; social-identity conceptions 84; superficial instrumental experience 83; youngsters’ attention 83 sexism 75–79 sex-role beliefs 76 sex-role identification 75 sexual behaviour 81–84 sexualisation: children witness 82; premature exposure 82; screen use 79–80; sexism 75–79 shared screen viewing 12–13 Sharman 166 Shibuya, A. 100 Sibalis, A. 203 Singer, J. 110 single media streams 12 sleep 149–150 sleep loss 213 social aggression 110 social disapproval 222 social interaction patterns 216 socialisation 76, 84 social learning: child’s life 74; constructive and destructive ways 74; influences 77; information-processing skills 74; internalised cognitive rules

76; video games 90; televised role models 112 social media 170, 171 social media sites 171, 195, 196 social realities 198 social role portrayals 75 social significance 214 social stereotyping 75, 78 social stimuli 218 socio-orientation 180 statistical relationships 100 statistical significance 214 Stiglic, N. 145, 146 Straker, L. 217 Strouse, G. 184 Suddendorf, T. 29 surveys, prosocial video game effects 117 Sutherland, J. E. 203 Swing, E. L. 100 technology literacy 197 teenage pregnancy 81 teenagers 30–31, 83, 99, 170, 197 telecommunications 210; broadband 3 televised role models 112 televised violence 96–97 television: antisocial (see antisocial behaviour); broadcasters 127; children 2–3; cognitive (see cognitive development); comprehension 26–27; gender portrayals 78; genres 44; literacy (see literacy); portrayals 45; prosocial (see prosocial behaviour); screentime 146; viewing 3, 10, 21, 59–60, 89, 166, 167, 181, 183–185, 220; see also screen technologies tensions 216 textbooks 162 theory of mind 67 theory of planned behaviour model 183 time-use-diary methodology 147 transfer deficit 29, 48 triggering aggressive thoughts 91–92 trigger orienting responses 24 Uleryk, E. M. 185 Vahedi, Z. 203 Valkenburg, P. M. 28, 188 Van Ekris, E. 146 Vandewater, E. A. 171 video deficit 23, 29

Index 233 video presentations 30 video-recording technologies 3 video streams 195 viewing measurement challenges 13–15 Viner, R. M. 145, 146 violence 90; televised 96–97; themes 89 violent entertainment 94 violent themes 97 virtual reality 3, 134, 135 visual skills development 171 vocabulary development 59, 61–62 Vroone, M. 28

Wahl, G. 185 The Waltons 114 weight gain 146 Weinstein, N. 99 Wiegman, O. 121 Wilson, A. K. 170 wireless mobile communications systems 3 Woodard, E. 119 working class households 180 working memory processes 80 World Health Organization 198 World Wide Web 4, 58, 198