The initial purposes of this research were to identify patterns of developmental continuity and change in children's early television viewing and to investigate how those patterns are related to family environmental influences and to children's cognitive and social skills. The major purposes of the renewal are (1) to examine more fully the role of the family environment in children's use of and responses to television, (2) to examine how family attributes modify or mediate the "effects" of viewing on children's cognitive and social skills, (3) to investigate patterns of viewing for parents and siblings, and (4) to examine temporal patterns in children's viewing. The data consist of rich set of longitudinal information about television viewing of 326 young children and their families. Two cohorts of children were followed for 2 years from ages 3-5 and 5-7 respectively. Parents completed five semiannual one-week television diaries describing all viewing by all members of the household. Parents were interviewed and children were tested before and after the two- year period. The outcomes of interest are patterns of viewing different types of television programs, and developmental changes in those patterns, not simply total television viewing. Four types of family environmental variables will be considered: (a) direct influences of parents' and siblings' coviewing with children; (b) indirect influences provided by parents' and siblings' overall viewing, parents' use of other media, and parent attitudes and regulations; (c) structural features of family life such as maternal employment and out-of-home activities; and (d) television options in the home. The temporal patterns of children's viewing will be assessed by fine-grained analysis of the diary records to determine how long viewing episodes last, how likely children are to watch successive programs on the same channel, how likely they are to change channels, and how these probabilities are affected by changes in programs or by presence of other family members. Because television is an integral part of family life, information about the role of the family in socializing children's uses of and responses to television has important implications for mental health.
NIH ExPorter
NIH ExPorter