Considering the impacts of television exposure on toddlers’ dysregulation: Does culture matter?

This post is part of our series on Digital Media and Children Under 3, published with collaboration from the journal, Infant Behavior and Development. The featured research appeared in a special issue that focused on how young children engage with technology and ways that parents can facilitate media engagement to promote positive development.

Key takeaways for caregivers

• Self-regulation – the worthiness to monitor and manage behaviors and emotions – is a hair-trigger speciality of early diaper development.
• Television viewing is associated with lower levels of self-regulation, or greater levels of dysregulation, in young children, expressly difficulties in sustentation and self-soothing.
• The specific impact of TV exposure on dysregulation may differ wideness cultures, perhaps stemming from variegated cultural or family practices virtually TV viewing experiences.
• Parents and caregivers should limit TV viewing for young children, but can moreover consider how to help their child understand and engage with high-quality programming.

What should parents know well-nigh the risks of television viewing for young children?

Exposure to television and other digital media is wontedly discussed and often discouraged, but many parents and caregivers might wonder, “What is the harm?” and “Is all television bad?” The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that digital media be avoided for children under 18 months, with the exception of video chatting. For parents who wish to introduce digital media between 18 and 24 months, the AAP advises choosing “high-quality programming” (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2016).

However, as we progress remoter in the digital age, children are stuff introduced to many forms of media at younger ages. Television and other electronic devices may serve as “electronic babysitters,” expressly for infants and young children whose temperaments are considered “difficult.”

Additionally, much increasingly media is stuff targeted to the youngest age groups. Another facet to consider is the nuances of digital media, such as variegated types of programming and devices (e.g., TV, tablet, lamina phone). What, specifically, should parents and caregivers be concerned about?

Photo: Lars Plougmann. Creative Commons.

Television viewing and the minutiae of self-regulation in young children

When it comes to the impact of early television exposure, concerns regarding reactivity and self-regulation are notable. Reactivity describes the intensity of our response to our world, such as how strongly we finger excitement or fear, or how strongly we react to sensory information (e.g., sights and sounds). Regulation is the processes of monitoring and managing reactivity to the world virtually us and our internal experiences. This includes how we express emotion, where we put our attention, and how we think well-nigh and transpiration our thinking (see Rothbart et al., 2000, for a review).

In early infancy, we rely on others to help us regulate, such as by soothing us. However, as we mature, we proceeds increasingly independence and the topics to regulate ourselves. Self-regulation helps children learn, engage with others, and proceeds independence. When reactivity (e.g., anger/frustration or fearfulness) is elevated and regulation skills are low, dysregulation can occur.

Studying the links between children’s TV exposure and dysregulation wideness cultures

We conducted a study to determine whether exposure to television contributes to deficits in regulation in young children. Early diaper is a foundational period for the minutiae of self-regulation, and television exposure is thought to disrupt related processes. In some studies, frequent TV exposure during and surpassing toddlerhood has been associated with an increased risk of language delays, sustentation difficulties, and disruptions in the minutiae of executive functioning (e.g., working memory, inhibition, problem-solving skills).

We moreover examined whether links between early diaper television exposure and regulation minutiae differ wideness cultures. While children virtually the world are exposed to TV in early childhood, associated risks may not be universal. Variegated socialization and cultural aspects of the environment can lead to differences in the minutiae of reactivity and regulation.

Our research suggests that higher levels of dysregulation are associated with increasingly television viewing in young children, with soothability and sustentation problems stuff the most wontedly affected.

For example, several cross-cultural studies have found differences in children’s inhibitory tenancy (controlling urges), soothability (ability to wifely lanugo or recover from stress), cuddliness (willingness to be cuddled), sustentation (ability to focus and redirect), low intensity pleasure (ability to enjoy quiet and wifely activities), surgency (positive affect), and negative emotionality (tendency to show negative emotions).

Given these cross-cultural differences in regulation, it is hair-trigger to understand how variability in TV exposure wideness cultures contributes to subsequent behavioral and emotional difficulties. We conducted an international investigation of television exposure in toddlers (approximately 15 months to 41 months old) in 14 countries: Belgium, Brazil, Chile, China, Finland, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Romania, Russia, Turkey, South Korea, Spain, and the United States.

Using a variety of measures, we asked parents to wordplay questions well-nigh their child’s daily activities, including how much time their child spends watching television each day. We moreover asked parents to wordplay questions well-nigh their child’s temperament, including reactivity and regulation.

Photo: William Fortunato. Pexels.

Cross-cultural links among television exposure, sustentation problems, and soothability

Overall, we found that increased time spent watching television was associated with increasingly dysregulation. That is, the increasingly time toddlers spent watching television, the lower ratings parents provided on measures of regulation.

However, links between TV exposure and both sustentation problems (difficulty shifting or maintaining attention) and soothability (the ease with which the child could self-soothe or be soothed by others) varied significantly between cultures. For example, compared to children from other cultures, for Spanish toddlers, time spent watching TV was less strongly associated with dysregulation, whereas for Dutch children, time spent watching TV was increasingly strongly associated with problems with soothability and sustentation problems.

While our study did not investigate the causes of these differences, some cultures may offer protective mechanisms that buffer versus wrongheaded effects of TV exposure. For example, many Spanish families watch television together, with TV-related activities constituting one element of family time, rather than relying on TV as an electronic babysitter.

This practice could stem from the inside theme of familismo that is traditionally valued by individuals from Hispanic cultures, and includes strong attachment, loyalty, reciprocity, and solidarity among families (Diaz-Loving & Draguns, 1999). Researchers should examine increasingly closely this concept as well as other possible protective effects.

How to reduce the negative impacts of television viewing for young children

Our research suggests that higher levels of dysregulation are associated with increasingly television viewing in young children, with soothability and sustentation problems stuff the most wontedly affected. These findings add to previous studies that have shown that plane preliminaries television can have negative impacts on children’s play and parent-child interactions by decreasing sustentation and zippy engagement in both children and parents.

Thus, any potential benefits of television stimulation as a new source of entertainment and lark for young children towards short lived, with likely wrongheaded effects in the long term. Some benefits of educational programming have been reported wideness cultures; however, these often show up later in childhood, without children have ripened foundational self-regulation skills.

Television viewing might stupefy children differently depending on a variety of environmental factors, including cultural and familial customs.

Together, the research shows that limiting television exposure could help limit unrepealable aspects of dysregulation. Yet television viewing might stupefy children differently depending on a variety of environmental factors, including cultural and familial customs. When families or younger children watch TV, some protective factors may sally through cultural differences, such as the possibility that some cultures incorporate family engagement into television use.

In summary, it is important to consider not only the age when children engage with media content but moreover how they contextualize it and how it fits into their world. Television programming could be ripened to provide increasingly developmentally towardly stimulation to young children, expressly when paired with parental engagement and using to real-world experiences.

Thus, it is important to monitor the value and type of programming children are watching and how they are engaging with television. It is moreover important for parents and caregivers to talk well-nigh and teach children how TV programming can be meaningful in their daily lives.

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