Blogging NYT: TV Background Noise Disrupts Child Play

You may be strict about not letting your young children watch television, but you might be surprised to learn that even the background noise of tv can affect your child's ability to focus.

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts observed young children playing in their lab - half the time while an adult tv program (in this case, Jeopardy) played in the background and half the time without it. The children showed little interest in the television program, but their play was disrupted by the “ever-changing audiovisual distractor'’ of the tv noise. They had difficulty sustaining focused play and tended to play with each toy for shorter amounts of time.

We wonder if the same can be said for the radio. We're not quite ready to give up NPR.

Comments (2)

For me, both as a child and as an adult, background media is intensely distracting. TV, radio, or vocal music, basically anything with "words" makes it very hard for me to focus. Made sharing a studio-workspace kind of challenging for me.

But many of my adult friends are the opposite, and find that having the radio on helps them to focus. I was teaching an art workshop, and when I put music on one of my students thanked me, saying that she was ADHD and the background noise was very helpful for her...

posted by fjorlief on August 5th 2008 at 9:43am
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Personally I find background music very distracting and even anxiety provoking when I am working. However, being a child of the 50's I listen to the TV all the time at a very low volume - it keeps me company. I even sleep to the TV a habit that solidified about 10 yrs. ago and keeps my brain from spinning off when I am trying to settle for the night.

I also work with high school kids who have various handicapping conditions including ADHD. My ADD kids really benefit from being able to listen to the music of their choice at a moderate to low volume. If I can hear it, it is too loud. These kids have such difficulty focusing on the task at hand and any ambient noise can pull them off task so I even will encourage them to bring headphones to my class.

posted by Alice on August 6th 2008 at 7:14am
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