There has been much debate over the last few decades about the edu­ca­tional value of tele­vi­sion, par­tic­u­larly for young chil­dren. While researchers have dis­cov­ered both pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive effects of tele­vi­sions view­ing, a dis­tinc­tion must be made between medium and mes­sage. Edu­ca­tional tele­vi­sion and enter­tain­ment pro­gram­ming pro­duce dif­fer­ent effects.

Enter­tain­ment vs. Edu­ca­tional Television

Research reveals that there is a dif­fer­ence between the effects of shows designed to enter­tain and those designed to teach. For exam­ple, look­ing at long term effects of tele­vi­sion on read­ing skills, researchers found that watch­ing edu­ca­tional tele­vi­sion was asso­ci­ated with bet­ter read­ing skills, while watch­ing shows designed to enter­tain was asso­ci­ated with sig­nif­i­cantly lower read­ing skills[1].

Indi­rect Ben­e­fits of Edu­ca­tional Television

In addi­tion to direct ben­e­fits of edu­ca­tional pro­gram view­ing, like improved let­ter recog­ni­tion, vocab­u­lary, and nar­ra­tive skills, there are indi­rect ben­e­fits to watch­ing edu­ca­tional tele­vi­sion. Chil­dren who are exposed to more edu­ca­tional pro­gram­ming at a young age tend to have higher grades in high school, lead­ing researches to sug­gest this is due to moti­va­tion and self-concept[2].That is, if chil­dren are exposed to edu­ca­tional pro­gram­ming at a young age, they build con­fi­dence in their abil­ity to learn new things and incor­po­rate a love of learn­ing into their self image.

It’s Not Whether They’re Learn­ing, It’s What They’re Learning

So what does this all mean for par­ents? It means they should take an inter­est in what their kids are watch­ing. What are the goals of the shows your kids watch? Do they teach social lessons, let­ter sounds, or sci­ence? Are the char­ac­ters good role mod­els for young kids? Do they impart the val­ues and lessons you want your kids to learn? Or are they just “empty calo­ries?”

A Bal­anced Media Diet

This doesn’t mean that chil­dren should only watch edu­ca­tional tele­vi­sion, or that shows that don’t teach are all bad. Just as a bal­anced diet can include the occa­sional ice cream cone, a healthy media diet should bal­ance edu­ca­tional tele­vi­sion with enter­tain­ment con­tent. Par­ents need to decide for them­selves what the appro­pri­ate bal­ance is for their fam­ily.

Bon apetit!

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[1] Ennemoser, Marco, and Schnei­der, W. (2007). Rela­tions of tele­vi­sion view­ing and read­ing: Find­ings from a 4-year lon­gi­tu­di­nal study. Jour­nal of edu­ca­tional psy­chol­ogy, vol. 99, no. 2, pp. 349–368

[2] Ander­son, D. R., Hus­ton, A. C., Schmitt, K. L., Linebarger, D. L., & Wright, J. C. (2001). Early child­hood tele­vi­sion view­ing and ado­les­cent behav­ior. Mono­graphs of the Soci­ety for Research in Child Devel­op­ment, 66 (Ser­ial No.264)