Lisa Guernsey's Weblog

Sesame Beginnings gets a preliminary reprieve

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 02:13:10 GMT

When Sesame Workshop came out with its Sesame Beginnings baby videos last spring, the complaints rolled in immediately. Critics said it was wrong for the non-profit company to be making videos that would give parents reason to put babies in front of the TV screen. But today at the SRCD meeting, researchers from the University of Massachusetts gave Sesame Workshop a glimpse of good news: Data from a two-week viewing experiment showed that the videos may be effective at getting parents to interact with their children.

The results did not include a control group of non-video-viewing families -- a point that was raised immediately by critics in the audience. (Tiffany Pempek, who presented the research, said that data from the control group was in the process of being collected.) Nor were the researchers able to compare their results with way parents interacted with their children before participating in the study. But the findings, Pempek said, did show a positive effect of repeated co-viewing episodes, that is, moments in which parents and children were watching together. "The more they watched Sesame Beginnings," she said, "the more they were active with the child when the video was off."

I don't expect for a minute that this will end the debate on the appropriateness of baby videos. Other presenters today were Deborah Linebarger of the University of Pennsylvania and Rachel Barr of Georgetown -- both of whom had research providing additional nuance and complexity to the issue of young children and TV. And if the sometimes agitated discussion that followed is any indication, the topic is at hot as ever.

Lessons from early research on interactive media

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 01:57:13 GMT

Imagine a preschooler sitting down in front of a new computer game but given no instruction on how to play it. Would the child be able to make sense of the interface on his own? That was one of the questions being probed by Shuli Gilutz, a doctoral student at Columbia Teachers College, at SRCD today. Her results showed that something significant seems to be happening for children once they hit 4.5 years old. Several children younger than that had trouble. But after age 4.5, almost all the children could figure out what to do.

Other presenters on this SRCD panel offered insights like:

"Children crave control." Those are the words of Warren Buckleitner, whose dissertation research at Michigan State led him to realize that preschool software with intense narration and exclamations of encouragement slow kids down. He found that quiet interfaces worked better, enabling children to work at their own, more rapid, pace.
When it comes to using interactive TV, very young children have great difficulty using remote controls that require them to use arrows and "select" buttons. Sesame Workshop tested interfaces that didn't require as much dexterity and found that 3-year-olds had more success.
Young children may be most effective -- and least frustrated -- when using something like the Nintendo Wii, which enables people to manipulate on-screen images by moving their bodies.

Figuring out which teaching methods measure up -- including virtual ones

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 01:36:17 GMT

At 8:30 this morning, in an oversized conference room at the farthest corner of the Hynes Convention Center here in Boston, I joined at least 100 other people in hearing about the interdisciplinary work of David Klahr, a cognitive scientist at Carnegie Mellon whose career has taken him through the fields of engineering, mathematics, science, psychology, information processing and education.

Klahr and his colleagues have been conducting research on how to best teach children science. One question he has been pondering of late is how to get kids to design good scientific experiments, to see the variables that need to be manipulated, and to come to sound conclusions. In several studies, he has compared "exploratory" teaching methods, in which children are told to try to reach a goal and then mostly left to their own instincts, with "explicit" teaching methods, in which teachers stand alongside, guiding children to think about what they are working on and asking questions like "can you tell for sure?" So far, with experiments on preschoolers and elementary-age children, the winner is "explicit" instruction. Kids, he says, need more guidance than we may think.

Interestingly, Klahr has also compared hands-on science with the virtual kind -- experiments that are shown in computer graphics on screen. Conventional wisdom says that virtual science cannot possibly be as good for kids as enabling them to manipulate real objects. But in his studies, the difference was so minimal as to be virtually non-existent.

What do kids take away from TV?

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 01:20:38 GMT

Are young children able to grasp televised stories in the way we think? Jamie M. Ostrov of the University of Buffalo is not so sure. I met Jamie at SRCD this afternoon and talked to him about research that he has conducted with Adam D. Mullins. Their poster showed that relational aggression -- such as shunning or isolating a peer -- was related to the viewing of what parents probably thought was good programming: educational TV shows. One hypothesis is that young children don't fully comprehend these educational shows and are only retaining the conflicts, imitating problematic behavior instead of thinking about the moral of the story. I'll be checking in with Jamie again soon to get more insights on his research and what methodological limitations the study may include.

Media shaping young identities

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 01:11:07 GMT

Today the Society for Research in Child Development kicked off its biennial meeting in Boston, where thousands of researchers in child psychology have descended to talk about their latest findings. I'm here too, ready to zoom in on new results related to media, technology and what children learn. The blogs posts to follow will inevitably sound a little scattershot, and I don't expect to uncover any big trends in the short time I'm here, but the hope is to offer a fly-on-the-wall view of what experts in this area are talking about.

One topic this afternoon, for example, was the influence of media -- mostly DVDs and TV shows -- on how adolescents think about themselves. One study, led by Jen Kotler, who is now a director at Sesame Workshop, offered some reassuring results: Teens admired characters with pro-social qualities, though kids who had conduct-disorder problems were more likely to like more aggressive characters. Another study showed that children in elementary grades were more prone to understand a video if they empathized with the characters on it. The study, presented by Sandra Calvert at Georgetown, focused on Disney's Beauty and the Beast. In a third study, David Bickham of the Center for Media and Children's Health showed new data that linked reality television shows and teens' dissatisfaction with their body image.

Kelly L'Engle of the University of North Carolina provided a glimpse of new data from UNC's Teen Media Project. By analyzing teen's responses to health and media surveys, while also compiling data as personal as what they hang on their bedroom walls, L'Engle and colleagues were able to draw some conclusions about the media habits of teenagers who are sexually active, or want to be. The teens clustered around one of 4 types: "virgin valedictorians," "curious conservatives," "silent susceptibles" and "sexual sophisticates." (I know that all of us in the room couldn't help but ponder which category we fell into when we were teenagers. Let me just say, I'm not telling.)

The panelists readily acknowledged that new research will need to be done to completely disentangle what causes what: Is the media influencing teens and providing them with good and bad role models? Or are children who are already identifying with certain characteristics simply drawn to particular types of media? More work needs to be done to sort out these perennial questions.

At Forum on Food Marketing and Kids, Participants Left Hungry for New Approaches

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 19:05:35 GMT

Kids see commercials for junk food everyday, and more kids are overweight than ever before. These two undisputed facts are driving debates about how much food marketing is to blame for the obesity epidemic -- and what to do about it. Lately, a few food and media companies have unveiled new marketing strategies to promote healthier foods and downplay the junk. Disney and Kraft Foods are two examples. But advocacy groups complain that not enough is being done. Some say the time has come for new rules and laws requiring companies to change the way they do business.

Today, the call for change became louder yet. The Henry J. Kaiser Foundation released new data on the quantity and type of food commercials seen by children and then hosted a forum on the topic. I sat in the audience, witnessing an increasingly agitated debate, as:

A parent of four named Brent Reynolds berated the advertising industry and, in particular, a representative from PepsiCo for moving too slowly.
Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, chastised food marketers for creating such compelling and attractive advertisements for junk food while not doing anything to promote healthy foods -- a situation, she said, "that almost makes us parents out to be liars."
J. Michael McGinnis, the lead author of report on food marketing published by the Institutes of Medicine in 2006, reminded everyone that his report called for major changes in food promotion by next year.
Several speakers said they worried that, under a self-regulation paradigm, advertising would only be artificially improved by showing active lifestyles instead of healthy eating. "We could have kids on skateboards eating Big Macs, and that would qualify" as a "healthy" message, said Dale Kunkel, a professor at the University of Arizona who studies issues of media and children.

Attempting to answer these charges was Nancy Green, a nutritionist and vice-president at PepsiCo, and C. Lee Peeler, president of the National Advertising Review Council. Peeler described an initiative developed late last year by 11 large companies -- including PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and Hershey. These companies, Peeler said, have committed to shifting the mix of their advertising to focus on healthy foods and healthy lifestyles. They will be submitting their new plans by the end of the summer and the Council for Better Business Bureaus will monitor whether their actions live up to their pledges.

As a mother and journalist writing about media and children, I told Peeler I was eager to see those pledges -- and even more curious about how they will be implemented. Then I went home to have lunch with my kids. They had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, strawberries and some left-over noodles with beef stroganoff. Today, at least, I held back on the Teddy Grahams. But there is a box of them in our pantry, and, to be honest, I couldn't tell you if it was food marketing, my children's desires, or my own taste for sweets that put them there.

New web site in the works

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:33:02 GMT

A few years ago, much of my writing revolved around educational technology and search engines. These days, with two small kids under foot, I cannot help but frame many of my technology questions around child development and cognitive science. As readers of this Web site know, my blog posts have often veered from search technology to the science of children's media. In fact, I've become so taken with the subject that I've created a new Web site devoted to my writings on that topic. Bear with me as I work out a few glitches, but please take a look and tell me what you think: www.lisaguernsey.com . Thanks.

Wanting to go beyond the 'Beyond Primetime' discussion

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:26:28 GMT

In the debate over who has the responsibility to protect children from harmful media, is it simply up to parents? Should media companies be playing a role? Is it time to rely on some government regulation?

These were the competing paradigms on display at "Beyond Primetime," a meeting of media minds at the Time Warner Center in New York City on February 6-7. The conference, which was billed as the first of what would become a yearly event, was sponsored by the Aspen Institute and run by James P. Steyer, author of The Other Parent: The Inside Story of Media's Effect on Our Children (Atria Books, 2002). Steyer clearly has high-profile connections to entertainment moguls in LA and NYC; a line of shiny black cars idled just outside the glass entrance doors, awaiting the executives inside. Participants included Time-Warner CEO Richard Parsons, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, CBS's CEO Leslie Moonves, Warner Music's CEO Edgar Bronfman, and Geraldine Laybourne of Oxygen Media who once ran Nickelodeon, to name a few.

Ken Auletta, the New Yorker media writer, asked the CEOs: "What do you produce that you wouldn't let your own children watch?"

Roberts said his family made use of parental controls in their media system, banning anything rated for mature audiences. "The answer is, a lot," he said.

Bronfman said he didn't let his children --- he has 4, all under the age of 11 -- listen to anything "stickered," which I'm guessing meant anything with a "mature" or "explicit lyrics" sticker attached to it. He later took umbrage with Auletta's line of questioning. "We're not in the kids' music business," Bronfman said. "We're a music company focusing on content for age 10 and up. The implication is that we should be doing something for young children. There is corporate responsibility, but the danger is in assuming that it's not the parents' responsibility."

I kept wondering about the parameters of the debate in general. Exactly what kinds of media are most harmful in the first place? For children at what ages? Under what contexts? What are the differences between commercials and programming? Fragments of these questions bounced around the room a few times, but they never really stuck.

(Written on February 8, 2007.)

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 14:40:43 GMT

In what was once a relatively barren field, research articles about young children and television are now sprouting up regularly. In this month's issue of Pediatrics, two articles have caught my attention.

One is an analysis of studies on children 3 years and up, showing the positive effects of some educational television. It is by Rupin Thakar, Michelle Garrison, and Dimitri Christakis. (You might recognize Christakis's name. He is a pediatrician who is also the author of a new book for parents, The Elephant in the Living Room, co-authored by Frederick Zimmerman. The book is well worth reading; it makes several interesting points about the pros and cons of different types of television viewing. You can read an excerpt at www.maketvwork.com)

The other article provides results from surveys and focus groups about media use, as well as how -- and whether -- parents set limits on TV time. The focus is on school-age children (an older group than what I'm interested in), yet offers food for thought for younger parents too. The lead author is Amy Jordan, a senior research investigator at the Annenberg Public Policy Center.

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 13:32:38 GMT

Hi everyone, I've got a story in the Science Times section of the NYT today, "When Toddlers Turn on the TV and Actually Learn." I wrote it after visiting with Georgene Troseth and Megan Saylor at their Vanderbilt University lab in Nashville, TN. Their work provides evidence that when our kids start yelling back to characters on the screen, it might actually mean something worthwhile is going on in their little brains. Psychologists say the question of how very young children's minds are affected by electronic media is still much of a mystery, but Troseth and Saylor's work may provide a clue. As I work on my book, I'm seeking out stories of experiments like theirs.

By the way, if you're interested in reading more science stories about how tots learn, take a look at Margaret Talbot's article in the Sept. 4 New Yorker: "The Baby Lab." (Unfortunately the story is not yet in magazine's online archives or I'd link you to it. Fascinating stuff.) ADDED NOV. 2: Here's a link to the article , with thanks to Paul McCarthy: http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2006/the_baby_lab

What I'll be working on this year

Thu, 27 Apr 2006 19:37:25 GMT

For you few loyal souls watching my blog, you've probably noticed that I've been quiet for a while. Some of it I must blame on the craziness of trying to raise two young'uns. (That's the great thing about having kids: you've always got a good excuse.)

But there's another reason. I've been shifting gears from short-form journalism to working on a book. It is to be published by Basic Books in 2007 and will focus on electronic media and children ages 0 to 4. You may have seen some of my ponderings on these pages about how digital and screen media is being absorbed infants, toddlers and preschoolers. There is a lot of fascinating material out there that I'll be digging through this year. Please feel free to send me anything you might see that relates to the subject. And I love to hear interesting stories about how kids are responding to what they see or hear. So keep me posted!

Thu, 09 Feb 2006 18:04:18 GMT

Bush's budget appears to be very bad news for NIH researchers who have already spent $50 million preparing for a massive national long-term study of child health that was to start next year. The Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting today that the administration's proposal to spend no more new money on the N.I.H. is akin to a death knell for the effort -- though there's a small chance that Congress could try to come up with the money anyway.

I've long been intrigued by the plans for the study -- known as the National Children's Study -- because electronic media use in the home environment was to be included among the environmental factors that would be surveyed. So little is known, on any large scale, about how a family's decisions about electronic media are affecting their children -- whether we are talking about obesity levels, exercise, attention problems, academic success, you name it.

For more info on the study, see my blog entry from September 29th.

Baby Videos: Is the Genius Only in the Marketing?

Thu, 15 Dec 2005 18:01:12 GMT

I spent yesterday morning at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, where researchers unveiled a report called "A Teacher in the Living Room? Educational Media for Babies, Toddlers and Preschoolers." The discussion was fascinating, mostly because it laid bare the questions at the heart of scores of conversations I've had with parents over the past year-and-a-half. The question is: Do videos like Baby Einstein "work"? Can it be said that today's 4-year-olds who spent their first year in front of these videos are any 'smarter' than 4-year-olds who didn't? And even if the videos don't measure up to such claims, can they really do any harm?

As the Kaiser report showed, there is no rock-solid answer to these questions, mostly because there hasn't been much rigorous scientific research bent on answering them.

With that, many parents may just throw up their hands. The lack-of-research response is absolutely true, but doesn't do much to enlighten debate either.

However, by looking at laboratory research on the development of very young children (and some chimps, birds and rats), it is possible to start thinking more deeply about what babies and toddlers actually comprehend when they look at a screen, when they hear music, when they listen to someone talking to them. What we need is a way to combine those insights with new questions about screen media. With such a framework, parents can at least be a little more "clued-in" as to what their children may get, or not, from electronic media -- and books and music too, for that matter.

My goal in the next year is to help create that framework, in talks with neuroscientists, developmental psychologists, communications scholars and educators around the globe. I'd like to start a blog soon that gets at these issues, so stay tuned.

Meanwhile, here is more background on the Kaiser report. Two stories that provide a window onto what was discussed yesterday include "See Baby Touch A Screen. But Does Baby Get It?" in the New York Times, and NPR's story, "Educational Claims of Kids' Videos Lack Support."

Tech Toys for Tweens

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 18:59:30 GMT

I'm trying to remember what gadgets or electronics I coveted in my 'tween and teenage years, 1979 to 1989. I loved my record player, my GoGo's "We Got The Beat" album and a knockoff album with songs from Grease. I had no phone in my room. No computer. No TV. (Though there was a tv downstairs, and it could be hooked up to play "Hunt the Wumpus.") Not only was I not pining for any particular gadget, I don't even think I ever uttered the word.

Today, from what toy retailers and focus groups are telling us, it's a different story. Kids want what their parents have -- and their parents have iPods, cell phones, portable DVD players, digital cameras and camcorders. Companies like Mattel and Hasbro say they have been listening, and the toy shelves are being stocked as we speak.

The marketing experts have couple of names for it: Age compression. KGOY (Kids Getting Older Younger). I'll be doing a few newspaper stories that touch on these topics in the next month. So please feel free to pass on any tips for me about kids-oriented consumer electronics and gadget toys that don't live up to the hype. I'm also seeking interviews with kids who may be able to teach me a thing or two about what they really want.

Thu, 29 Sep 2005 21:27:20 GMT

"We just don't have enough data."

I'm probably not alone in hearing this complaint among child-development researchers whenever I ask about the impact of technology or the environment on children's mental and cognitive development. "There is no national survey of how children develop and change over time," they tell me. "We just don't know."

Today the NIH announced the first steps to address that. A massive new survey -- called the National Children's Study -- will be underway in the coming years to track more than 100,000 children from before birth to adulthood. The bulk of today's announcement was to unveil six pilot centers for the research around the country. Eventually, the NIH says, dozens of centers will be involved in an effort to randomly identify and, with permission, collect data from mothers on how their children are faring over the years. Enrollment will start in 2007.

The study is part of a 2000 directive from Congress, and funding for the 25-year study is no guarantee each year. About $69 million has been requested for fiscal year 2006 and the total cost of the study is estimated to be -- gulp -- $2.7 billion. As Alan R. Fleischman, chairman of the study's advisory committee, said when he talked to a group of journalists this morning, "This is the largest and most ambitious study ever to be conducted."

Wed, 14 Sep 2005 18:13:17 GMT

I'm taking a break today to immerse myself in Steven Johnson's new book, Everything Bad is Good for You. It's making me feel good about my CSI habit (fed in part by by my truly addicted husband).

But it's also pushing me to think about how multimedia programming -- whether on the Web, on TV or on DVDs -- could alter or even "improve" the way children learn and process stories. Some research has shown that shows that jump in and out of narratives are not good for children who are 2 or 3 years old, that they cannot follow what is going on. (For this reason, Sesame Street changed its format a few years ago.) But Johnson's argument for adult viewers is that the more layered the narrative, the more jumping-around, the better for our minds, stretching us to be active thinkers instead of passive viewers. At what age would this theory apply to children? Isn't it good for them to be able to process complex information and follow multiple threads of stories? So at what age are these more sophisticated programs worth designing for kids? At what age can the developing mind handle it?