TV in the Background?

My 3 3/4 year old daughter came to the dinner table last night (we were having bratwurst and salad) and said:

"I like sausages and pancakes, provided they're not burned."

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Wha? "...provided they're not burned..."? Where does she come up with this stuff? [I'm talking about the use of the word provided, not the fact that the food could have been burned, which it wasn't by the way, and is a topic I'd prefer to not get into right now anyway thank you very much.]

Well, as you can probably imagine, she learned this phrase from a video. Surprise! The video was Kiki's Delivery Service and the line came from the cat, Jiji, played by the late Phil Hartman.

It just goes to show you the power of TV on kids. There is an interesting article from Zero to Three concerning children and their exposure to various media, particularly TV, and which discusses the difference between "background media" and "foreground media." Entitled Peril and Potential of Media for Infants and Toddlers (this is a .PDF document), the authors explain that "background exposure occurs when the child is incidentally exposed, as when the child is present as his mother watches a TV program. Foreground exposure occurs when the content is designed for young children and the child pays attention to and/or interacts with the medium."

At the time of the writing (2001) research was minimal in the area of the impact of background media on children, however, the authors did believe there was a negative correlation, going so far as to say:

Background television that is, programming to which the child is not paying active attention and for whom the content was not produced may be a disruptive force in child development.

The article is very readable, is only 7-pages long, and contains some great references in the bibliography. I encourage you to check it out. In the meantime...if you have kids, be mindful of what you have playing on your TV, background or foreground.