USA Today (10/1, Healy) reports on a study appearing in the November issue of Pediatrics, which found that on average, children are exposed to almost four hours of background television every day. The article observes that “the nearly four hours of background TV exposure ‘easily dwarfs’ the 80 minutes of active TV viewing the average child in this age group absorbs daily, says the study.” According to USA Today, Matthew Lapierre, one of the study authors, “suspects that the high rate of background TV among very young children may have to do with parents and caregivers leaving the television on, even when they’re not actively watching, to ‘break up the monotony’ of being with an infant or toddler for long stretches of the day.”
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— “U.S. kids exposed to 4 hours of background TV daily, “Michelle Healy, USA Today, October 1, 2012.