Exploring Association between Co-Viewing Television during Childhood and Positive Adolescent Functioning

Background and Objective: Media and technology have become central to both children and adolescents’ lives and findings from prior scholarship suggest that excessive use of media devices is associated with poorer physical health and problems of psychological wellbeing in young children and adolescents (Poulain et al., 2019 ). As decades of previous scholarship highlights several negative effects of television watching on children’s well-being, The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends co-viewing of television to mitigate any potential negative consequences of media use on children. However, there is limited empirical evidence of its effectiveness as few studies have examined the impact of joint use of media devices on child and adolescent well-being, particularly among low-income families (Gentile et al., 2012). Prior research demonstrates that parenting practices during childhood has a bearing on adolescent behavior and findings from recent studies suggest shift in parent-child interactions from traditional settings such as playground or shared reading time to parental involvement across various media devices. The present study examines the association between parent-child co-viewing of television at child age 5 years and positive adolescent functioning at child age 15 years around five measure of positive adolescent functioning: (1) engagement; (2) perseverance, (3) optimism, (4) connectedness, and (5) happiness.

Data: We draw on data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS), a longitudinal birth cohort study of children born in 20 medium- to large-US cities. FFCWS includes (N = 4,898) an oversample of non-marital births and is disproportionately disadvantaged as a result. The FFCWS includes a unique set of questions related to the television habits of young children and parental involvement in activities specific to the usage of media (computer, television, and video games) by young children aged 3-15.

Methods: The present study examines the association between parent-child co-viewing of television at child age 5 and positive adolescent fucntioning at child age 15. We estimate OLS regressions to test the association between parent-child co-viewing of television and each outcome using a robust set of socio-demographic controls.

Results: Results from our work indicate broad positive associations between childhood co-viewing of television and positive adolescent functioning. In particular, we find that TV co-viewing is associated with increase in three key measures of adolescent functioning. Results suggest a 0.012 (p < 0.02) increase in engagement, a 0.011 (p < 0.00) increase in perseverance and a 0.011 (p < 0.01) increase in optimism among adolescents. Socio-demographic characteristics including child’s gender and mother’s race, education, and relationship status were also found to be significant predictors of key measures of positive adolescent functioning.

Conclusions and Implications: Findings indicate that co-viewing television is positively linked to three key areas of adolescent functioning. The study advances our understanding about the influence of co-viewing television during childhood on adolescent behavior among low-SES families and this is particularly important given the variation in screen time across families and the predominant focus on middle class families in the prior literature.