Americans, especially children, spend a large portion of their lives with television. There has been little systematic description of how this time is spent. This is a continuation of research in which the home television viewing behavior of preschool children and their families was observed for 10-days. The observation was done by means of time-lapse video equipment which automatically began recording when the TV set was turned on and stopped recording when the TV set was turned off. One camera covered the viewing room and another camera covered the TV screen, producing 4690 hours of recordings from 99 families. In addition, control families were included in order to assess the effects of the observational equipment, for a total of 334 families. All families had a child near the fifth birthday who was the focus of the research. These focus children were given extensive testing, and additionally, the families filled out TV viewing diaries and provided a large amount of information from questionnaires. The proposal is to analyze the time-lapse videotapes using a novel computer-controlled rating procedure. The viewing behavior of all family members is rated for visual attention to the TV, social interaction, play, homework and housework, sleep, eating, and other behaviors. Analyses will characterizz patterns of viewing behavior in children and adults and relate individual differences to test and questionnaire information. The accuracy of family viewing diaries will be assessed in detail.
