Children's Television Viewing: Observations and Generational Shifts

Introduction and Observational Setup

It was Saturday morning when I sat down to begin my observations of children's television programming. I invited a neighbor — a six-year-old boy — to watch the shows with me. Later in the afternoon, I planned to speak with his mother, a friend of mine in her forties, to get her perspective on how children's television had changed since her own childhood in the 1970s and what her school-age children are watching now.

My first observation concerned the sheer volume of choice available on a Saturday morning. Having grown up with Saturday morning cartoons myself, I was not entirely surprised, but my young companion informed me that he could watch cartoons at any time — 24 hours a day if he wanted — and that he did not generally watch Saturday morning television because he played on a soccer team. The season was over and T-ball had not yet started, however, so I was in luck.

Channel Preferences and the Avatar Plot

My young friend shared his opinions about the various television channels. While Saturday morning cartoon shows are still available on broadcast television, most children appear to watch cable channels as much on weekends as they do during the week. He told me he preferred the NickToons channel above all others for shows like Avatar and SpongeBob SquarePants. He mentioned that his mother liked him to watch PBS Kids, as she felt those programs were "good for him," but he admitted he found them "babyish" and did not generally choose them when he had the freedom to pick for himself.

For part of our time together I watched him, and for part of it I watched the show. He chose to watch Avatar. The plot was remarkably complex, centering on a young boy of Asian background who is a kind of Messiah figure, destined to unite four nations — water, fire, earth, and air. The character known as the Avatar, Aang, has apparently been reincarnated repeatedly, each time coming from a different nation. He is still mastering his abilities while simultaneously trying to serve as a peacemaker among the four nations.

I did not gather all of this from watching two episodes. Rather, my young friend provided a concise and detailed plot synopsis. When I asked whether Aang had been reincarnated from previous avatars, my friend answered without hesitation that he had not been, since he was able to speak to previous avatars in spirit form. I was impressed that he knew what reincarnation meant, and he explained that the concept had been introduced in an earlier episode.

The show was far more narratively sophisticated than the cartoons I remembered from my own childhood. There was significant character development, and in one episode a character died — something quite different from the cartoons I grew up watching. I asked my friend how he felt about the character who died, who appeared to be a sympathetic figure. He seemed puzzled by the question and said simply that it was okay. When I asked why, he clarified that it was "only a cartoon" and that the people were not real.

The Child's Engagement with Commercials

I was particularly interested in observing his reaction to the television commercials. He was fully absorbed in the show while it was on but tended to disengage during commercial breaks — except when the commercials advertised toys aimed at boys. He attended to those advertisements as carefully as he did the show itself. He appeared to be drawn in by boy-targeted commercials even when he was not looking directly at the screen, and I noticed that these ads featured loud guitar music and a fast-talking, masculine voiceover. Girl-targeted toy commercials, by contrast, featured a female voice speaking softly or cheerfully to describe the product, and frequently ended with the girl in the ad hugging the doll or toy being sold — much to my friend's disgust.

I asked him whether the commercials made him want the things he saw. He initially said no, then corrected himself: he often saw a toy or game on television that he would like to have but did not expect to receive anytime soon, either because it seemed too expensive or because his birthday or Christmas was too far away. He appeared knowledgeable about the toys featured in commercials and told me that his friends would often have one toy or another and report back whether it was worth having or whether it was "cheap." This kind of peer-mediated consumer socialization was evident even at age six.

My friend and I watched two episodes of Avatar and one episode of a show called Drake & Josh. The latter is a live-action program about two stepbrothers in a blended family. The show was typical of many simple situation comedies from my own childhood, yet my friend appeared to enjoy it just as much as the animated program.