Just a Joke? Adolescents' Preferences for Humor in Media Entertainment and Real-Life Aggression.

Humorous media entertainment frequently punctuates the everyday lives of adolescents. Theorists have suggested that this exposure may impact behavior, particularly real-life aggression. Specifically, exposure to prosocial (coping) humor in media entertainment is posited to decrease aggression, whereas the reverse has been argued for exposure to antisocial (disparaging and slapstick) humor.

Screen media use and ADHD-related behaviors: Four decades of research.

The diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) among children and adolescents has increased considerably over the past decades. Scholars and health professionals alike have expressed concern about the role of screen media in the rise in ADHD diagnosis. However, the extent to which screen media use and ADHD are linked remains a point of debate.

App features that fulfill parents' needs in apps for children.

When parents select apps for young children (3-7), they have particular needs. However, it is unclear how these needs might be fulfilled. Uses and gratifications theory predicts that specific features of apps can fulfill needs, but empirical evidence regarding the types of features that fulfill these needs is nonexistent.

Do You Know What Your Kids Are Drinking? Evaluation of a Media Campaign to Reduce Consumption of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages.

Objective: This study evaluates a citywide media campaign that targeted reducing sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption as a strategy for addressing obesity.

Design: Rolling cross-sectional survey data, collected before and during the media campaign, with 1367 parents to assess exposure to and effect of a televised public service advertisement (TV PSA) developed using a reasoned action approach.

Setting: Televised public service advertisement campaign created by the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and disseminated on cable television channels within the Philadelphia market.

Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption by Adult Caregivers and Their Children: The Role of Drink Features and Advertising Exposure.

Objective: To examine how parents' beliefs about beverage attributes and exposure to sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) advertising are associated with parents' and their children's SSB consumption.

Design: Cross-sectional representative telephone survey of Philadelphia parents in households with children between the ages of 3 and 16 years.

Participants: Three hundred and seventy-one randomly selected survey respondents.

Assessing the relationship between pediatric media guidance and media use in American families.

Objective: American parents were surveyed to isolate demographic factors that predict reliance on a pediatrician, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), or both for media guidance. We then investigated whether reliance on these resources resulted in different media practices with children.

Methods: A nationally representative survey was conducted (n = 1454).

Investigating Correlates of Self-Regulation in Early Childhood with a Representative Sample of English-Speaking American Families.

Children who possess less self-regulatory skill are at a disadvantage when compared to children who demonstrate greater skill at regulating their emotions, cognitions and behavior. Children with these regulatory deficits have difficulty connecting with peers, generating relationships with teachers, negotiating their social world, and succeeding academically. By understanding the correlates of self-regulatory abilities, interventions can be developed to ensure that children at-risk for poor self-regulation receive the support necessary to enhance their regulatory skills.

Predictors of parents' intention to limit children's television viewing.

Background: Scientific evidence demonstrates a link between viewing time and several poor health outcomes. We use a reasoned action approach to identify the determinants and beliefs associated with parents' intention to limit their children's television viewing.

Methods: We surveyed a random sample of 516 caregivers to children ages 3-16 in a large Northeastern city.

Background television in the homes of US children.

Objective: US parents were surveyed to determine the amount of background television that their children are exposed to as well as to isolate demographic factors associated with increased exposure to background television. After this, we ask how certain home media practices are linked to children's background television exposure.

Methods: US parents/caregivers (N = 1454) with 1 child between the ages of 8 months and 8 years participated in this study.

Visual Attention to Antismoking PSAs: Smoking Cues Versus Other Attention-Grabbing Features.

This study examines how addicted smokers attend visually to smoking-related public service announcements (PSAs) in adults smokers. Smokers' onscreen visual fixation is an indicator of cognitive resources allocated to visual attention. Characteristic of individuals with addictive tendencies, smokers are expected to be appetitively activated by images of their addiction-specifically smoking cues.

Structure and strategies in children's educational television: the roles of program type and learning strategies in children's learning.

Educational TV has been consistently linked to children's learning. In this research, educational TV characteristics were identified, coded, and tested for their influence on children's program-specific comprehension and vocabulary outcomes. Study 1 details a content analysis of TV features including a program's macrostructure (i.

TV as storyteller: how exposure to television narratives impacts at-risk preschoolers' story knowledge and narrative skills.

Educational media serve as informal educators within the home by supplementing young children's development. Substantial evidence documents the contributions of educational television to preschoolers' acquisition of a variety of skills; however, television's natural capacity as storyteller and the role it plays in preschoolers' early literacy development has been largely overlooked. This study examined the effects of viewing different TV program types on 311 at-risk preschoolers' story knowledge and narrative skills.

Evaluating the educational potential of health PSAs with preschoolers.

Children learn from a variety of televised programs, including the short public service announcements (PSAs) that air between children's programs. PSAs are designed to repetitively expose children to important content ranging from the benefits of reading to health-related messages. The purpose of this study was to evaluate 5 PSAs containing health messages for preschoolers (i.