Toddlers’ Learning From Socially Meaningful Video Characters

“Indeed, toddlers learned imitation tasks better when the onscreen character was socially meaningful (their mother) rather than a stranger, suggesting that social meaningfulness is important for early learning. Such an idea is consistent with the concept of parasocial relationships, an emotional one-way attachment that develops between an audience member and a media character. Children form emotional relationships with television characters, reporting that they ‘‘really like’’ certain popular television characters such as Dora from Dora the Explorer. Additionally, using pictures of popular familiar characters, such as Elmo from Sesame Street, increased preschool-aged children’s preference for foods that were being marketed. As onscreen characters become socially meaningful to young children, they may become more likely to trust the characters, and therefore, learn the information that is being presented onscreen.”

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