"As you would expect, the kids in the room without the toys watched the show playing on the T.V. about 87 percent of the time, while the kids with the toys watched only about 47 percent of the show. Kids are distracted by toys. But when they tested the two groups to see how much of the show the children remembered and understood, the scores were exactly the same. This result stunned the researchers. Kids, they realized, were a great deal more sophisticated in the way they watched than had been imagined. 'We were led to the conclusion,' they wrote, 'that five-year-olds in the toys group were attending quite strategically, distributing their attention between toy play and viewing so that they looked at what for them were the most informative parts of the program. This strategy was so effective that the children could gain no more from increased attention.'" -- Malcolm Gladwell
I've got a staff meeting on Monday morning. I'm bringing my toys!
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