The article by Gene H. Brody, Zolinda Stoneman, and Alice K. Sanders researched the effects in family interactions while viewing television.  Through an observational study, the researchers viewed twenty-seven middle-class families for twenty minutes.  For the first half families would watch television. With the time remaining, they would play with their children.  The families were selected from a family center located in a community in northeast Georgia. The families were observed in a living room setting through a one-way mirror.  The authors went through this research asking two questions: How do family interactions that characterize television-viewing influence cognitive, language, and social development? and Could it be that television is such a powerful attention-getter that it decreases both verbal and nonverbal communication within the family system? What they found through observing the children was that they talked less and tended to be less active when playing with their family.  They were more likely to touch their mother than father when the television was on.  Through observing the mother they found a large amount of physical contact between them and their children when the television was on. Observing the father they found that they were less likely to smile, talk, and look at their children while the television was on.  An interesting find was that the television was seen as a stimulus for the fathers and children. It also served to change the interactions of the family members to each other.  It would have been interesting if the authors viewed families with different backgrounds instead of focusing on Caucasian middle-class families to see if the interactions differed or stayed the same. 

Brody, Gene H., Zolinda Stoneman, and Alice K. Sanders. “Effects of Television Viewing on Family Interactions: An Observational Study.” Family Relations 29.2 (1980): 216-20. Jstor . Web. 12 Feb. 2017.