A new study by the Indian School of Business (ISB) has found that visual motion in children’s online videos can increase screen engagement, but may not necessarily improve their attention to educational content.
The study, titled “Attention Trap? How Visual Motion Shapes Children’s Screen Time and Engagement on Video Platforms”, examined how moving visuals influence children’s viewing behaviour on platforms such as YouTube. It was conducted by researchers from ISB and Santa Clara University in the United States.
The research analysed more than 32,000 YouTube videos marked as “made for kids” and combined the findings with a randomised experiment and an eye-tracking study involving children aged 6 to 10. It was co-authored by Sumeet Kumar and Madhu Viswanathan of ISB, along with Ravi Bapna of Santa Clara University, and published in the journal Information Systems Research.
The analysis found that a 10 per cent increase in visual motion was associated with approximately 1.1 per cent more views, even after accounting for other audio, visual, emotional and textual features.
The randomised experiment also showed that adding motion to the backgrounds of educational videos increased view rates. Videos with medium levels of background motion recorded a 1.6 per cent increase in view rates, while those with high motion registered a 2 per cent increase compared with versions without additional motion.
However, the eye-tracking study revealed an important distinction between screen engagement and learning. Background motion reduced the time children spent looking away from the screen, increasing their on-screen attention by around 3.4 to 3.6 percentage points. Much of this additional attention, however, was directed towards the moving backgrounds rather than the instructional content.
Madhu Viswanathan, Associate Professor of Marketing at ISB, said visual motion could be an effective tool for retaining children’s attention, but needed to be used thoughtfully. He suggested that content creators could use targeted motion at moments when children’s attention is more likely to drift, rather than relying on continuous visual stimulation.
The researchers noted that keeping children engaged with a video does not automatically mean they are concentrating on or learning from its educational content.
The findings have implications for parents, educators and digital content creators as children’s consumption of online videos continues to grow. They highlight the need to assess the educational value of digital content beyond viewing time and screen retention.
The study also suggests that platforms could use computer-vision techniques, such as optical flow, to measure visual motion in children’s videos. Such assessments could complement existing content evaluation systems and parental controls.
-PTI
