Most children say they like playing with their friends most of all, but that's not actually what they spend their time doing. Children spend more time in front of the TV or playing computer games than they do at school.  In Alice, Mabel and Phoebe's house, the TV was always on. They fell asleep in front of it every night. Their mum, Tracey, described the TV as a godsend. She didn't think it mattered what the triplets watched, because anything unsuitable would go over their heads. In an original and amusing experiment, we showed the children scenes from soap operas to see how much of the narrative they followed. We also tested all the children for their activity levels and found some surprising results. On a farm in Wales, Megan spent a lot of her time outside with her parents while they worked. Did this mean she was especially active? The most active child was Jamie, who was football and cycling mad. But when his active lifestyle was suddenly threatened, could he maintain it despite all the odds?
 Ethan loved playing violent computer games. But what were they doing to him? Could playing such games encourage him to be violent? In groundbreaking experiments, we showed the skills Ethan and the other children could gain from their exposure to new technology. We also asked how playing exciting computer games could affect children once they're at school full time. Find out what impact dads were having on the children's development in programme 3.
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