[giantg2]

I also didn't see anything about the type of programming consumed. I would think this would play a big role in things like attention.

A lot of the programming for kids is extremely low value - nothing of educational value, poor dialog, poor social skills/manners or violence, etc. There are even problems with the pacing a lot of times where it seems like the show is so fast compared to real life. No wonder you can't pay attention in a slow paced classroom when you're conditioned to have a 10 second attention span. I can even see some of this with my wife. She can't stand any sort of slow burn or intellectual movies, documentaries, etc. She just can't focus for that long if it's not fast paced. You can even see the general difference in pace from older movies or TV shows (like black and white old) and today.