n characters are actors. These young children are reported to believe that television people live in the television box (Lyle and Hoffman, 1972) and know the viewer just as the viewer knows the characters from television (Noble, 1975). Furthermore, Noble (1975) argues that young children engage in parasocial interaction with television characters--television characters are viewed as real people and real friends with whom to interact in play and real life. Television seems a very real world indeed to young children, a world in which they become emotionally and cognitively involved. However, evidence of such parasocial interaction is weak and has not been much studied. While television may not be real in the sense that preschoolers talk to and use it, it does present some events realistically (in a real-life manner). Perceptions of television as real in the sense that television portrays events and people in a real-life manner may be accurate perceptions of the medium. Television does show how people eat, dress, and engage in other sorts of everyday activities. This is not to say that television does not engage in stereotyped portrayals; television may stereotype different racial and ethnic groups as well as men and women, and yet, at the same time, some aspects of the portrayals are realistic. Similarly, Hawkins (1977) presents evidence that the construct of perceived reality may have several dimensions and that the general findings that perceived reality decreases as children grow older may refer to only one dimension. In particular, he found that between first and third grade there is a marked increase in understanding that most television programs present fiction or actors playing parts and are not pictures of actual events. That is, between first and third grades children realize that television is not a "magic window" on the world, as the preschoolers and kindergartners are reported to discuss television's reality. Hawkins found a d...
