In addition to developing schemas about the media, children can actually enhance their cognitive thinking by spending time with certain technologies (see Subrahmanyam & Greenfield, 2008). For example, studies show that practicing certain types of video games can improve dynamic spatial skills in both children (Subrahmanyam & Greenfield, 1996) and adults (Feng, Spence, & Pratt, 2007). There is also evidence that video game playing improves strategies for dividing visual attention, presumably because

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players must cope with events that occur simultaneously at different places on the screen (Greenfield, deWinstanley, Kilpatrick, & Kaye, 1996). In addition, listening to a song seems to stimulate imagination more than watching a music video of the same song does (Greenfield et al., 1987). All of these studies suggest a kind of interactive relationship between media exposure and schematic processing and development.

To summarize here, children can call on larger stores of remembered information across a variety of domains as they grow. In addition, they can integrate and combine information in more complex ways, forming more elaborate connections with what they already know (Siegler, 2005). In other words, their schemas become more elaborate and differentiated, and thus their interpretations of media content become richer and more complex.

Having a great deal of knowledge and experience in a given area has all kinds of benefits for cognitive processing. Compared to a beginner, a veteran has familiar concepts and ready-made strategies to apply to a problem (Siegler, 2005). Given that the terrain is familiar, the expert expends less cognitive energy and is free to apply mental workspace to high-order activities such as metacognition (Flavell et al., 2002). Consider for a moment how a 6-year-old might respond to a cigarette advertisement in a magazine compared with how a 16-year-old would process the same message. The 6-year-old presumably has never smoked, has little knowledge of how the lungs work, is unaware of the legal battles being waged against the tobacco industry, is not cognizant of who paid for the placement of the ad in the magazine, and has little experience with the cost of various products in a grocery store. The teenager certainly has less experience than an adult would have in this domain, but compared with the grade schooler, the adolescent brings a much broader knowledge base from which to draw in interpreting and evaluating such an ad.