My eyes glazed and I thought about the trifle she was holding.

A report released Monday by NYU’s Center For Media Studies has found that television, accused by experts of diminishing children’s attention spans and discouraging them from interacting with others, can actually help children as young as six months develop essential looking skills.

“In a study of over 5,000 children nationwide,” the report read, “those who watched cartoons for three hours had vastly increased looking capacities when tested the next day, compared to children who were encouraged to play sports and board games with other children for the same three-hour period. Staring and gazing skills were also markedly higher.”

Data gathered in the study also indicated that visual-reception skills acquired at an early age tend to become lifelong assets.