The aim of this article is to systematically review the literature studying the association between television viewing and children's executive function, academic performance, attention, language and play. Using keywords: television, children, infants, attention, language, education and cognition, five online databases were searched. Seventy-six studies that met all the inclusion criteria were reviewed. The findings suggest the relationship between television viewing and children's development is complex. First, the likely effects of television may depend on children's individual characteristics, family and social context. Second, the features of television, such as content and editing pace, and the type of exposure (foreground or background) may affect outcomes. Specifically, watching high-quality educational content during preschool years improves children's basic academic skills and predicts subsequent positive academic performance. Conversely, television viewing in infancy is disruptive to play; it reduces the quality and quantity of child-parent interactions and is associated with inattentive/hyperactive behaviours, lower executive functions, and language delay, at least in the short-term. It remains unclear whether these interactions between television and cognition are long lasting. Future research should focus on the systematic investigation of the pathways that link particular components of television and the type of exposure with individual and contextual factors, to investigate their potential unique and combined effects on development. Researchers must also address the challenge of investigating the diverse and rapidly changing technologies to which the current generation of children are exposed.(C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.