There is an overwhelming amount of empirical evidence that can demonstrate a clear link between, for example, a commercial being repetitively shown on the television exhibiting certain behaviour, whether benign or not, and children then mimicking that behaviour (obviously) without necessarily understanding context. Leaving the purchasing influence of adverts to one side, the mimicking is the key behaviour and is a crucial part of a child's development. Clearly, problems can arise when a child's behaviour "feels" inappropriate - eg dancing suggestively, using adult or offensive language and so on. I would say that some adults have differing amounts of latitude as to what "feels" appropriate for their child, depending on their cultural upbringing, any religious considerations and so forth.
The element of cultural upbringing & heritage was brought into sharp focus in a mainstream way when a colleague, a psychiatric support worker, spoke about a television series she had watched called (I think) Big Gypsy Weddings. My colleague expressed shock at what she felt was the inappropriate clothing the girls in some parts of the travelling community wore. She implored me to watch it, and so I watched an episode, perhaps two years ago, followed by what remained of the series. Girls from a very young age were wearing crop tops, hot-pants, full make up, and were filmed at a gathering in a hotel dancing quite provocatively. I had encountered a very small number of (mainly) Irish heritage travellers through my work. Travellers don't tend to seek healthcare due their peripatetic lifestyle, and I had to admit to initially feeling quite shocked seeing the provocative dress and over-sexualisation of these children. My own dealings with the travelling community had been quite different to what I had watched. On the few occasions I had met travellers, they were all young women suffering with either anxiety disorders, acute major depressive disorder or a combination of the two. When speaking to these women it became immediately apparent that immense moral expectations were required of them; far more so than one would see in the majority of UK society in the 21st century. Their moral encoding was akin to that of Victorian bourgeois society.
I initially assumed that the television series had hand-picked a non-representative portion of this group, but as I watched the rest of the series it became apparent that the combination of extraordinarily rigid morals regarding chastity, alcohol, entrenched perceptions of gender-stereotyping were correct, it was quite at odds with the (perhaps to our minds) unorthodox clothing and dancing of the children seen at important social gatherings.
My children do have tablets and computers but we are fortunate in so far as we live in a rural village with a small school and they have always had friends here close by. We also live on what was once a small-holding farm, so there is plenty of land. I have to admit that because my husband and me really don't watch much television, they just seem to have naturally followed suit. Maybe oddly, I far prefer them to play video games because we can all join in, although there is nothing to stop them putting the TV on whenever they choose.
In all honesty I couldn't really see a vast difference in context between that video and a Barbie Doll - in its essence at least. I think I probably tend to be more concerned about what is viewable on the computers, tablets and phones than advertising per se - even though I'm extremely aware of the power of advertising to influence children's behaviour it is ubiquitous in 2014 and almost entirely unavoidable.