May 08, 2007

Babies Watch Lots of TV , so claims a new study from the University of Washington and Seattle Children's Hospital Research Institute. . . by 3 months of age 40 percent of infants are regular viewers. (10-20 hours/week) That number jumps to 90 percent of 2-year-olds . . . "This study is important because it teaches us about the media diet of infants who are too young to speak for themselves." via linkfilter

"We need more research on both the positive and negative effects of a steady diet of baby TV and DVD viewing. But parents should feel confident that high-quality social interaction with babies, including reading and talking with them, provides all the stimulation that the growing brain needs. It's not as though TV or a DVD provides an extra vitamin of some kind in the first two years of life "At the end of the day the amount of TV viewing is based on what parents think is normal," said Zimmerman. "Perceptions of norms tend to shape behavior even if those norms are inflated." Dude. That's some fucked up shit right there.

posted by petebest 17 years ago
  • I read an article in Time a while back about this. The experts (pediatricians, psychologists, etc.) say that the best way to go is no t.v. at all before 2. Since I still refuse to pay for cable (they want how much for extended basic?!?!), and hate those ugly dishes, we have no t.v., so there's no decision there. However, when we're home and Abigail's sick or extremely cranky, I'll pop in Monsters, Inc. or Shrek.
  • I'm nuts without watching TV.
  • "Television viewing time at mean age 14 years was associated with elevated risk for subsequent frequent attention difficulties, frequent failure to complete homework assignments, frequent boredom at school, failure to complete high school, poor grades, negative attitudes about school (i.e., hates school), overall academic failure in secondary school and failure to obtain post-secondary (e.g., college, university, training school) education," the authors write. "These associations remained significant after the covariates were controlled." These covariates included family characteristics and previous problems with thinking, learning and memory. Television viewing time is associated with poor grades. por quoi?
  • I don't think I saw a television until I was four or five years old, but at age 14, I too had: * frequent attention difficulties * frequent failure to complete homework * frequent boredom at school * poor grades * negative attitude about school The doctors speculated it was because I was a teenager.
  • Heh, seconding rory. We didn't have a telly til I was about 14, though I do recall going round a friends to watch Marine Boy. If any monkey knows of a good outlet for oxygum, I'm all ears.
  • 40% at three months?? 90% at two years? That's ludicrous. I think these stats came from the vaunted Institute of Shit We Just Now Made Up.
  • The new UW-Children's study was released Monday, almost simultaneously with a different report from the journal Pediatrics that says that about 20 percent of toddlers younger than age 2 have television sets in their bedrooms.
  • Well, I don't know about those percentages, but last year parents bought $200 million worth of Baby Einstein products. That's still a lot of babies watching a lot of t.v. I bet those Baby Einstein babies are going to grow up to rule the world... While looking for the above-mentioned dollar figure, I found this Time article that takes a close look at the recent trend of Supermoms. A very good read.
  • Hey, I got my degree from the ISWJNMU! Don't be dissin' my alma mater! Go Fightin' Chupacabras!
  • Just some weeks ago a new channel was added to my lineup, 'BabyTV', 'designed by specialists to help with kids' development using safe, soothing images and programming...' well, yes, I can attest the unending lanscape shots, oniric cartoons and hypnotic sand-animations can make one reeaaallly relaxed... ZZzzzzzzzz...
  • Baby Einstein is bad enough--what happened to balls, blocks, dress-up, trucks and dolls for creativity--but a lot of these kids are plonked down in front of whatever crap's on the toobs at that moment. Not to mention, parents who ostensibly think about what their kids watch often have a movie or whatever program playing that the adults are watching, with the kids on the floor playing in the evening. Well, mostly playing. They're little sponges; they absorb everything they see and hear. Yeah, Roryk, all teenagers are little savages, but the teenagers that have the great god TV set up for worship in the house are exactally as described. I've been subbing at the high school a lot the last couple weeks, and of the 1/3 of students that just aren't making it, there's a huge proportion of them that will TELL you they "don't do nuthin' but watch TV all the time" because they have nothing better to do.
  • Baby Einstein strikes me as a blatant product placement vehicle, but my elder son found it very entertaining when he was little. Did we warp his little brain? I hope not. His other favourite visual stimulation was the front-loading washing machine, and he probably spent more time watching that. I think a limited amount of age-appropriate television is okay for little ones. I'm concerned about how many kids' DVDs have a "repeat play" setting.
  • That's an awesome article, minda25, and a great reality check. A woman at work started talking to me about the pressures of finding the "right" pre-school, and assumed I would empathize with her because I was going through the same thing, while we're mostly worried about keeping the baby healthy and paying the bills! As for the tv thing, I don't know that television created ADD-addled delinquents. The tv was a constant presence in my house growing up, and my sister and I were always exposed to it. Now I have a Ph.D. and my sister's well on her way to being the overachieving, anxious kid described by the media (all pressure she puts on herself). She got hives when she made her first B on her report card, convinced she'd end up homeless. These media reports don't just make parents crazy. They hurt kids too.
  • Wait, wait - the reports make parents crazy and hurt kids?
  • Damn straight!
  • Does YouTube count?
  • His other favourite visual stimulation was the front-loading washing machine, and he probably spent more time watching that. Hey, the kid's got good taste. Whites are whiter, brights are brighter, and you don't have to listen to those whiney people on the sitcoms.
  • And there's plenty of suspense: will there be any missing socks? Will the red cap turn the shirts pink?
  • His other favourite visual stimulation was the front-loading washing machine, and he probably spent more time watching that. I dimly recall some old joke about putting two pairs of longjohns in to wash, then telling your short-sighted Gran it's the wrestling.