
No TV for children under 2, urge doctors - anigbrowl
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/health/19babies.html
======
dolinsky
My son is 21 months and we have never sat him down in front of a TV with the
express purpose being education (so no Baby Einstein DVDs...what a joke) nor
babysitting (passive viewing of a cartoon). He has been exposed to my iPad, my
wife's iTouch and both of our phones, and Cablevision provides a 'Kids Music
Channel' which plays a variety of kid-friendly music while cycling through a
dozen or so static images including ballons, a rubber duck in water, and a
car.

The only line in that article that I take issue with is the following: Even
so-called educational videos do not benefit children under 2 because they are
too young to be able to understand the images on the screen, the doctors’
group said.

Maybe it's because we read to my son daily and have incorporated teaching him
sign language from the time he was 4 months, but he most definitely can
recognize the images on the screen and frequently both speaks and signs the
correct image on the screen (balloon, duck, dog, car). If we had never done
any of these activities with him then I highly doubt he would be able to
recognize the images on the TV, and there might be a distinction between
understanding and recognizing that I am not making, but he most definitely is
displaying some sort of connection between the images on the TV and the
books/drawings/in person experiences he has.

I think the key take away from this, or other studies of its kind, is that
passive media should not be the influential experience that a child so young
should be exposed to.

~~~
maratd
> incorporated teaching him sign language from the time he was 4 months

If you don't mind elaborating on this, why did you teach him sign language?

~~~
Homunculiheaded
Having it so your baby can ask for milk long before they get upset or too
hungry is great, having them tell you that they're finished eating is much
better than having them just throw food on the ground ;) Babies are
cognitively capable of communicating they just haven't developed the skills
for speech yet.

~~~
ToastOpt
This! We started baby sign and could communicate these basics with our
daughter before she was a year old. It might not sound like much to start
communicating 6 months earlier, but I can only describe it thusly: awesome.

------
pwenzel
My wife and I chose to adopt a "no screen time" policy for our child, who is
presently 7 months old. Here are my observations so far:

1\. At a restaurant with TVs, we've observed our child go from laughing and
socially engaged, to completed zoned out and unaware of people in mere
seconds, just because the television appeared in his field of view. :-(

2\. At less than three months of age, he had a fit when pulled away from the
television, under the watch of in-laws.

3\. Both parents have iPhones, Macbooks, and have a tendency to flop in front
of the TV (Roku, Hulu, Daily Show) in the evening. Our no screen time policy
prevents us from gazing into our own screens without paying attention to the
needs of our son.

4\. Finally, most advertising is obnoxious and has no place in my home. Why
expose our infant to it? He'll have the rest of his life to be accosted by
ads.

~~~
brudgers
> _"Finally, most advertising is obnoxious and has no place in my home. Why
> expose our infant to it? He'll have the rest of his life to be accosted by
> ads."_

Advertising for products used by children has changed dramatically over the
past few decades. Juliet Schor's book _Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child
and the New Consumer Culture_ documents the change and the strategies used.

It is one of the most influential books about raising children I read.

[[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684870568/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684870568/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-
top-
stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=068487055X&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1FCC8HT1YW7EJW8KQF9T)]

~~~
SoftwareMaven
I have older kids. When we switched from regular TV to DVR, Netflix and iTunes
(eg when we stopped watching commercials), their desire for inane stuff
dropped significantly.

That alone makes paying for a series on iTunes worth it for me.

------
grandalf
I think that if you're ignoring your kid and watching a lot of TV the problem
is that you're ignoring your kid.

If you're watching more than about an hour of TV per day as a new parent then
you either have a staff of people caring for your kid or you're slacking off.

If you don't converse with the child's other parent or others in the household
b/c the TV is the center of everyone's attention, then you have a relationship
problem or dysfunctional family situation.

This anti-TV meme is mostly luddite fearmongering intended to get joe and jane
sixpack to stop vegging out in front of the TV and start being engaged as
parents.

Sure, having disengaged parents or parents that don't interact verbally will
create an impoverished environment for a kid, but it's not the fault of the
glowing box anymore than it would be the fault of the chess board if the
parents gazed silently at the board for hours at a time and ignored the little
one.

~~~
frossie
_This anti-TV meme is mostly luddite fearmongering intended to get joe and
jane sixpack to stop vegging out in front of the TV and start being engaged as
parents._

That is not what the Academy of Pediatrics is actually saying. They
specifically say that you as the parent is not required to engage with your
child the whole time - however if you are NOT engaged with them, you are still
better having the TV off, because children gain valuable skills from solitary
play.

In other words, it's not a simplistic case of "Parents better than TV"; it
really is a case of "no TV better than TV".

Obviously with all these things, quantity does matter.

I should add the other benefit of no screen time before two: when you finally
do introduce programming, at least in my experience, kids are far more highly
engaged with it, so when you expose them to it later it seems to "take"
better. Anecdotally, the kids who are exposed to it as babies seem to also not
to focus attentively on it when they are older, so if you do want to take
advantage of the screen's great educational potential (not talking about the
Baby Einstein crap), you do seem to be better off holding off for the first
couple of years.

~~~
grandalf
But couldn't some programming be beneficial and some harmful?

It just seems like quite an oversimplification to say that all TV is neutral
or harmful to development.

My kid is 15 months and we occasionally play "signing time" sign language
training DVDs. She's learned a lot of spoken vocabulary from it, and appears
to be in the 99th percentile for language development. She doesn't typically
sign anything (except for milk) but the other day I asked her what the sign is
for a few things and she actually seems to know them.

There is no way to tell for certain, but I credit the signing time videos with
giving her a very clear sense of core (verbal and signed) language symbolism.
The repetition of words, signs, and pictures has always seemed quite
interesting to her, with the less familiar, more abstract words/concepts
initially seeming a bit less interesting and subsequently gaining significance
as her overall awareness improved.

I have noticed on the few occasions when we've had a movie or show on the TV
when she's been around that she'll initially pay close attention to it and
then after a minute or two begin to stare blankly at it... this is quite the
opposite reaction she has to the signing time videos.

So to summarize I'm skeptical that it makes sense to generalize too much about
the specific age ranges when kids are "ready" for various stimuli. I think
that metaphor is stretched too far. Instead, a child will find certain stimuli
intensely interesting (including some stuff that may be on a TV). To the
extent that the child can conceptualize the structure of the stimulus enough
to provoke learning, the stimulus can be considered "good" or beneficial to
learning. But the developing brain will also get overwhelmed, so after a
certain point even a good stimulus becomes noise and can only lead the child
to exert effort to tune it out, which would use up cognitive effort for
something without any learning benefit.

~~~
spot
ok you have your anecdote, they have their big study. i know where my bets
are.

~~~
grandalf
Hah not trying to argue for anything based on the anecdote, just using it to
suggest that the premises of the study might not be all that realistic. It's
easy to get caught up in the result of an official sounding study which may
actually be ill-conceived.

------
OpenAmazing
My wife use to be a social worker.

It is incredibly sad how many children are put in front of a TV all day. And
not Sesame Street or even cartoons - but Soap Operas, Jerry Springer, Cops,
Fox News etc. Picture a dirty trailer home, behind on rent, no job, fast food
for every meal and a rented 52-inch rear-projection TV that is on all. the.
time.

When health care professionals make statements like this, the bad parents are
who they are picturing in their head. They know the good parents (like the
ones that read HN) can make informed decisions for themselves. But the bad
parents have to be told "absolutely no TV" because there is no concept of
moderation.

~~~
raganwald
_the good parents (like the ones that read HN)_

I greatly respect the people I’ve interacted with on HN, but I would stop far
short of assuming that intelligence and competence in something like hacking
automagically transfers over to an orthogonal skill like parenting. This is
partly because of my own anecdotal experience raising children while working
in software development, and partly because of what I’ve observed which is
that nearly every successful professional class assumes that they are good
parents and clearly superior to people who are financially unsuccessful.

Often times, they are. Some people have poor life skills that translate
directly into poor parenting skills. Some people have good life skills that
seem to cross over directly into good parenting skills. But some poor people
are great parents, and some successful people do not practice good
parenting... Yet.

One of the attributes of being a good parent is to recognize when you could be
even better. Thus, I guess my real message is that regardless of how we view
our parenting skills, we ought to be open to the possibility that advice like
this may apply to us even if we aren’t living in a trailer.

(Disclosure: I live in an extremely modest cottage that is Toronto’s
equivalent to a trailer home).

~~~
OpenAmazing
Slightly facetious with the HN == good parenting comment. But in general, if
you are the type of person that likes to learn, problem solves and strives to
improve, you'll do fine at parenting. "Approach parenting like a startup"
isn't such bad advice. In general.

Dwelling type, of course, is immaterial. I was illustrating a group of people
who have extremely poor judgement, children being only one of them (i.e. you
shouldn't be renting a giant TV if you can't pay rent or provide for your
children).

------
Ryanmf
If it hadn't been for watching Sesame Street and Reading Rainbow at that age
(c.1988), I wouldn't have been able to participate in the mind bending parlor
trick wherein my father handed his two year old son a box of cereal, and I
promptly sounded out Maltodextrin (or whatever else).

(And if I hadn't been that two year old, it's unlikely I'd be the voracious
reader and passionate lexidweeb I am now. In fact, it's unlikely I'd even have
the same brain, so to speak.)

Now, my parents reading to me most every night (apparently even when I was in
the womb) also had a tremendous effect, but when I was a kid my dad traveled
for work upwards of 300 days a year. And my mom had to take care of everything
else. So there wasn't always someone available to read to me, but Big Bird and
Geordi LaForge were there _every morning_.

Just sayin'.

(If the point of that article wasn't "no TV under 2" but "no bullshit TV under
2," I agree, but I would ammend the statement to "no bullshit TV under 200,"
or simply "no bullshit.")

~~~
ajross
You're misreading the headline or misinterpreting your parents. When you were
reading as a "two year old", they mean you were between your second and third
birthday[1].

When the study says "No TV for infants under 2" they mean babies between birth
and their second birthday. And the recommendation isn't about "bullshit" TV,
it's about the fact that kids watching a screen aren't interacting with a
human being and learning how to communiate. The studies correlating TV
watching with delayed speech are very well supported.

[1] Obviously it's likely you were closer to three. And knowing now how
parental memories can, heh, embellish things, I strongly suspect that most of
your most memorable reading tricks happened when you were, in fact, three.

~~~
derekprior
"it's about the fact that kids watching a screen aren't ... learning how to
communiate (sic)"

Does sign language count as communication? Because my son learns signs from
occasional DVD watching and then applies them in the proper contexts -
sometimes without any reinforcement from his parents or anyone else.

Pretty sure that qualifies as learning how to communicate.

~~~
ajross
Clearly I'm no expert, nor do I know if studies have been done on the effect
of TV watching on ASL acquisition.

I'll bet good money, however, that however many signs your <2yo son learns
from watching a DVD, he would learn _more_ from signing with you instead of
passively watching the device. Which, for verbal speech, is exactly what the
studies show.

~~~
derekprior
Maybe, but now you've changed your argument. Previously it was that they
weren't learning at all, now they aren't learning as well. Even so, there are
points in response:

1\. I'm really not equipped to show him the multiple images of a coat or
someone putting on a coat, or other children doing signs of coat. The video
is. I don't know if this matters or not. It's certainly possible it doesn't.

2\. I have to make dinner for us all at some point. As much as I'd love for my
15 month old to patiently engage in conversation with me while remaining a
safe distance from the stovetop, it just doesn't happen. There are times when
a parent's attention just cannot be 100%, or even 75% on their child. So yes,
maybe he would learn EVERYTHING better if I were there to teach it to him, but
the fact is that even the best parents can't be.

~~~
ajross
I've reread my posts, and don't see where I said children weren't learning.
The science shows kids who watch TV speak later, period. Anecdotes (your kid
learning some signs from a DVD, the earlier poster learning to read from TV)
don't change that. Sorry, but they don't.

As for point 2, I don't disagree at all. Everything is a tradeoff, no parent
can be perfect. Most kids turn out fine anyway. If you have to give your kids
TV (my 3 year old gets about two hours a week, for instance) then do so and
don't feel guilty. But don't try to justify it as educational; the science
disagrees.

------
Mithrandir
Announcement: <http://www.aap.org/pressroom/mediaunder2.pdf>

Study:
[http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/10/...](http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/10/12/peds.2011-1753.abstract)

------
colomon
Maybe I read this too quickly, but it seems like they're extrapolating from a
fairly obvious "Don't let your one year old watch TV ten hours a day" to
"Don't let your one year old watch any media at all", without any actual
research evidence cited to back up that leap.

Or to put it another way, I'm really seriously doubting I measurably harmed
our boy by letting him watch 15 minutes of traditional music videos a day when
he was a toddler. (Mostly Liz Carroll, Peter Horan, and Daniel Payne, as I
recall.)

~~~
xutopia
The study also refers to heavy use but does not define what heavy means.

~~~
estevez

        Heavy media use in a household is defined as one in which the television is on all or most of the time.

~~~
nknight
What the heck is "all or most of the time"? Which time?

What if everyone including the child is regularly out of the house for all but
a few waking hours per day?

"the television" -- which one? Does the one in the teenager's bedroom count?
How do computers factor in?

Please tell me they used stricter and more thorough criteria than that for
"heavy media use".

------
jsherry
I'm not here to promote the idea of children under 2 should watch TV, but
statements like this largely invalidate studies such as this:

"The pediatrics group’s guidelines point out that research to date suggests a
“correlation between television viewing and developmental problems, but they
cannot show causality.”"

~~~
dadkins
That doesn't invalidate the study at all. A correlation is still a very real
statistical thing. It doesn't automatically imply causation, but it doesn't
rule it out either. In fact, it's usually pretty good evidence in favor of
causality. If this correlation shows up in enough studies without any
alternative explanations, causality would become the prevailing theory.
Dealing with human subjects and long term effects is difficult; controlled
experiments are rarely an option.

~~~
guygurari
"A correlation is still a very real statistical thing. It doesn't
automatically imply causation, but it doesn't rule it out either. In fact,
it's usually pretty good evidence in favor of causality."

If A and B are correlated, it might mean that A -> B, or that B -> A, or that
there's a C that leads to both A and B. Without further data, there is no way
to distinguish between these possibilities. And often the actual causation is
different from what you'd guess based on intuition alone.

~~~
ajross
You're overextending the logic here. Yes, that's a correct explanation of the
difference between correlation and causation. But just because the B->A case
matches logic doesn't mean that it works as a hypothesis. (In this case, I
guess it would mean that children with speech delays are able to induce their
parents to let them watch more TV -- that's absurd to the point of being
nonsensical).

In fact, where there is a clear and sane hypothesis in play (e.g. "time spent
watching TV is time not spent learning to talk") it _almost always_ works out
that further science shows the causation that you expect. That's true across
fields, and it really shouldn't surprise anyone.

It's just that the experiments required to show that are harder. Simple
demographic studies are a lot easier and cheaper. So you do those first, then
work up the hard stuff when you know where to look.

Taking your point literally, it would _never_ be useful to do demographics
like this because you can't "prove" the causation. But of course that's
ridiculous; these studies are immensely useful and improve all our lives.

~~~
guygurari
"In fact, where there is a clear and sane hypothesis in play (e.g. "time spent
watching TV is time not spent learning to talk") it almost always works out
that further science shows the causation that you expect."

There can be more than one clear and sane hypothesis, even if it doesn't occur
to you immediately. For example, Wilduck below suggests poor parenting as an
underlying cause for both these effects.

Here's another example. It is well-known that there is a correlation between
the global temperature and the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere (from looking
at historical data). It is widely believed that higher CO2 levels lead to
higher temperatures. On this basis governments have capped CO2 emissions, with
real economic implications. This seems reasonable, doesn't it?

But some scientists who are working on this suggest an alternative
explanation; here's the gist of it. There is a lot of CO2 trapped in ice, due
to some historical reason that escapes me at the moment (it's not my field).
As temperatures rise, ice melts and CO2 is released, leading to higher CO2
levels in the atmosphere. If this is the correct explanation, following your
advice and putting caps on CO2 emissions certainly did not "improve all our
lives".

"it almost always works out that further science shows the causation that you
expect."

Evidence?

"Taking your point literally, it would never be useful to do demographics like
this because you can't "prove" the causation. But of course that's ridiculous;
these studies are immensely useful and improve all our lives."

Not at all. Sometimes correlation is enough. For example, if an insurance
company finds a correlation between having red hair and being involved in more
car accidents, they can use this information to their advantage.

------
rada
My one and a half year old learned the alphabet by watching a cartoon several
times. I think there is a healthy balance to be found somewhere between 24/7
and zero.

~~~
mark242
The point of the study isn't that kids can't learn from the TV-- of course
they can-- but that they'll be _better_ at learning when it's you talking to
them, or reading them a book, or playing, or something that's more
interactive.

We have a four year old who we've tried to limit watching TV, because you can
see a noticeable difference in demeanor and attitude when the TV is on versus
when playing by themselves or with us. Of course there's going to be some TV
time, but for a kid under 2, I would tend to agree with the study, with the
addition that even something like an iPad can be much more of a learning tool.

~~~
munin
why does there have to be some TV time?

~~~
zmmmmm
I don't know if you have kids, but looking after them (some kids more than
others) can be an utterly exhausting task that starts at dawn and doesn't end
until 8:00pm. Television turns out to be something that can occupy some of the
most hyperactive kids with minimal supervision.

If you asked any worker "why does there have to be a lunch break" they'd look
at you like you were insane. I think the same applies here.

~~~
Jem
If you think looking after kids ends at 8pm, I'd question whether or not YOU
have any either ;)

------
derekprior
I agree that limiting screen time is important, and my wife and I are careful
to limit our son's screen time and not expose him to "second hand TV." That
said, I take issue with the following passage from the article:

"Even so-called educational videos do not benefit children under 2 because
they are too young to be able to understand the images on the screen, the
doctors’ group said."

My son watches a DVD from the "Baby Signing Time" series 2-3 times per week.
At 15 months, he sports a 30 to 40 word signing vocabulary. While my wife and
I work to reinforce many of the more useful signs (more, milk, eat, etc),
there are a number that he has picked up straight from the video (banana,
coat, cat, etc). As much as I'd like to believe that he's a genius, I think
its much more likely that the doctors' group is just wrong about what children
can understand on screen.

In the article one frustrated-sounding doctor says no one is listening to the
message. Maybe that's because they're preaching zero tolerance rather than
moderation. Perhaps that's because they're worried that parents will take
moderation too far and they think zero-tolerance is safer. Either way, to say
children under two can't learn from a screen is simply wrong. I see the
evidence every singe day and the doctors are welcome to see it for themselves.

~~~
vidarh
My two and a half year old has a number of favorite videos, and when watching
them, he will frequently turn to us and tell us to watch and then go on to
launch into lengthy verbal explanations of what has happened or what will
happen up to about 5 minutes ahead in the video. He's done this for months.

Of course "under two's" versus 30 months is a big gap, but it's not like he
just suddenly started telling us these things either - a lot of the words and
phrases he's picked up over the last year comes straight from things he's seen
on TV or DVD's.

------
mathrawka
> Even so-called educational videos do not benefit children under 2 because
> they are too young to be able to understand the images on the screen, the
> doctors’ group said.

So, we have been watching TV with my 20-month old daughter since she was
around 9 months old. We watch kids shows and talk about it while we watch it
together. And she knows exactly what is going on in the show and has for a
long time. I'm sure she doesn't understand 100% of it, but it is obvious that
she is picking up things.

* She knows the characters by name as soon as they are shown

* She talks about things she sees in the background

* Since last month she sometimes laughs when they do something that is meant to be funny

* She counts out loud to 10 with the characters on TV when they start counting

My feeling is that a constant TV in the background is a distraction for
anyone, including babies. But having kids shows AND (here is the key part)
watching them together and talking about it, re-enforcing the points of
education, talking about the background, and asking questions about what is
going on does in fact help with their development.

------
lwhi
Perhaps the most useful way of looking at this, is to think about whether a
child who isn't exposed to TV until two years old would gain benefit, over
children who are.

I agree with the premise that, being able to respond to feedback, and alter
and hone their responses over time is a central part of any child's
development. TV isn't as passive as some commentators make out - but the
mechanisms required to process the sound and images we see in an interactive
way require a degree of development that a very young child isn't likely to
possess.

There's one thing that I am certain of; I think advertising aimed towards
children should be banned. If there's any evil that could (and should) be
stopped it's the drastic effect that commercial advertising can have on
impressionable minds.

~~~
aninteger
Well there's TV networks like PBS and I think Qubo that have limited
advertising. Also, why stop at banning advertising to children when even a
large percentage of adults have impressionable minds :).

------
zmmmmm
While I don't necessarily disagree with the notion of minimizing television
exposure this is starting to develop a smell of dogma.

The one thing we know about young kids is that in spite of our tendency to
treat them like delicate petals they are actually incredibly robust and the
idea that 30 minutes of well chosen television in a day can be so harmful that
it outweighs the benefit of the tremendous relief it may give a parent to have
this small amount of time to do other tasks - or god forbid, relax for a few
minutes - seems crazy to me.

~~~
5hoom
And also, why just TV?

There are an awful lot of things in a modern house that are TV-like (big
bright screen, moving images, sound) so is watching moving video on a computer
or tablet screen better or worse than the same amount of TV?

Do the negative effects end the moment you can interact with what's on screen?
How much do you have to interact with what's on screen, is there a threshold?

The way it's getting I could imagine people getting all cargo-cult with this
thinking, eschewing their TV's & plonking their kids in front of the computer
(to watch the same content) instead.

------
thomasgerbe
For those who can't read this behind the paywall:

[http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/10/infant-tv-
guidelin...](http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/10/infant-tv-guidelines/)

~~~
erickhill
Or, you could just delete your cookies. The NYTimes "pay wall" is not very
sophisticated (probably on purpose).

------
ddwoodworth
So, interacting with your children is better than letting a TV babysit them. I
think the same thing can be said for adults.

------
ilmare
My kids were on tv-diet for about 5 years and it was overall very positive
experience. There're several things here:

a. TV (and other one-way information sources) is really bad for
babies/toddlers who need two-way interaction with the world.

b. for older kids(~4y+) replacing regular TV channels with dedicated
documentary/learning videos in reasonable quantities is beneficial.

I'm quite curious on how virtual interactions(ipad/etc) affect child
development, any research links?

------
nutmeg
The article doesn't mention radio. Is Car Talk is going to harm my child or
just make him laugh at his own jokes?

~~~
MartinCron
Anecdotal evidence. I listened to NPR a lot with my first child, and other
than a faint liberal bias, he has turned out just fine.

~~~
watmough
I'm acting to limit my daughter's exposure to TV, and this is a topic I'd like
to make a more substantial post on, but until that happy moment, I'd just like
to note that: "The real World often has a slight liberal bias..."

edit: just sneaking a few minutes on HN while she watches Nihongo Quick Lesson
on NHK (via Roku). Only a few shows actually really engage her, but this is
one of them... She shouts and dances with the Mime guy for example.

I think as with most things, the key is moderation, and a couple of hours of
TV seems unlikely to do substantive harm in the context of a day that involves
lots of play in the nursery, lots of reading with daddy and mummy, running
about in the yard for an hour etc.

~~~
watmough
It'd be really interesting to know who would mod this post down, and why?

~~~
MartinCron
Note, I didn't mod you down, but it was probably just the naked politics of
it.

------
pdx
My 1.5 and 2.5 year old kids are both well acquainted with "Sprout" Channel, a
preschool channel, and have been for over a year.

Not only do they know what they are seeing on the TV, regularly talking about
various stars of the channel, such as Nina and Star, but the 1.5 y/o can even
ask for the channel by name "I want sprout", and the 2.5 y/o can additionally
even work the remote to get it, and say the numbers "1","1","9" as he's
pushing them. Finally, my 1.5 y/o is already addicted to books and will page
through them when there is a commercial or something she's not interested in.

They both learn a ton watching sprout. My 1.5y/o does dances and things that
she sees, as well as says things I know she never learned from us.

We also have a large selection of YouTube playlists of childrens songs, age
appropriate cartoons, and slightly non-age appropriate cartoons like 1940's
vintage Micky Mouse cartoons. Again, they both ask for the playlist they want
"I want Micky", "I want Dragon", "I want Caillou", etc.

Kids learn by observing the world around them. When I was a kid, I was
watching my parents work a cattle ranch. My kids are often stuck in the house
for five or six hours at a time, because I don't have a cattle ranch. They've
explored every room, cabinet, jar, and canister that they have access too, and
their huge collection of books hold no mysteries for them. You can only sit
and try to read for so long, before you're sick of it for awhile, and they
know all the pictures and can correctly tell you every animal, vegetable,
vehicle, and geographical feature those books contain. What they see on the TV
and computer supplements their learning opportunities.

Based on my experiences, I have to call bullshit on this politically correct
article, and those like it.

------
Alex3917
Some statistics and information from the 2008 book Parenting, Inc.:

"A nationally representative study from the 1990s found that only 17 percent
of children under one were watching television and fewer than half of children
between the ages of one and two watched. In a 2006 study of 1,009 parents, 40
percent of babies were watching TV or DVDs/videos by three months; the average
baby started watching videos at six months and regular television at ten
months." Source: Parenting, Inc., p. 142

"Knowing that television viewing by children under the age of three is
associated with reduced reading scores on tests that measure reading
recognition, reading comprehension, and memory makes these statistics all the
more alarming. Surveys show that children six and under spend three times more
time in front of a TV, computer, or video game each day than they do reading."
(p. 143)

Today [2008], a Baby Einstein DVD retails for $19.99, and those aimed at
children under two account for $1 billion in sales." (p. 120)

"In a 2004 survey by the nonprofit Zero to Three, 82 percent of parents were
comfortable or very comfortable with children under two watching television,
and 89 percent were satisfied with the quality of available videos. By the age
of twenty-four months, 90 percent of babies are regularly watching TV, DVDs,
and videos for an average of an hour and a half per day. When asked in a
nationwide study why they exposed their babies to media under the age of two,
despite explicit warnings against it from the medical profession, parents said
'education.'" (p. 126)

"A 2005 study of 1,000 children published in Archives of Pediatrics found that
children who watch TV before age three have lower cognitive scores at age
seven." (p. 131) "For each additional hour of daily TV viewing before age
three, the chances of having attentional problems increased 10 percent; a
child who watched two hours a day on average was 20 percent more likely to
have attention problems." (p. 131)

"Studies show that high levels of television viewing before age three are
associated with subsequent bullying, and impaired reading and mathematical
proficiency. A 2006 study in Pediatrics found that the more television
children under five watch, the less likely they are to engage in creative
play." (p. 130)

"According to Dimitri Christakis, the director of the Child Health Institute
at the University of Washington, overstimulation is damaging to the developing
mind. The brain's orienting reflex, first described by Ivan Pavlov (of the
famous dog), is triggered when a baby hears a strange sight or sound: He can't
help but focus. Rapidly changing colors, sounds, and motions force a baby's
brain to stay at attention. Each time her gaze might wander, action rivets her
mind back to the screen. [...] Parents say, 'My child can't stop looking at
it! She Loves it!' Christakis said. 'Well, true, she can't stop looking at it,
but that does not mean she loves it.'"

"A 2007 study by Christakis, Meltzoff, and their colleague Frederick Zimmerman
found that for every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants
understand an average of six to eight fewer words than infants who did not
watch them. Not surprisingly, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no
television viewing before age two-- a fact of which only 6 percent of parents
are aware, even though the warning was established in 1999." (p. 132)

"While certain types of media exposure can be beneficial to three- and four-
year-olds--the best example is Sesame Street, which has been shown in reliable
studies to help some preschoolers with learning skills--there is no evidence
that exposure before that age is a good idea and plenty to suggest that it's
harmful. In fact, watching even Sesame Street before age two is associated
with delayed language..." (p. 133)

"In an experiment conducted by a Georgetown University researcher, parents
were explicitly told that videos were to be shown to their babies in order to
determine whether or not babies could learn from TV and videos. Many of the
parents then told the researcher that they had already read research supporter
the videos' educational value. But they couldn't possibly have done so--no
such research exists. Parents have clearly absorbed the advertising and
marketing messages implying educational value and assumed there was proof
behind the promises. One thirty-three-year-old stay-at-home mom told me she
tried to get her son to watch educational television, but he just didn't seem
interested, and she would try out Baby Einstein DVDs instead if they weren't
so expensive. 'I Personally think it helps them with speech, learning to say
words, and the alphabet,' she said." (p. 134)

"Patricia Kuhl, who studies language acquisition at the University of
Washington, conducted an experiment in which a native Mandarin speaker played
with a group of babies for an hour a day while speaking Chinese. Through
laboratory testing, she found that babies were subsequently able to recognize
Mandarin sounds. But not one of the three control groups-- a set of babies who
saw the Chinese speaker play with babies on a video, another group who
listened to an audio recording of the Chinese woman playing, and a third group
who had no exposure to the Chinese speaker-- were able to distinguish Mandarin
sounds from English ones. It turns out that in order for a baby to learn a
foreign language, a foreign-language-speaking human being needs to be
present." (p. 122)

"In one study of two-and-a-half-year-olds, it took six viewings of a video to
accomplish what a single live demonstration could do with simple-step
operations like removing a mitten or playing with a puppet, a gap that has
come to be known as the video deficit. Research has also suggested that while
children can learn new words from watching TV, videos are less effective than
live experiences, particularly for viewers under two." (p. 131)

"A 2005 study in American Behavioral Scientist concluded, 'Although the
experimental studies are still few, they are remarkably consistent in
indicating a video deficit for children 24 months and younger. Although there
is some learning indicated by some of the studies, the learning is
dramatically less than found for equivalent live displays.'" (p. 124)

~~~
voidfiles
In school we studied research that correlated how many of hours of TV a day a
person watched, and life expectancy. As many people thought the more tv you
watched your life expectancy fell.

When you first hear that it sounds like TV can reduce your years on earth.

When they took a close look though they found a confounding variable; health
care.

Those who watched more TV tended to be poorer, and thus had less healthcare.
It's possible that the same thing is happening in this group of research as
well.

~~~
Alex3917
"It's possible that the same thing is happening in this group of research as
well."

In this case we already know that the most important mediating variables for
predicting outcomes on the relevant measures are parent-child talk and self-
directed play, so it's very easy to see how each hour of watching TV causes
increasing damage. I'm sure some of the gap is because of mere correlation,
but it's also clear that TV watching itself is a huge part of the problem if
only because it prevents the child from getting the types of interactions they
need for their brains to develop properly. (whether or not the TV itself fries
their dopamine system or whatever directly is still an open question.)

~~~
voidfiles
I think that is a good argument. Isn't the main premise of your argument that
parents should spend more time with their kids talking.

Like it seems as if TV is being specially berated when it could really be
anything that takes time away from interacting with your child that is bad.

~~~
Alex3917
It's not just that you're not interacting with them, it's that it's preventing
them from engaging in self-directed play, which is necessary for developing
executive function among other things.

The reason TV is being singled out specifically is because it's basically
causing permanent brain damage in 90+% of kids. Sure, there are other ways of
fucking up your kids as well, but in terms of what people are actually doing
TV is at or near the top of the list.

All these people who think it's ok to let their kids watch 'just an hour' of
TV per day are probably why ADHD now effects over 9% of kids.

------
0x12
No TV is so 1990. Really, today 'No TV' would be easy to achieve while still
overdosing on Youtube, netflix and so on.

Computers screens are more often than not the delivery vector for your daily
dose of passive consumption. And it's not just the desktop machines either,
it's the iPads and the phones that happily join in.

Even not having a TV no longer means that you are immunized against this, and
being without internet access is far worse than not having cable.

For one the internet is far more addictive in many ways (think minecraft, the
various role playing games and social websites) and besides that it has so
many legitimate uses that one could easily burn up a whole day without ever
leaving the comfy chair in front of the big tft in consumptive mode without so
much as a glance at the television.

~~~
Alex3917
By TV they mean video content, it's still TV even if you're watching it on
your computer.

~~~
jim-greer
Actually a lot of it is specific to TV, because some families just leave it on
in the background all the time:

“I like to call it secondhand TV,” said Dr. Brown... Studies cited in the
guidelines say that parents interact less with children when the television is
on, and that a young child at play will glance at the TV — if it is on, even
in the background — three times a minute.

------
Jun8
I don't think that watching TV is _categorically_ bad, i.e. the content and
the amount is important. I think when pediatricians make this recommendation
they mean "a totally attentive parent vs. regular TV programming", which, of
course is not always the case. Watching an educational program, e.g. Barney or
Sesame Street, etc. may be much better than sitting in a room with an
inattentive (e.g. reading the paper) parent (or worse one who's on edge).

For me, TV refers to the device itself, not to programming. My son only
watches content from Netflix and PBS Kids (the latter does have brief sponsor
messages).

~~~
Alex3917
"I don't think that watching TV is categorically bad, i.e. the content and the
amount is important."

That's just plain false. The content does matter between ages 3 and 5, but
before age two the content is irrelevant because of the video deficit.

~~~
Jun8
Well, what I meant was content in the sense that grown-up material and
commercials. I don't think watching news on TV with your one year old will
have the same effect as watching Barney.

~~~
Alex3917
"I don't think watching news on TV with your one year old will have the same
effect as watching Barney."

The only thing that might make a difference is how many times the camera angle
changes per minute, but other than that there shouldn't be any difference
between content made for adults and content made for kids.

------
mhartl

      “As always, the children who are most at risk are exactly 
      the very many children in our society who have the fewest
      resources,” Alison Gopnik, a psychologist at the
      University of California, said in an e-mail.
    

Indeed. And such "at-risk" children often inherit genes predisposing them to
exactly the kinds of issues the studies uncover (and blame on watching too
much TV). The problem is that most of these studies don't control for genes;
there's no way to tell if TV-watching is the source of the problems or if it's
the genes of the parents who let their babies watch lots of TV. Until the
studies are re-done while controlling for genes, the conclusions (and the
corresponding recommendations) are useless.

Parents who read a lot to their children have children who grow up to be more
verbal. But parents who read a lot to their children also tend to pass on
genes for verbal fluency. Studies that adequately control for genes show that
reading to children does virtually nothing for their verbal ability—it's all
in the genes, and in random events over which the parents have no control. See
[http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_chalks_it_up_to_the_b...](http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_chalks_it_up_to_the_blank_slate.html)
and [http://www.amazon.com/Blank-Slate-Modern-Denial-
Nature/dp/01...](http://www.amazon.com/Blank-Slate-Modern-Denial-
Nature/dp/0142003344/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318992847&sr=8-1) for more.

------
MikeGrace
Awesome! I laughed at the "secondhand TV" part. Good article that reminds me
of another I recently read talking about getting away from being distracted
(like this article) and spending time letting your brain work:
[http://www.fastcompany.com/1700298/what-happened-to-
downtime...](http://www.fastcompany.com/1700298/what-happened-to-downtime-the-
extinction-of-deep-thinking-and-sacred-space)

------
tlogan
I can relate to this. My son was watching TV when he was 2 or so (stupid Baby
Einstein - we were thinking we were doing a good things). But, then he started
having problem with speaking. Went to speech therapists and things: but the
thing which helped the most is: no more TV.

Apparently, at that age the biggest problem is that kids can't pick up
language and speech by watching videos.

------
camilless
When I was a student, I definitely let my son watch too much television (now
he has ADHD - not sure if they're related - but from studies it sounds like
they're connected). It was a babysitting tool and I couldn't afford daycare in
the evening as well when I had to study. Now, we have a nanny and our kids
hardly watch tv at all. Our baby seems to be drawn to the iPad and iPhones and
we're keeping these away from her. We're smarter and definitely not student
'poor' anymore and this has definitely affected how much tv our other kids
watch.

------
krobertson
So many comments seem to gloss over the fact that kids are very different and
what works for you is cool and all, but not necessarily going to work for
others.

Going with no TV is noble, good for you. But going from heavy use to no use is
not necessarily the reason your child is doing so good. There is a balance is
that balance is unique to each child.

~~~
recampbell
From the article: "Watching television or videos is discouraged for babies
younger than 2 because studies suggest it could harm their development, a
pediatricians’ group said Tuesday."

But you say: "There is a balance is that balance is unique to each child."

How do you know that there "is a balance unique to each child"? Do you have
studies to backup your assertion similar to those cited in the article?

------
neovive
I'm glad the study excluded interactive educational games, which I think can
be very beneficial when used in moderation along with reading and creative
play.

------
aw3c2
I will not make my kids watch TV until they are old enough for school. Why
would I?

------
dbbo
I find it somewhat strange that video games are OK (it's on a screen but
interactive) and I guess live theater is OK (it's passive but not on a
screen), but the combination of passively watching something on a screen is
not OK.

~~~
nihilocrat
Video games allow the user to interact with the media and cause reactions to
input. It allows us to explore causality at a very personal level, even though
the systems and entities invovled are entirely virtual.

Live theater allows the user to control what to focus on during each scene. If
there is a conversation, we can choose who the "camera" is pointing at. We are
also looking at real human beings interacting with each other. The experience
is mildly interactive.

Passive screen-based media gives us neither set of choices.

~~~
dbbo
How is looking at an image of live human beings "worse" than looking at live
human beings (which is ultimately an image too)? If the child is given a
remote control, does that count as interactivity since he can choose what to
look at while exploring causality?

By the way, I'm not arguing that TV is good for kids. I'm just trying to
analyze the argument in favor of preventing infants from watching passive
screen media.

~~~
burgerbrain
If you try going to see some live theatre in person, I think you'll understand
the difference between it and television.

~~~
dbbo
I understand that they are different. I wanted to know why one is worse for
child development.

------
maximusprime
People should not do studies into parenting. Parents should use their damn
common sense. Everything in moderation.

~~~
Tsagadai
There is no such thing as 'common sense'. Everyone learnt what they know.
Genetics alone gives you a series of reflexes, some body changes and a few
basic urges. Everything else was learnt somewhere, somehow and at some time.
The only 'common' part is where you learn something or experience something in
much the same way as someone else. We do not all share the same collective
experiences.

