I heard in a talk by TV critic Jerry Mander that 25% of American kids have TVs in their rooms with cribs. Now this.
WP: TV’s diaper demographic - washingtonpost.com Highlights - MSNBC.com:
‘We don’t know the effects’
While almost all marketers of baby media promote their products as beneficial to a baby’s development, little is known about the impact of television viewing on very young children.
“We’re in the midst of a huge national experiment on the next generation of children,” said Dimitri Christakis, a pediatric researcher at the University of Washington. “We don’t know the effects and we’re letting them watch.”
The notion that television can be educational for preschoolers has been around at least since “Sesame Street” debuted in 1969, aimed at kids 2 and older. It wasn’t until the 1990s that marketers began promoting programming for those younger than 2.
TV is not all bad, but can be both harmful and helpful for children. For an excellent summary of the effects of TV on kids of all ages, I highly recommend “The elephant in the living room: Make TV work for your kids”
free excerpt at http://www.maketvwork.com
Richard, I agree. I’m not one who believes TV should be eliminated. I think it’s healthier for a child to watch TV with engaged parents than to ban it outright. The only troubling aspect is that with really young children their brains are developing and we don’t know the extent by which TV alters the development of synaptic structure. We know that it’s better for a kid’s brain development to use their hands and engage a 3-D environment, but a little TV won’t kill them. I should know because I watched a lot as a kid.