It is very hard to put yourself in position of very young child and issue judgement on what toddlers would like. I couldn't stand Teletubies, I still can't. But young kids are fascinated and my late grandma loved them too. Who am I to judge.
> issue judgement on what toddlers would like The issue here isn't really what toddlers like or don't like. The issue is, if you're going to sit your kid in front of a screen to watch something, what are they getting out of it? A 3- or 4-year old seeing 6-year old behavior in Big Bird sees a role model in how to behave. Seeing 3-year-old behavior in Elmo reinforces how they're already behaving.
2 or 3 year olds cannot learn empathy, their brains just aren't wired for it. It's like telling a wheelchair user 'here let me teach you how to run 100m in sub 10 secs'. Which is why I'm so dumbfounded by the comments agreeing with the article - it's based on the notion from 50 years ago that children are just adults who haven't been tought yet how to be adults. This is clear and plain nonsense, children and youth until ~ 25 years old (I realize I'm now antagonizing much of those reading this...) just don't have fully developed brains yet. Especially at lower ages it doesn't make sense to try to teach them things that they are physically incapable of learning.