No TV for children under 2, urge doctors

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.)

Re: No TV for children under 2, urge doctors

#5

Post by xutopia » Tue, Oct 18, 2011, 5:41 PM UTC

colomon wrote: post #4

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…

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

Re: No TV for children under 2, urge doctors

#6

Post by MikeGrace » Tue, Oct 18, 2011, 5:41 PM UTC

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...

Re: No TV for children under 2, urge doctors

#7

Post by rada » Tue, Oct 18, 2011, 5:42 PM UTC

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.

Re: No TV for children under 2, urge doctors

#8

Post by jsherry » Tue, Oct 18, 2011, 5:46 PM UTC

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.”"

Re: No TV for children under 2, urge doctors

#9

Post by estevez » Tue, Oct 18, 2011, 5:48 PM UTC

xutopia wrote: post #5

colomon wrote: post #4

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…

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

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

Re: No TV for children under 2, urge doctors

#10

Post by mark242 » Tue, Oct 18, 2011, 5:55 PM UTC

rada wrote: post #7

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.

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.