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Two-thirds of babies watch screens – some for eight hours a day

thetimes.com

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Re: Two-thirds of babies watch screens – some for eight hours a day

#51

Post by cyjackx »

teensydata wrote: post #34
zthrowaway wrote: post #26

I have two boys. 2 and 5. We’ve never done screens, instead we do books and focused attention from each parent and we are looked at like crazy people when we tell people that. But our kids are miles ahead of their cohorts in attention span, respectfulness, behavior, socializing, etc. It’s actually alarming. I really worry about them being outcasts just by being raised like we all were.

Same with us. Our 24 month can count to 20 and knows all the letters without watching TV. When he is at a party and a tv is on in the distance he stares like a zombie at it. It's depressing at how TV changes him and I have to transfer his focus away.

We found pretty good results with a sort of inoculation strategy, lots of slow boring TV, sometimes she even tells us to turn it off because it distracts the parents too much LOL

Re: Two-thirds of babies watch screens – some for eight hours a day

#52

Post by lotsofpulp »

kakacik wrote: post #44
donatj wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At 2 Yes, I absolutely did. I was home with my dad, gated into the living room while he did things around the house. There is only so much to do.

You have no idea what potential of you was lost there, and we don't even know what your life looks like so can't judge any of that. But stating 'I spent most of my childhood in front of TV so all is fine' is... I guess you don't have strong affinity towards nature, adventure, sports, wildish traveling for example? You do you (and your kids), but as a parent of small kids myself we do TV max maybe 30 mins weekly on av…

>But stating 'I spent most of my childhood in front of TV so all is fine' is... I guess you don't have strong affinity towards nature, adventure, sports, wildish traveling for example?

There is no reason to assume this.

>Screens form addictions, active screens even moreso - why do this to your own children? Why not just let them roam the streets all day then, they will gather much more experience that way. Don't tell me it can be harmful to them - screens are too yet seemingly very few care.

The article and conversation is about babies. Maybe the context an be stretched to toddlers, even age 5 or 6. Letting a baby or toddler roam the streets alone (in the USA with huge vehicles and distracted drivers all around) is far more harmful than letting them watch curated content on screens.

This isn't a village in a developing country with a whole group of kids with varying ages that look after each other. It's a developed country, with barely any other kids outside, from various "cultures", and legal liability, and risk of severe bodily harm from unsupervised outside time.

>this comes from senior dev in a bank and a doctor couple)

Perhaps you have more flexibility / less stress in your life than 95% of other couples?

Re: Two-thirds of babies watch screens – some for eight hours a day

#53

Post by schnitzelstoat »

intended wrote: post #47
bcjdjsndon wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's going to happen to those poor babies do you think?

Gen Z is the first generation to score lower on standardized tests than previous generations. > https://fortune.com/2026/02/21/laptops-tablets-schools-gen-z...

I mean that probably has more to do with basically shutting schools down for a year or more tbh.

Re: Two-thirds of babies watch screens – some for eight hours a day

#54

Post by fsniper »

x187463 wrote: post #13
schnitzelstoat wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 2-year old should be able to walk unless they are pretty severely developmentally delayed.

My dude, go grocery shopping with a 2-year-old and see if you want them walking around. They'll be peeling a sticker off the floor for two minutes, then grabbing everything off the shelf. It's perfectly normal to cart the kid around so you can actually make progress through the aisles. They can reasonably follow you around between 3-4.

That depends on the kid and time. Mine carries the small cart and fills what we buy regularly. And other times we need to contrain him as expected.

Re: Two-thirds of babies watch screens – some for eight hours a day

#55

Post by throwaway34903 »

zthrowaway wrote: post #26

I have two boys. 2 and 5. We’ve never done screens, instead we do books and focused attention from each parent and we are looked at like crazy people when we tell people that. But our kids are miles ahead of their cohorts in attention span, respectfulness, behavior, socializing, etc. It’s actually alarming. I really worry about them being outcasts just by being raised like we all were.

By zero screen time do you just mean no phones / tablets / interactive screen use? Or are you including TV / movies etc.

If it's the latter I think you might be over attributing your child's behavioral development to the lack of screen time that it actually is. I have a 3 year old daughter who is much more social and chatty, has a great attention span and self-play / imagination etc. than many of her peers who have zero screen time.

I wouldn't say we give her a lot of screen time, maybe a 2-3 hrs a week (mostly over the weekend) + sickness + the occasional family movie night (Frozen, Moana etc.). But it's enough where she has certain segments of Ms. Rachel episodes memorized.

Anecdotally, the parents who enforce the no screen time rules seem to be the ones who over-parent their kids and have kids who cling to their legs at the park for the first half hour, melt down without snacks, etc.

Also the screen time carries over into other hands free, fun activities like listening to the songs on the speaker and acting out what she had watched or dancing especially during those hectic weeknights when she wants to interact with us but we need to cook dinner and can't sit down to play toys with her.

It feels like children's development is more highly correlated with parents' involvement than with screen time per se. Obviously, a large amount of screen time would cause a lack of involvement, but zero screen time seems more like an act of virtue than one for effect.

Re: Two-thirds of babies watch screens – some for eight hours a day

#56

Post by JKCalhoun »

teensydata wrote: post #34
zthrowaway wrote: post #26

I have two boys. 2 and 5. We’ve never done screens, instead we do books and focused attention from each parent and we are looked at like crazy people when we tell people that. But our kids are miles ahead of their cohorts in attention span, respectfulness, behavior, socializing, etc. It’s actually alarming. I really worry about them being outcasts just by being raised like we all were.

Same with us. Our 24 month can count to 20 and knows all the letters without watching TV. When he is at a party and a tv is on in the distance he stares like a zombie at it. It's depressing at how TV changes him and I have to transfer his focus away.

"When he is at a party and a tv is on in the distance he stares like a zombie…"

Friday was eat-out night when we raised our daughters. A particular Thai restaurant that we enjoyed was crossed off our list because they always had a television on in the corner of the dining area. It was a complete family-conversation killer.

I left a comment on the bill saying that it was off-putting. (I even TV-Be-Gone'd their set on one visit.) But ultimately we just stopped going.

Re: Two-thirds of babies watch screens – some for eight hours a day

#57

Post by bcjdjsndon »

hgoel wrote: post #27
bcjdjsndon wrote: post #3

TBF content is generally better than it was 15 years ago even for babies. I don't blame em...

It's better at holding their attention, but is it actually better? My impression was that a lot of the content was effectively "attention slop", bright colors and noises, often with very little sense to them, or just variations of the same rhymes a 90's baby would've been raised on. A lot of it seemed to cross over from just being stimulating to being overstimulating.

> It's better at holding their attention, but is it actually better?

As Weller said, that's entertainment. Saying something's slop is like saying it's trash, ie something you don't like.

Re: Two-thirds of babies watch screens – some for eight hours a day

#58

Post by hgoel »

bcjdjsndon wrote: post #57
hgoel wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's better at holding their attention, but is it actually better? My impression was that a lot of the content was effectively "attention slop", bright colors and noises, often with very little sense to them, or just variations of the same rhymes a 90's baby would've been raised on. A lot of it seemed to cross over from just being stimulating to being overstimulating.

> It's better at holding their attention, but is it actually better? As Weller said, that's entertainment. Saying something's slop is like saying it's trash, ie something you don't like.

I'd like to believe that people have a bit more in mind for children's entertainment than just overstimulating their developing visual and auditory cortices for 8 hours a day.

Re: Two-thirds of babies watch screens – some for eight hours a day

#59

Post by BobaFloutist »

mothballed wrote: post #45
u_fucking_dork wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really worry about them being outcasts just by being raised like we all were. Seeing all the kids my kids play with, the ones who seem to turn out the most well rounded aren’t the ones without screen time but the ones without helicopter parents. You’d be surprised how many of these kids have never been outside of their parents line of sight, even at middle school age.

My kid's school won't even release the child off the bus without a parent present. I let my kid walk on my own property and it wasn't 30 seconds before a Karen drove up to interrogate them about why they are "alone." It's gotten pretty crazy. Any asshole who wants veto powers on your parenting can punish you for weeks, and the geniuses who wrote the reporting laws make it illegal for you to even find out who your acc…

> the geniuses who wrote the reporting laws make it illegal for you to even find out who your accuser is.

> and the end of anonymous CPS complaints

If someone reported you to CPS and you found out who, what would you do with that information?

Re: Two-thirds of babies watch screens – some for eight hours a day

#60

Post by bdangubic »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #59
mothballed wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kid's school won't even release the child off the bus without a parent present. I let my kid walk on my own property and it wasn't 30 seconds before a Karen drove up to interrogate them about why they are "alone." It's gotten pretty crazy. Any asshole who wants veto powers on your parenting can punish you for weeks, and the geniuses who wrote the reporting laws make it illegal for you to even find out who your acc…

> the geniuses who wrote the reporting laws make it illegal for you to even find out who your accuser is. > and the end of anonymous CPS complaints If someone reported you to CPS and you found out who, what would you do with that information?

I suspect they would be drinking through a straw for a month or so and then complaints would stop :) OP’s comment is too funny!!!
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