
Once again, the issue bears clarifying. It's a given, I think, that 93.47% of TV is crap, and that adults are entitled to indulge in as much crap as they want. The concern is the effect of TV on the cognitive development of unformed little brains, and unfortunately there isn't much conclusive evidence. We as parents need to study this further, therefore, because TV is bound to follow our kids everywhere they go.
Basically, I'm awfully tired of getting hooked by headlines like this, only to find out that "researchers were not able to establish a cause-and-effect relationship." Thanks a bunch, folks. Why'd you even bother?
I can't take a piece like this very seriously either, because it's trying to scare us into buying some sort of miracle snake-oil pills.
From what I've read, this piece is as even-handed as they come. It references (with the usual caveats) three studies reporting "a negative correlation of television set-in-use time and subsequent cognitive and language development" in infants and toddlers. (This correlation seems to lessen once the kids reach age 3.) And even the AAP, to whom I'm more inclined to listen when corporate interests are less involved, "discourages" parents from letting kids under 2 watch the box.
I think I have a solution. Kids need to experience life tangibly, and parents need a break every once in a while to go pee in peace. Therefore, I propose that children under 3 be limited to watching home movies of themselves. That way, we can temper the harm of televisual stimulation and supply a healthy dose of postmodern narcissism to boot.
UPDATE: Hey! Madonna's on my side! So I've got that going for me.
Watching home movies of themselves and their friends... now that's an idea... I wonder if I can turn this into a new VOD channel? :-)
Posted by: Beth | Oct 14, 2005 1:39:44 PM