Study: Kids Under 3 Should Be Banned From Watching TV

An anonymous reader sends this quote from The Guardian: "Doctors and government health officials should set limits, as they do for alcohol, on the amount of time children spend watching screens – and under-threes should be kept away from the television altogether, according to a paper in an influential medical journal published on Tuesday. A review of the evidence in the Archives Of Disease in Childhood says children's obsession with TV, computers and screen games is causing developmental damage as well as long-term physical harm. Doctors at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, which co-owns the journal with the British Medical Journal group, say they are concerned."

Enforcement

[cervesaebraciator]

What's the point of attempting to regulate behavior like this if it's utterly impossible to enforce? Or, what might even be worse, what's the point in trying to enforce a regulation when doing so--if it were possible--would cause more harm than not doing so? Let us imagine a likely scenario: lower income parents, tired by working three jobs, gives in and decides to use a television for a while to quiet an unruly toddler (for why the toddler is so unruly, see how much the parents work and ask where the child must be). This is against the law. If we regulate this in the same way as alcohol, parents who are a repeat offenders might well lose their children. Is the life of a broken family really an improvement over the previous condition?

Re:About time, really.

[buchner.johannes]

The American Academy of Pediatrics' issued a recommendation in 2001 that children under two should be discouraged from watching television at all: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/107/2/423.full [aappublications.org]

Research has shown primary negative health effects on violence and aggressive behavior7–12; sexuality7,13–15; academic performance16; body concept and self-image17–19; nutrition, dieting, and obesity17,20,21; and substance use and abuse patterns.7

Pediatricians should recommend the following guidelines for parents:

        Limit children's total media time (with entertainment media) to no more than 1 to 2 hours of quality programming per day.

        Remove television sets from children's bedrooms.

        Discourage television viewing for children younger than 2 years, and encourage more interactive activities that will promote proper brain development, such as talking, playing, singing, and reading together.
        [...]
        View television programs along with children, and discuss the content. [...]

        Encourage alternative entertainment for children, including reading, athletics, hobbies, and creative play.

Re:About time, really.

[k6mfw]

when I was a young child, we had only one tv set. It was in the living room and only received about two stations I think. It was mainly tuned to boring shows, the kind that parents like to watch. So I had to spend my time building things i.e. Erector Sets, which later I began tinkering around with electrical stuff including making the mistake of cutting a lamp cord while it was still plugged in ("bang!"). Grew up to become an engineer.

TFA Doesn't Account for WHAT they watch?

[retroworks]

Just "TV is bad, m'kay?"

My wife and I let our twins watch only tapes, no broadcast TV, until they were about 5. Musicals and foreign films and animated movies (Fantasia, Jungle Book, etc). Oh, and only in French... we went to Montreal and bought all the videos in French only. Both kids are now fluent in French/English and speak Spanish as a third language, now studying Latin. The point being, the article says it's the amount of TV and the age of the kid and seems to assume all TV is the same... Fiddler On the Roof, Clockwork Orange, Japanese Anime, Sesame Street, Fox News, content makes no difference? That's like saying all food is the same, and it doesn't matter what you eat only how old you are when you eat it. Maybe the study covers it and the Guardian reporter just forgot to ask, as it is, it's a stupid article. But put a government regulation in without any control group study and you are asking for problems.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[AK Marc]

Their tolerance for parenting is as minimal as a kid of any other age, but they will watch tv and they will keep messing with that phone until it stops working. If you can make sure the TV is playing something reasonable educational, you trick them in to learning.

The problem with these proclamations is that there is no allowance for things in moderation. It's also easier to measure screen time than book time. And, the researchers are all humans, and we are biased to prefer the way we were raised or are raising our children.

If 22 hours a day in front of a TV is bad, and 0 hours a day in front of a TV is better, that in no way indicates the interpolation of 1 hour a day is worse than 0 or that 2 hours a day is worse than 1 and better than 3. It may be that there is some number in the middle that's best, and the edge cases are both bad, even if one is worse than the other.

Or, as others have hinted at but not stated overtly, perhaps it is that TV time negatively correlates with book time. Parents that give their children 8 hours a day of TV give less book time than those who ban children from TV until 18. And it's the book time that causes the measured outcomes, and if they figured out how to give 12 hours of book time and 8 hours of TV time a day, 8 hours a day would be irrelevant to their outcome.

But they aren't looking for a cause in a logical manner, but looking for things to get published and get funding for more study.

But for parenting, despite the people that whine about "you aren't their friend, you are their parent" you can more easily parent if you are their friend. I can get my 2 year old to do just about anything. He'll eat foods I ask him to, and he'll run when I say run, and stop when I say stop. And the best thing about reading to them is they learn to like reading, and that's the important thing.

I think the problem is

[rsilvergun]

that human beings at that age are learning to interact with the world, and TV if fundamentally non interactive. You're obviously putting a LOT of effort into raising your children, which is good for them. But is it possible that they're succeeding despite Television, and that it's your hard work that's making them a success?

re: ADS & T.V.

[MRe_nl]

ADS
"People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply youâ(TM)re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.

You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.

Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don't owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs".

- Banksy http://www.banksy.co.uk/ [banksy.co.uk]

& T.V. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgOWTM5R2DA [youtube.com]