TV and Videos: Bad For Kids

One more reason why I'd like to take our television and leave it on the curb:

Too many babies are teeny couch potatoes
Study finds 90 percent of kids under age 2 watch TV and DVDs

About 90 percent of U.S. children under age 2 and as many as 40 percent of infants under three months are regular watchers of television, DVDs and videos, researchers said on Monday.

They said the number of young kids watching TV is much greater than expected.

“We don’t know from the study whether it is good or bad. What we know is that it is big,” said Frederick Zimmerman of the University of Washington, whose research appears in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

I think it's bad, Mr. Zimmerman, and I'd say that pretty much regardless of what the kids are watching.

A second study suggested excessive TV viewing can lead to attention and learning problems down the road.

You think?

The American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that children in the United States watch about four hours of television every day. They recommend that children under age 2 should not watch any and older children should watch no more than 2 hours a day of quality programming.

Parents are deluded into thinking TV is healthy:

But 29 percent of parents surveyed by Zimmerman and colleagues believe baby-oriented TV and DVD programs offer educational benefits.

“Parents are getting the message loud and clear from marketers of TV and videos that this is good for their kids. That it will help their brain development ... None of this stuff has ever been proven,” Zimmerman said.

Many youngsters have TVs in their bedrooms:

In a separate survey of 1,051 parents published in the journal Pediatrics, 75 percent of children aged 0 to 6 were found to watch TV every day, often in their own bedrooms.

“We don’t know that it is bad but we don’t know that it is harmless,” Zimmerman said.

Mr. Zimmerman seems incapable of making a judgment one way or the other. This next study seems to indicate that it is not harmless:

A second study in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found that teens who watch three to four hours of television a day are more likely to have attention or learning problems and are less likely to get a college degree.

“Even watching more than an hour of TV per day had some adverse consequences, but three hours was much worse than one hour, and two was worse than one,” Jeffrey Johnson of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the New York State Psychiatric Institute said in a telephone interview...

“Kids who watched less than one hour of TV per day were twice as likely to go to college as those who watched three or more hours per day,” he said.