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When BabyFirstTV, a new 24-hour cable television channel targeting babies, was launched recently, David Walsh was appalled.

As president and founder of the National Institute on Media and Family based in Minneapolis, Walsh finds it troubling that the findings of the Kaiser Family Foundation survey and other studies show screen time is steadily increasing for young children and babies.

Screen time for the average kid in the United States climbed from 28 hours to 44 hours per week in less than two decades, according to results of several surveys.

"The concern is that the hours will go up and up," Walsh says. "What is troubling here is the quantity. It's not the debate about content, such as violence.

"Television and other electronic media need to become a smaller part in the kid activity diet," he maintains.

Why?

"We know that, overall, kids are spending more time in front of the screen than they should, because it's having an impact on their health and fitness and on how well they perform in school," says Walsh, a psychologist and author of eight books on parenting, family life and the impact of media on children and teens.

Many health and education experts regard increasing childhood obesity and difficulties focusing in school as byproducts of kids' increased focus on screens in their daily lives.

Electronic media also "serve as a very convenient baby sitter, which in some situations is OK," says Walsh. "When screens become a regular, full-time baby sitter, then that's a problem."

For babies and preschoolers, he says, "it basically sets them on the course where TV and screens are a major part of their activity diet, when it should be just a minor part."

Walsh cites surveys that show about 25 percent of children ages 2 and younger have bedrooms furnished with a television.

He notes the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no TV at all for children under 2. "It is such an active period of brain development, it is important for them to be engaged in real-life exploration and interaction," he explains.

Too many parents are seduced by products that are advertised as appropriate, and even beneficial, for children, Walsh says. Baby Einstein videos, for example, send parents the message that the videos can help their babies grow up to be smarter.

"But what these kinds of things do is train kids to always be oriented to the screen, instead of the real people and environment around them, Walsh maintains. Every minute kids spend focused on electronic media is a minute taken away from so many other things they should — and need to be — doing to develop properly and become responsible adults.

"My concern is that … we are wiring kids to be oriented to a screen before they can crawl," Walsh says.

— Ellen Tomson
 
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/entertainment/television/15085031.htm