Two in Five Babies Watch TV

Babies are glued to television sets these days, with 40 percent of 3--month-olds and 90 percent of 2-year-olds regularly watching TV, according to a University of Washington study released Monday...

"Most of these kids are watching what parents consider to be quote, unquote 'educational TV,' " said co-author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, associate professor at the University of Washington. "There is not evidence at all that it is."

Scientists have themselves partly to blame, Christakis added, because they convinced parents that the first years are critical for a baby's brain, which triples in size by age 2. In fact, the most common reason parents offered researchers for their child's time before the tube was that they believed it was educational...

With so much tube time, Christakis is also concerned babies lose precious time to play with blocks, read books with Mom and Dad and engage in other developmental play.

They don't have that much time to lose. Babies typically sleep 12 hours a day, which means many lose 10 to 20 percent of their waking hours to a glowing screen, Christakis added...

"While appropriate television viewing at the right age can be helpful for both children and parents, excessive viewing before age 3 has been shown to be associated with problems of attention control, aggressive behavior and poor cognitive development," Frederick Zimmerman, the UW study's lead author, said in a news release...

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no television for children younger than 2, and only one to two hours a day of quality programming for older children...

Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/314676_babytube08.html?source=mypi