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Like the sorcerer of old, the television set casts its magic spell, freezing speech and action, turning the living into silent statues so long as the enchantment lasts. The primary danger of the television screen lies not so much in the behavior it produces - although there is danger there - as in the behavior it prevents: The talks, the games, the family festivals, and the arguments through which much of the child's learning takes place and through which his character is formed. Turning on the television set can turn off the process that transforms children into people. - Urie Bronfenbrenner
In this digitized world, do we want to raise a generation of children who are either bored or anxious if they're not in front of a screen? - Dr. Susan Linn
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 "This updated policy statement provides further evidence that media—both foreground and background—have potentially negative effects and no known positive effects for children younger than 2 years. Thus, the AAP reaffirms its recommendation to discourage media use in this age group. This statement also discourages the use of background television intended for adults when a young child is in the room." - AAP Policy Statement (Nov 2011) and Press Release (Nov 2011) and MedPageToday (Nov 2011) and The New York Times (Oct 2011) and Science Daily (Oct 2011)
"For those under 2 years, screen time (e.g., TV, computer, electronic games) is not recommended. For children 2-4 years, screen time should be limited to under one hour per day; less is better." - Canadian Sedentary Behaviour Guidelines and Sedentary Behaviour Research Network (July 2011)
Note, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends "Pediatricians should urge parents to avoid television viewing for children under the age of 2 years. Although certain television programs may be promoted to this age group, research on early brain development shows that babies and toddlers have a critical need for direct interactions with parents and other significant care givers (eg, child care providers) for healthy brain growth and the development of appropriate social, emotional, and cognitive skills. Therefore, exposing such young children to television programs should be discouraged." - AAP Policy Statement (Aug 1999)
Children and Watching TV - American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (March 2001)
"Child care settings limiting screen time, including television, cell phone, or digital media, for preschoolers (aged two-five) to less than 30 minutes per day for children in half-day programs or less than one hour per day for those in full-day programs. Health care providers counseling parents and children’s caregivers to permit no more than a total of two hours per day of screen time, including television, cell phone, or digital media, for preschoolers, including time spent in child care settings and early childhood education programs." - Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (June 2011)
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Cognitive Effects of TV
"Angeline Lillard and Jennifer Peterson, both of the University of Virginia's department of psychology, wanted to see whether watching fast-paced television had an immediate influence on kids' executive function -- skills including attention, working memory, problem solving and delay of gratification that are associated with success in school. Television's negative effect on executive function over the long term has been established, the researchers wrote Monday in the journal Pediatrics, but less is known about its immediate effects. To test what those might be, Lillard and Peterson randomly assigned 60 4-year-olds to three groups: one that watched nine minutes of a fast-paced, "very popular fantastical cartoon about an animated sponge that lives under the sea;" one that watched nine minutes of slower-paced programming from a PBS show "about a typical U.S. preschool-aged boy;" and a third group that was asked to draw for nine minutes with markers and crayons. Immediately after their viewing and drawing tasks were complete, the kids were asked to perform four tests to assess executive function. Unfortunately for the denizens of Bikini Bottom, the kids who watched nine minutes of the frenetic high jinks of the "animated sponge" scored significantly worse than the other kids." - Los Angeles Times (Sept 2011) and Pediatrics (Sept 2011) and Medical News Today (Sept 2011) and USA Today (Sept 2011) and Science Daily (Sept 2011) and Mail Online (Sept 2011) and Researcher (Sept 2011) and PsychCentral (Sept 2011) and Earth Sky (Sept 2011) and Obesity Panacea (Sept 2011) and The New York Times Blog (Sept 2011) and San Francisco Chronicle (Sept 2011) and US News Health (Sept 2011) and Psypost (Sept 2011)
"Subsequent work by Malach and colleagues has found that, when we're engaged in intense "sensorimotor processing" - and nothing is more intense than staring at a massive screen with Dolby surround sound while wearing 3-D glasses - we actually inhibit these prefrontal areas. The scientists argue that such "inactivation" allows us to lose ourself in the movie" - Frontal Cortex (Jan 2010)
"There was greater frontal lobe activation in children when they were engaged in a picture book reading task with their mothers, as opposed to passive viewing of a videotape in which the story was read to them. Social and verbal engagement of the mother in reading picture books with her young child may mediate frontal brain activity in the child." - Pubmed (Oct 2009)
"The EEG studies similarly show less mental stimulation, as measured by alpha brain-wave production, during viewing than during reading." - Scientific American (Feb 2002)
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Learning Language
One of the most important skills that very young children learn is how to understand and speak their family language.
It turns out that the more a parent and/or caregivers speaks to a child, the greater the chance that that child will have a better vocabulary and other language skills by age 3. And that the child's vocabulary and other language skills at age 3, were predictive of his or her vocabulary and other language skills by age 9-10.
"Over a three-year period, Hart and Risley painstakingly recorded one full hour of every word spoken at home between parent and child in 42 families, with children from 7 months to 36 months of age. The researchers found that the words parents speak directly to their children average from 2,153 words per hour all the way down to 616 words per hour. That may not seem like much, but that could add up to a 30 million word gap by age 3." - Commercial Appeal (Dec 2008) and Evidence Based Mommy (June 2010) and University of Oregon
"From our preschool data we had been confident that the rate of vocabulary growth would predict later performance in school; we saw that it did. For the 29 children observed when they were 1-2 years old, the rate of vocabulary growth at age 3 was strongly associated with scores at age 9-10 on both the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R) of receptive vocabulary (r = .58) and the Test of Language Development-2: Intermediate (TOLD) (r = .74) and its subtests (listening, speaking, semantics, syntax)." - American Educator (Spring 2003)
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Do Young Children Learn Language From Television?
"When additional tests were conducted after six weeks, there was no evidence children learned the words specifically highlighted in the DVDs, and watching the DVDs was unrelated to measures of general language learning. However, children whose parents reported that they began watching infant DVDs at an early age scored lower on a test of vocabulary knowledge." - Science Daily (March 2010)
"American infants and toddlers watch TV an average of two hours a day, and much of the programming is billed as educational. A new study finds that children under age 3 learn less from these videos that we might think—unless there's an adult present to interact with them and support their learning." - Science Daily (Sept 2009)
"The results of this study have important implications for language acquisition. It indicates exposure to language via television is insufficient for teaching language to very young children. To learn new words, children must be actively engaged in the process with responsive language teachers." - Science Daily (July 2007)
"Developmental psychologists say the Vanderbilt research offers an intriguing clue to a phenomenon called the “video deficit”. Toddlers who have no trouble understanding a task demonstrated in real life often stumble when the same task is shown onscreen. They need repeated viewings to figure it out." - Indian Express (Sept 2006)
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More TV = Less Talking With Young Children = Language Delay
"For every hour in front of the TV, parents spoke 770 fewer words to children, according to a study of 329 children, ages 2 months to 4 years, in the June issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. Adults usually speak about 941 words an hour... Parents may not realize how little they interact with children when a TV is on, Christakis says. A mother may think she's engaged with a baby because they're both on the floor playing blocks. But if a TV is on in the background, the two of them talk much less, he says. " - USA Today (June 2009)
"We've known that television exposure during infancy is associated with language delays and attentional problems, but so far it has remained unclear why," said Christakis. "This study is the first to demonstrate that when the television is on, there is reduced speech in the home. Infants vocalize less and their caregivers also speak to them more infrequently." - Science Daily (June 2009) Via Unplug Your Kids
"Even infants zone out in front of the television, and it turns out this translates into less time interacting with parents and possible lags in language development, a new study finds." - Live Science (June 2009)
"This study compared the amount and style of maternal communication with toddlers and preschoolers while mother–child pairs watched TV, read books, and played with toys. We found that mother–child communication was less frequent and less verbally responsive when dyads viewed TV compared with when they read books, and in many cases, when they played with toys. In addition, some forms of maternal responsiveness were positively associated with indicators of youngsters' emergent literacy. Mothers' use of directive language was negatively related to emergent literacy. These findings suggest that TV co-viewing produces a relatively detrimental communication environment for young children, while shared book reading encourages effective mother–child exchanges." - Wiley (Sept 2011)
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More TV = Language Delay
"The study, by Professor Dimitri Christakis from the Seattle Children’s Research Institute in America, looked at 78 studies published over the past 25 years... A 2008 study in Thailand, also published in Acta Paediatrica, found that if children under 12 months watched TV for more than two hours a day they were six times more likely to have delayed language skills." - Daily Express (Jan 2009) - More on this study - Science Daily (Jan 2009) - More on this study - E! Science News (Jan 2009)
"The scientists found that for every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants understood an average of six to eight fewer words than infants who did not watch them." - Science Daily (Aug 2007) and Science Now (Aug 2007)
"Can the noise level inside your house actually make it harder for your baby to learn to talk? Researchers now say turning down the TV can actually help your child find their voice faster. " - Science Daily (Sept 2005)
"Children under the age of three who are allowed to watch too much television have below-average reading abilities by the time they are six, a new study claims." - Telegraph (Nov 2005)
"Watching TV programmes or DVDs aimed at infants can actually delay language development, according to a number of studies. For example, a 2008 Thai study published in Acta Paediatrica found that if children under 12 months watched TV for more than two hours a day they were six times more likely to have delayed language skills. Another study found that children who watched baby DVDs between seven and 16 months knew fewer words than children who did not." - Scientific Blogging (Jan 2009)
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More TV = Developmental Delay
"Looking at over 1,300 children in a longitudinal study researchers found those children who watched increased amounts of television when they were 29 months old, had "reduced jumping ability in second grade and bigger waist circumferences in fourth grade." Additionally, other research has shown increased television consumption is "associated with less engagement in classroom activities, less weekend exercise and a greater chance of being picked on by classmates in fourth grade." Aside from this, more TV also correlates with increased waist size." - Discovery News (July 2012)
"Babies who watched 60 minutes of TV daily had developmental scores one-third lower at 14 months than babies who weren't watching that much TV." - Yahoo Health (Dec 2010) and US News Health (Dec 2010) and Daily Mail (Dec 2010)
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More TV = More Behavioral Problems
"Children who watched more television than their peers when they were toddlers and preschoolers were more likely to have trouble when they reached fourth grade, with poorer academic achievement, psychosocial behavior, and physical well-being, a Canadian study reports." - Boston.com (May 2010) and Science Daily (May 2010)
"Three-year-old children who are exposed to more TV appear to be at an increased risk for exhibiting aggressive behavior, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals." - Science Daily (Nov 2009)
"This article examines the play behavior of 70 preschool children and its relationship to television violence and regulatory status. Linear regression analysis showed that violent program content and poor self-regulation were independently and significantly associated with overall and physical aggression." - ECRP (2009)
"Daily television viewing for two or more hours in early childhood can lead to behavioral problems and poor social skills, according to a study of children 2.5 to 5.5 years of age conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health." - Science Daily (Oct 2007) and WebMD (Oct 2007) and Arizona Republic (Oct 2007) via Unplug Your Kids (Oct 2007)
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More TV = Less Attention
"Conditioning attentional skills: examining the effects of the pace of television editing on children's attention"
"Methods: School children (aged 4–7 years) were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Each group was presented with either a fast- or slow-edit 3.5-min film of a narrator reading a children's story. Immediately following film presentation, both groups were presented with a continuous test of attention."
"Results: Performance varied according to experimental group and age. In particular, we found that children's orienting networks and error rates can be affected by a very short exposure to television."
"Conclusion: Just 3.5 min of watching television can have a differential effect on the viewer depending on the pacing of the film editing. These findings highlight the potential of experimentally manipulating television exposure in children and emphasize the need for more research in this previously under-explored topic." - Acta Pædiatrica (June 2009)
"This study examined whether high levels of television viewing are associated with attention problems and hyperactivity in preschool children."
"The limitations of this study do not diminish the veracity of the positive, and potentially disturbing, association between television viewing and ADHD-related behaviors as assessed via parent and teacher ratings. It is likely that many physicians, teachers, and other professionals who work with families of young children encourage parents to seek activities other than television viewing for their preschool children. However, this recommendation may have particular importance to parents of children with behavioral difficulties because of their tendency for social isolation and their need for the development of social skills."
- Journal of Pediatric Psychology (Sept 2006)
"There are two effects of concern: First, this is an exceedingly important time in your son’s brain development. His brain will triple in volume in his first two years of life, creating billions of connections and getting rid of unnecessary ones. In order for his brain to develop in the best possible way, he needs to interact with other people, manipulate objects in his environment, and play in a way that lets him fully explore and solve problems in a creative. way. Electronic screens provide none of these experiences. Therefore, any time that he spends in front of a screen is valuable time that could be used for much richer brain-building activities—and in a 3 month old, who is likely sleeping for nearly 12 hours each day, any awake time is precious." - Ask the Mediatrician (Sept 2009)
"In a logistic regression model, hours of television viewed per day at both ages 1 and 3 was associated with attentional problems at age 7..." - Psychology Today (April 2004) and USA Today (April 2004)
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More TV = Less Playing and Less Interaction with Parent/Caregiver
"These findings suggest that TV co-viewing produces a relatively detrimental communication environment for young children, while shared book reading encourages effective mother–child exchanges." - Wiley Online Library (Oct 2011)
"Now scientists in Ohio have compared mother-child communication while watching TV to reading books or playing with Toys to reveal the impact on children’s development. The results, published in Human Communication Research, show that watching TV can lead to less interaction between parents and children, with a detrimental impact on literacy and language skills." - Psypost (Sept 2011)
"A new study looks for the first time at the effect of background TV on interactions between parents and young children. Using an experimental design, researchers found that when a TV was on, both the quantity and quality of interactions between parents and children dropped. This study challenges the common assumption that background TV doesn't affect very young children if they don't look at the screen." - Science Daily (Sept 2009)
"A new study has found that leaving your TV set on disrupts young children while they are playing, even if the channel is tuned to adult shows. This means that simply having the TV on, even in the background, may be detrimental to children's development." - Science Daily (July 2008)
"Researchers Found That Background TV Could Hinder Learning" - ABC News (July 2008)
"Daily television viewing for two or more hours in early childhood can lead to behavioral problems and poor social skills, according to a study of children 2.5 to 5.5 years of age conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health." - Science Daily (Oct 2007)
"It turns out that background television -- even simple background noise -- can affect young children more than we might think. According to a series of studies that have accumulated over the past decade, growing up in a noisy or "always on" TV environment may have negative consequences for speech development, playtime and parent-child interaction." - Washington Post (Oct 2007)
"We've known for a long time that chronic noise is having a devastating effect on academic performance of children in noisy homes and schools" - Education World (July 1997)
Any TV is bad TV for children under 3 - Seattle Post-Intelligencer (July 2005)
"The more television infants and toddlers watch, the more likely they are to have trouble paying attention and concentrating during their early school years, a study reports Monday." - USAToday (April 2004)
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More TV = Less Sleep
"A growing body of research is finding that infants and children under the age of 3 who watch TV — even too much TV during the day — struggle with interrupted sleep and irregular bed and naptime schedules. A recent study found that children under age 3 who watch television are at higher risk of disturbed sleep. Other studies have looked at the effects of TV viewing on older children and teens, and also found a link between TV, poor sleep and later bedtimes." - Health Blog (Feb 2008) and U.S. News (Feb 2008)
"Television viewing among infants and toddlers is associated with irregular sleep schedules. " - Pediatrics (Sept 2005) and PubMed (Oct 2005)
TV Time Disrupts Tots' Sleep - Personal MD (2005)
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More TV = More Weight
"In a study of more than 1,000 children between the ages of 36 months and 54 months, those who were awake and in a room where a television was on for more than two hours per day were significantly more likely to be overweight or obese, reported Julie C. Lumeng, M.D., of the University of Michigan here, and colleagues. " - Med Page Today (April 2006)
"A striking study says one in five 4-year-olds is overweight, lengthening the odds these youngsters will stay obese later in life and encounter a string of health problems." - San Francisco Chronicle (April 2009)
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Scientists Recommending No Television for Young Children
TV channel for babies? Pediatricians say turn it off - San Francisco Chronicle (Sept 2006)
"Nine out of 10 children under the age of two watch television regularly, with some spending as much as 40 per cent of waking hours in front of the box, a study found. This is despite the lack of scientific research to demonstrate that watching TV is beneficial for toddlers, said the review, published in the child health journal Acta Paediatrica. The study, by Professor Dimitri Christakis from the Seattle Children’s Research Institute in America, looked at 78 studies published over the past 25 years." - Daily Express (Jan 2009) - More on this study - Science Daily (Jan 2009) - More on this study - E! Science News (Jan 2009) - More on this study - The Medical News (Jan 2009)
"The public health implications of early television and video viewing are potentially large. There are both theoretical and empirical reasons to believe that the effects of media exposure on children's development are more likely to be adverse before the age of about 30 months than afterward," - Science Daily (May 2007)
"Children under the age of two should be banned from watching television, according to guidelines prepared for the Australian government." - The Telegraph (Oct 2009)
Anger at Sesame Street for babies - BBC (April 2006)
Experts Rip 'Sesame' TV Aimed at Tiniest Tots - Washington Post (March 2006)
AAP - Understanding TV's effects on the developing brain - Brainy-Child (May 1998)
The American Academy of Pediatrics says children under 2 should not watch TV. Why would any parent disagree? - Salon.com (Aug 1999)
"Pediatricians again advise against TV for very young kids" - Current (Aug 1999)
"Evidence thus far indicates that the AAP recommendation is well taken, although considerably more research is needed." - American Behavioral Scientist (2005)
Note, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends "Pediatricians should urge parents to avoid television viewing for children under the age of 2 years. Although certain television programs may be promoted to this age group, research on early brain development shows that babies and toddlers have a critical need for direct interactions with parents and other significant care givers (eg, child care providers) for healthy brain growth and the development of appropriate social, emotional, and cognitive skills. Therefore, exposing such young children to television programs should be discouraged." - AAP Policy Statement (Aug 1999)
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Marketing TV to Parents
"France's broadcast authority has banned French channels from marketing TV shows to children under 3 years old, to shield them from developmental risks it says television viewing poses at that age." - Otago Daily Times (Aug 2008)
"Breaking Free From Baby TV" - CCFC (July 2006)
"A Boston-based child advocacy group filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission yesterday charging the makers of the popular Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby videos with false and deceptive advertising." - Boston.com (May 2006)
Stage Prop for the Today Show - CCFC (2004)
"Commerciaizing Babyhood" - CCFC
DVD series for babies, parents fuels TV debate - Boston.com (March 2006)
PBS imported Teletubbies from the BBC last year and is aggressively marketing the program as educational for "children as young as one." - The American Prospect (May 1999)
"THE FORMAL PACE OF SESAME STREET OVER 26 YEARS" - Perceptual and Motor Skills (Aug 2004)
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Young Children Are Watching Too Much TV
More on Children & TV Statistics
"As family income and education levels increase, time spent consuming media decreases, with the bulk of that decrease coming from less time spent watching TV, which wasn't the case in the 2005 study." - Ars Technica (Dec 2011)
"In a typical day, 47% of babies and toddlers ages 0 through 1 watch TV or DVDs, and those who do watch spend an average of nearly two hours (1:54) doing so." - Common Sense Media (Oct 2011)
"On average, children were exposed to 4 hours of screen time each weekday, with 3.6 hours of exposure coming from home. Children in home-based child care spent a combined average of 5.6 hours watching television or videos at home and while at child care, with 87% exceeding the 2 hour recommendation. Center-based child care scored slightly better, with children watching an approximate total of 3.2 hours each weekday at home and while at child care. Children who did not go to child care also tended to exceed the recommendations, however, with the average child watching 4.4 hours a day." - Science Daily (Oct 2010) and CNet News (Nov 2010)
"Children who attend home-based day-care programs are watching twice as much television per day as was previously thought..." - The Washington Post (Nov 2009) and The Answer Sheet (Nov 2009) and The Washington Times (Nov 2009)
"They found that by three months of age, before infants are capable of sitting up unaided, about 40% regularly watched television, DVDs, or videos, and by 24 months of age, 90% of kids were habitually plugged in. The children were regularly exposed to visual media by a median age of nine months, and average daily viewing time increased from one hour daily at 12 months, to more than 1.5 hours by 24 months, the authors." - Med Page Today (May 2007)
"Approximately 40 percent of three-month old children and about 90 percent of children age 24 months and under regularly watch television, DVDs or videos, according to a report in the May issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine." - Science Daily (May 2007)
"Although parents believe in the educational value of TV, DVDs and videos, just 32 percent of parents always watched with their children. Parents also had an inflated idea of how much of these media other children were watching and believed that their children viewed less than the average amount. The study indicated that the perceived average viewing for other families is 73 percent higher than the actual average. "At the end of the day the amount of TV viewing is based on what parents think is normal," said Zimmerman. "Perceptions of norms tend to shape behavior even if those norms are inflated."" - The Medical News (May 2007)
"Despite warnings, most U.S. babies watch TV" - Reuters (May 2007)
"Heavy TV viewing under 2 is found. Ignoring risks, parents cite 'educational' value." - Boston.com (May 2007)
Watching Children Watch TV - Washington Post (May 2006)
Many parents encouraging tots to watch TV - MSNBC (May 2006)
New Study Shows How Kids’ Media Use Helps Parents Cope - Kaiser Family Foundation (May 2006)
Report finds pre-schoolers use media as much as play outside - CNN (Nov 2003)
"Young children, more used to watching television than talking, are to be encouraged to improve their communication skills." - BBC (Nov 2003)
"The study also found that single mothers and mothers with less education are more likely to have children whose TV viewing exceeds AAP guidelines. And, children who watch at least three hours of TV a day at age 2 are more than twice as likely as other children to watch at least three hours a day at age 6." - About.com
"Once upon a time, we read bedtime stories. But not so much today as fewer parents share books with kids." - Houston Chronicle (Dec 2007)
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Miscellaneous
"Both the parent–offspring and sibling adoption designs yielded evidence for significant genetic influence on individual differences in children's television viewing. Neither IQ nor temperament appear to be responsible for this genetic influence." - Sage (Nov 1990)
"Promoting Thriving in School-Aged Children: A Checklist" - Psychology Today (Sept 2011)
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