WASHINGTON, May 24 (UPI) -- As a plethora of kid-targeted media floods the market, most American children -- as young as six months of age -- are spending hours every day in front of an electronic screen, a report released Wednesday shows.
Eighty-three percent of children between 6 months and 6 years of age used screen media -- computers, televisions, video games or handheld games -- for an average of about two hours a day, according to a Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation national survey of more than 1,000 American kids.
"Many parents are grateful for this tool that makes their lives more manageable and is also, in their view, good for their kids," said Vicky Rideout, vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation. Rideout spoke at a panel briefing in Washington.
Perhaps the most controversial finding was an increase in babies watching television, a relatively new phenomenon. Sixty-one percent of infants aged 0-1 watched TV or used computers for more than an hour a day. In recent years, a genre of children's programming has emerged, such as Sesame Street's new DVD series "Sesame Beginnings."
In general, parents rely on TV to bolster their kids' basic ABCs, as well as to give themselves a chance to relax. For many harried mothers, who must often juggle the responsibilities of work and domestic life, TV becomes a welcome babysitter.
But parents also watch lots of media themselves, and some run a household where the TV is on all the time. Rideout mentioned one mother whose 2-year-old daughter watched "CSI" with her; the mother insisted the toddler did not seem to get nightmares from the gory, gruesome images.
Since the effects of media on children is understudied, experts worry about the unknown effects of media on these TV babies. The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended no screen media at all for children under 2 years of age.
Most child health experts agree interaction and stimuli through a variety of activities during the first years are life are critical for a child's physical and mental well-being, the report said.
"We have young brains, young minds, forming, and a lot of that critical time is spent in front of the boob tube," said Dr. Stanley Greenspan, a pediatrician and professor of psychology at George Washington Medical School in Washington. "Most parents are misguided," he added.
What builds a healthy brain are interactive experiences tailored to a child's individual needs, Greenspan said, such as games with parents where the infants interact with parents and observe their responses.
When brain scans are done of babies and children involved in interactive behavior, such as an 8-month-old playing peekaboo with her mother, many areas of the brain light up and work together in symphony. In kids engaged in passive experiences, such as memory exercises with flash cards, only one area of their brain lights up.
Likewise, sitting before a TV screen is a passive, one-way communication that endangers the process of how kids learn to pay attention, behave, problem solve and make decisions, Greenspan said.
Advertising, particularly food ads, may be another concern. There's good evidence food marketing on TV -- full of high-calorie, low-nutrition products -- has a negative impact on kids, which is troubling with the growing childhood obesity rate, said Ellen Wartella, a provost at the University of California at Riverside and a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Children, Youth and Families.
One mother noticed her 18-month-old, who could not speak, humming the McDonald's jingle when they passed the restaurant by car.
Yet for kids older than 3, the sparse set of studies conducted on the effect of media on preschool children have shown there are benefits lasting until 3rd grade -- dispelling the notion of TV as a boob tube, Wartella emphasized.
"The real question is, how do we encourage funding agencies to say this is an area of major national importance? Kids spent an awful lot of time using technology, and we need to know more about it," Wartella told United Press International.
Ultimately, electronic media has woven itself irreparably into the fabric of everyday life in America.
"The ship has sailed. The technology is not going away," said Alice Cahn, vice president of programming and development at the Cartoon Network.
"But to not use these tools that parents are truly comfortable with is just sticking our heads in the sand," Cahn added.
--
E-mail: [email protected]
