7 ms·

Taiwan is right to ban iPads for kids

38 points by bemmu 11y ago

matthewmacleod 11y ago
Bit of a stupid fucking article in my opinion. I can accept that excessive use of entertainment devices is probably not great for young kids. Excessive use is the key though, and there's not nearly enough research to quantify that to the degree required for legislation. I'm very skeptical of blatantly unenforceable nanny-statism like this. Doubly so where it involves parenting decisions that aren't conclusively detrimental. But cheerleading for it is even worse!
- noir-york 11y ago
  Even if the research were inconclusive, surely being cautious and interacting with children instead of handing them off to a digital nanny is just common sense. As for railing against the nanny-state - give it a rest. Most people are not experts in everything and expert advice, say, from the AAP, should be heeded.
  - davedx 11y ago
    > As for railing against the nanny-state - give it a rest. Most people are not experts in everything and expert advice, say, from the AAP, should be heeded. Did you read the article? They have banned iPads for children under 2 in Taiwan. There is a gulf of difference between expert advice and legislation.
  - foiboitoi 11y ago
    Don't appeal to "common sense." Red meat being bad for you was common sense. Fatty foods being bad for you was common sense. Asbestos being safe was common sense. Hell I saw a guy eat it to prove it was such. Bright colored Snakes being dangerous is common sense. Something like this isn't common sense. It's parenting by government via criminalization. That's crazy. And we're not even talking about real child abuse.
    - moonchrome 11y ago
      While I don't agree with nanny state regulating this, I don't think your comparison is valid. Fatty foods were a part of our diet and then the experts at time said they were unhealthy and provided evidence - still the burden of proof was on them. Children were (successfully) raised for generations without digital devices - you need to actually prove it's a benefit otherwise it's wise to avoid it just on being conservative.
      - foiboitoi 11y ago
        Honesty I'd be more conservative/concerned as a parent with the chemicals in the plastic that they're holding. Behaviour is intuitively easier to regulate and understand than substance exposure.
  - matthewmacleod 11y ago
    I completely agree that it's good to be cautious and to pay attention to recommendations. That's absolutely orthogonal to legislating on the matter!
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - facepalm 11y ago
    Having children on my on, I am firmly convinced that especially in that realm, expert advice should not always be heeded. A couple of days ago there was an article about parents camping out for days to get their kids registered for a specific school. If all experts (like teachers) are so good, why are parents going to that extreme length to avoid the majority of those experts (teachers at the unpopular schools)? If you have kids, you will find a lot of crappy opinions handed out to you. Another example would be "the worlds worst mom" who was criticized for letting her 9 year old kid ride the New York subway alone. Which expert would you as a parent trust?
- snyp 11y ago
  Its easier for the government to enforce restrictions than create better parks playgrounds etc. for children. They're just taking the easy way out.
- zeeed 11y ago
  > I'm very skeptical of blatantly unenforceable nanny-statism like this. Enforceability is not necessarily a criterion for the usefulness of the law. It only is in western states with an emphasis on individualism so our skepticism comes from our own cultural background.
batou 11y ago
I've got to agree with this. I've got three children aged 2, 8 and 11 and there's nothing worse than a cult following of stampy longnose to shake off. The big problem I find is that the education system, at least here in the UK, is very focussed on pushing technology on children who are very young as a solution for everything. Everything else suffers for this.
- matthewmacleod 11y ago
  You agree, in that you think the UK should ban parents from allowing kids under 2 from using these devices? I totally agree that it's wise to manage kids' access to these devices, but legislation is an aggressively poor approach.
  - spacemanmatt 11y ago
    Given what I have seen, I think 2 is too young to start them on screens.
- mrweasel 11y ago
  There's a similar issue here in Denmark, it seems that every problem can be fixed by giving schools iPads. One school that bought 700 iPads for their students now reported that: "Yeah, their sort of useless, and laptops would have been better". That's weird to me, you buy 700 iPads, only to find out that most of the software the kids need doesn't work on an iPad, and that their aren't great for productivity. Why where schools so instant on iPads/tables to begin with? It seems that we're pushing technology into class rooms, without any plan.
- tim333 11y ago
  I had to google what stampy was. For those interested: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/10980512/Stampylongnose-the-Youtube-star-youve-never-heard-of.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/10980512/Stampylon... (seems to be a minecraft character controlled by a 23 year old from Portsmouth who sounds a bit like a kids TV presenter)
guard-of-terra 11y ago
As article states it's not going to affect anything.
ronnier 11y ago
I agree and I don't agree. My 5 year old, while at a basic level, starting playing pieces of "In the Hall of the Mountain King" on our keyboard, unprovoked. I asked where she learned this song and she said the iPad. She plays a piano DDR type of game on the iPad and this is one of the songs. I thought that was kind of neat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRpzxKsSEZg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRpzxKsSEZg
- unicornporn 11y ago
  My first reaction is also: that is cool. When I think about it I come up with this: a human could also easily have taught her that. Learning things by yourself isn't always a bad thing of course. But, by using the iPad way she missed out on social interaction.
  - mirchibajji 11y ago
    As a parent, and an introvert, I'm not convinced that kids (or anyone, for that matter) absolutely need social interaction all the time. If a parent/adult were to teach the kids all the time, in some ways, they're interfering with the child learning to learn. Surely there is a middle ground between tablet parenting and helicopter parenting.
    - spacemanmatt 11y ago
      As a parent (11 years now) and an introvert, I'm convinced that early development depends on lots of direct involvement, and screen time is detrimental.
  - colechristensen 11y ago
    Self-directed learning at a young age – the ability to explore and discover – is a top level skill for succeeding in the world they'll grow up in. Tablets and the like make this a lot easier than ever before for certain things. Overspending time looking at a screen is real easy though.
    - 11y ago
dimitar 11y ago
Growing up we definitely couldn't play on the streets, since cars were everywhere, sports and entertainment were far away and expensive and schools we a toxic social environment. Computers got relatively cheap (we didn't own the latest and greatest) and provided quite a lot of fun. I'd probably do much worse if I avoided them. Maybe concerned parents would do better if they lobbied communities to provide better environments for children - more opportunities for fun, safer and less controlling.
- tempodox 11y ago
  These thoughts are all valid, but they don't apply to you as an under-two-years-old. The brain development that takes place in early childhood is as once-in-a-lifetime as it gets. If you miss or destroy something here, you ruin people for life. Better environments for children would be a universal plus either way.
riffraff 11y ago
I think the article fails to put emphasis on the difference between <2 years old ("toddlers") and > 2 years old ("kids"). The taiwanese regulation seems to be along the lines of "don't let toddlers in front of a screen for hours while you do other things", which honestly seems like a good suggestion.
- smtddr 11y ago
  Yup, I think a lot of commenters here are taking this literally at face value. I got 2 kids of my own and I get the "vibe", or direction/intent, Taiwan's lawmakers are going for. They know they can't enforce it; they're just trying to suggest "Look, don't just plop your baby/toddler in front of a Youtube Playlist of 200+ Dora-the-explorer & Barney episodes all day. It's not good for adults and it certainly isn't good for a new developing mind. Yes, we know there are educational apps 'n all that... but you know and we know that's what most of you are sedating your kids with on those glowing glossy screens. Let them look around and process their environment & interact with real humans in the room. Dora & Barney are great, but not replacements for real flesh & blood human interaction and the real world environment around them.". Of course, depending on your social-economic level, this is __far__ easier to do for some parents than others. I'm lucky with my flexible high-earning techjob my wife only works 2 days a week. We have a great deal more time to actually go outside and walk around in nice parks with the kids. Very different from the parents that work crazy hours, _SIX_ days a week and barely have time to sleep before having to go back to work - not to talk of having time with their kids. ______ Pre-emptive: At about this time, in previous similar discussions, someone on HN will say: "Well, why did they have kids if they can't take care of them?" I think this thread handles it well - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8177756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8177756
simonh 11y ago
It's justa click-baity controversy piece. To paraphrase - "On the one had the legislation is weakly drafted and too vague to provide any useful guidance or actuly enforceable rules, but on the other this is wonderful and hurrah for Taiwan's Nany State!" The article's opinion is a contradictory, muddle headed and esentialy pointless as the law. Whatever your opinion on appropriate screen time for children, the law and the article aren't actualy any help whatsoever.
veidr 11y ago
This same topic came up on HN 3 years ago, and I took some shit for saying that I thought 2-year-olds shouldn't be playing with iPads[1] without having any kids of my own. Fast-forward to now, I have a 2-year-old and an 8-month-old, and with the benefit of experience all I can say is Yep, I was right as hell. Tiny children generally shouldn't use iPads, nor should they watch TV. I wouldn't support a law like this, but at the same time it is astounding how often I see toddlers plopped down in front of an iPad or TV set for hours, as if the mere fact that it makes them easier to deal with means it's an appropriate thing to do. Giving 2-year-olds a quarter of a Valium will do that, too; doesn't mean we should. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3693886 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3693886
- facepalm 11y ago
  Does that mean you have tried giving your kids an iPad and found that it has detrimental effect? Or how else has having kids given you more insights into the issue?
  - nothrabannosir 11y ago
    You're right, good question. Just the mere having of kids doesn't make you an expert. But in this case, the beauty (or ugly) is not that OP can now say this without backing it up; it's that when you don't have kids, the roles are reversed. You don't have children? You don't know what you're talking about. You do? Now suddenly we want proof and all that jazz. He put his money where his mouth was, good on him. If he wasn't entitled to an opinion for not having kids at first, then, now that he has them, I say let the man have his hour.
    - facepalm 11y ago
      I don't exactly understand your argument, to be honest. Surely the majority of people who care about that kind of rules are parents anyway? If parents would agree that kids shouldn't have iPads, then no legislation would be necessary? So ultimately it is parents opinion vs parents opinion... He is completely entitled to his opinion, of course. I just don't see how merely having kids gives you any insights on the impact of iPads on kids, unless you give them an iPad.
facepalm 11y ago
Doctors opinions don't necessarily reflect scientific research. Please link to relevant research. There were some links in the article, but I find some of it inconclusive. The old problem of cause and effect. In general the whole discussion seems silly because there is such a wide range of things you can do with a computer or an iPad. Surely it makes at least a little difference how you use the device? Just as it makes a difference what kind of books you are reading? At least in terms of agility/movement/obesity, spending too much time reading books should have the same effect as time in front of computers. Yet I rarely see calls to limit reading time for kids?
tim333 11y ago
The main evidence in the article that ipads are bad is: >The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the most influential body to have released such guidelines, recommends that "television and other entertainment media should be avoided for infants and children under age two." So they're an influential body but I'd be curious to see the actual evidence. I mean if you worked for the AAP would you say sure go ahead and give them iPads, risking subsequently being found to have caused harm or say oh no be carful and thus cover your arse. They are almost bound to recommend caution as a default.
prof_hobart 11y ago
>A child's brain develops rapidly during these first years, and young children learn best by interacting with people, not screens Whilst probably true in isolation, this is rather a false dichotomy. You could equally say that kids learn better by interacting with people than with cuddly toys, so we shouldn't let kids have them either. Having a child watch TV,or play with a doll or an iPad, doesn't mean you will now stop talking to your children, and parents aren't going to be spending every single waking second talking to their kids. So the question that should be asked is whether TVs and iPads are better or worse for kids than the other things that they could be doing during the times that the parents isn't going to be actively interacting with them - things like playing with their dolls, crawling around the house, listening to music, sitting and staring out the window etc. And I'm guessing that the answer to that question is that they aren't intrinsically particularly better or worse than any of those other things, and that the problem comes when you let any one activity be the default way of keeping the kids quiet. Of course there are parents who replace any actual human interaction with 18 hours of TV a day. But the problem there isn't really the TV. If you took that away, it probably wouldn't be replaced with human interaction. They'd just find some other way to keep the kids quiet that didn't give them much stimulation either.
mjklin 11y ago
I knew about the AAP guidelines. But we decided to put on Daniel Tiger during mealtimes for my daughter from ten months old. It is a good distraction while we get some food into her. Furthermore, children under two interact primarily with their parents. They do not really play with other kids at all, even if you take them to a playground. So if AAP says "young children learn best by interacting with people", they are talking about parents for under-twos. At some points in the day, my wife and my daughter are just sick of looking at each other. So a little TV provides a welcome break. Yes, we try to limit it. But giving a blanket statement like "no TV under two" and making you feel bad when you cave in does not seem to help the situation. Also, what happens when 4-year-old Jimmy is happily watching his two hours allowed of TV, and 14-month-old Bobby wants to watch too? Do you banish Bobby from the living room because it might hurt his brain? One suspects the AAP recommendations are made knowing they will not be heeded. Like the eight glasses of water a day thing, it's one of those things adults tell each other "oh, you know they say..." If AAP were living on this planet with the rest of us, they would give more nuanced recommendations, just as USDA has had to do over the years with rec's on food.
wilsonfiifi 11y ago
I think the most important part of the article IMO is >..."made screen time a shared experience". Sitting with them and singing along to Barney and interacting with them when they try to mimic a dance is a more balanced approach to the whole TV and kids debate.

38 points by bemmu 11y ago

Bit of a stupid fucking article in my opinion. I can accept that excessive use of entertainment devices is probably not great for young kids. Excessive use is the key though, and there's not nearly enough research to quantify that to the degree required for legislation. I'm very skeptical of blatantly unenforceable nanny-statism like this. Doubly so where it involves parenting decisions that aren't conclusively detrimental. But cheerleading for it is even worse!

noir-york 11y ago
Even if the research were inconclusive, surely being cautious and interacting with children instead of handing them off to a digital nanny is just common sense. As for railing against the nanny-state - give it a rest. Most people are not experts in everything and expert advice, say, from the AAP, should be heeded.
- davedx 11y ago
  > As for railing against the nanny-state - give it a rest. Most people are not experts in everything and expert advice, say, from the AAP, should be heeded. Did you read the article? They have banned iPads for children under 2 in Taiwan. There is a gulf of difference between expert advice and legislation.
- foiboitoi 11y ago
  Don't appeal to "common sense." Red meat being bad for you was common sense. Fatty foods being bad for you was common sense. Asbestos being safe was common sense. Hell I saw a guy eat it to prove it was such. Bright colored Snakes being dangerous is common sense. Something like this isn't common sense. It's parenting by government via criminalization. That's crazy. And we're not even talking about real child abuse.
  - moonchrome 11y ago
    While I don't agree with nanny state regulating this, I don't think your comparison is valid. Fatty foods were a part of our diet and then the experts at time said they were unhealthy and provided evidence - still the burden of proof was on them. Children were (successfully) raised for generations without digital devices - you need to actually prove it's a benefit otherwise it's wise to avoid it just on being conservative.
    - foiboitoi 11y ago
      Honesty I'd be more conservative/concerned as a parent with the chemicals in the plastic that they're holding. Behaviour is intuitively easier to regulate and understand than substance exposure.
- matthewmacleod 11y ago
  I completely agree that it's good to be cautious and to pay attention to recommendations. That's absolutely orthogonal to legislating on the matter!
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- facepalm 11y ago
  Having children on my on, I am firmly convinced that especially in that realm, expert advice should not always be heeded. A couple of days ago there was an article about parents camping out for days to get their kids registered for a specific school. If all experts (like teachers) are so good, why are parents going to that extreme length to avoid the majority of those experts (teachers at the unpopular schools)? If you have kids, you will find a lot of crappy opinions handed out to you. Another example would be "the worlds worst mom" who was criticized for letting her 9 year old kid ride the New York subway alone. Which expert would you as a parent trust?
snyp 11y ago
Its easier for the government to enforce restrictions than create better parks playgrounds etc. for children. They're just taking the easy way out.
zeeed 11y ago
> I'm very skeptical of blatantly unenforceable nanny-statism like this. Enforceability is not necessarily a criterion for the usefulness of the law. It only is in western states with an emphasis on individualism so our skepticism comes from our own cultural background.

batou 11y ago

I've got to agree with this. I've got three children aged 2, 8 and 11 and there's nothing worse than a cult following of stampy longnose to shake off. The big problem I find is that the education system, at least here in the UK, is very focussed on pushing technology on children who are very young as a solution for everything. Everything else suffers for this.

matthewmacleod 11y ago
You agree, in that you think the UK should ban parents from allowing kids under 2 from using these devices? I totally agree that it's wise to manage kids' access to these devices, but legislation is an aggressively poor approach.
- spacemanmatt 11y ago
  Given what I have seen, I think 2 is too young to start them on screens.
mrweasel 11y ago
There's a similar issue here in Denmark, it seems that every problem can be fixed by giving schools iPads. One school that bought 700 iPads for their students now reported that: "Yeah, their sort of useless, and laptops would have been better". That's weird to me, you buy 700 iPads, only to find out that most of the software the kids need doesn't work on an iPad, and that their aren't great for productivity. Why where schools so instant on iPads/tables to begin with? It seems that we're pushing technology into class rooms, without any plan.
tim333 11y ago
I had to google what stampy was. For those interested: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/10980512/Stampylongnose-the-Youtube-star-youve-never-heard-of.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/10980512/Stampylon... (seems to be a minecraft character controlled by a 23 year old from Portsmouth who sounds a bit like a kids TV presenter)

guard-of-terra 11y ago

As article states it's not going to affect anything.

ronnier 11y ago

I agree and I don't agree. My 5 year old, while at a basic level, starting playing pieces of "In the Hall of the Mountain King" on our keyboard, unprovoked. I asked where she learned this song and she said the iPad. She plays a piano DDR type of game on the iPad and this is one of the songs. I thought that was kind of neat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRpzxKsSEZg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRpzxKsSEZg

unicornporn 11y ago
My first reaction is also: that is cool. When I think about it I come up with this: a human could also easily have taught her that. Learning things by yourself isn't always a bad thing of course. But, by using the iPad way she missed out on social interaction.
- mirchibajji 11y ago
  As a parent, and an introvert, I'm not convinced that kids (or anyone, for that matter) absolutely need social interaction all the time. If a parent/adult were to teach the kids all the time, in some ways, they're interfering with the child learning to learn. Surely there is a middle ground between tablet parenting and helicopter parenting.
  - spacemanmatt 11y ago
    As a parent (11 years now) and an introvert, I'm convinced that early development depends on lots of direct involvement, and screen time is detrimental.
- colechristensen 11y ago
  Self-directed learning at a young age – the ability to explore and discover – is a top level skill for succeeding in the world they'll grow up in. Tablets and the like make this a lot easier than ever before for certain things. Overspending time looking at a screen is real easy though.
  - 11y ago

dimitar 11y ago

Growing up we definitely couldn't play on the streets, since cars were everywhere, sports and entertainment were far away and expensive and schools we a toxic social environment. Computers got relatively cheap (we didn't own the latest and greatest) and provided quite a lot of fun. I'd probably do much worse if I avoided them. Maybe concerned parents would do better if they lobbied communities to provide better environments for children - more opportunities for fun, safer and less controlling.

tempodox 11y ago
These thoughts are all valid, but they don't apply to you as an under-two-years-old. The brain development that takes place in early childhood is as once-in-a-lifetime as it gets. If you miss or destroy something here, you ruin people for life. Better environments for children would be a universal plus either way.

riffraff 11y ago

I think the article fails to put emphasis on the difference between <2 years old ("toddlers") and > 2 years old ("kids"). The taiwanese regulation seems to be along the lines of "don't let toddlers in front of a screen for hours while you do other things", which honestly seems like a good suggestion.

smtddr 11y ago
Yup, I think a lot of commenters here are taking this literally at face value. I got 2 kids of my own and I get the "vibe", or direction/intent, Taiwan's lawmakers are going for. They know they can't enforce it; they're just trying to suggest "Look, don't just plop your baby/toddler in front of a Youtube Playlist of 200+ Dora-the-explorer & Barney episodes all day. It's not good for adults and it certainly isn't good for a new developing mind. Yes, we know there are educational apps 'n all that... but you know and we know that's what most of you are sedating your kids with on those glowing glossy screens. Let them look around and process their environment & interact with real humans in the room. Dora & Barney are great, but not replacements for real flesh & blood human interaction and the real world environment around them.". Of course, depending on your social-economic level, this is __far__ easier to do for some parents than others. I'm lucky with my flexible high-earning techjob my wife only works 2 days a week. We have a great deal more time to actually go outside and walk around in nice parks with the kids. Very different from the parents that work crazy hours, _SIX_ days a week and barely have time to sleep before having to go back to work - not to talk of having time with their kids. ______ Pre-emptive: At about this time, in previous similar discussions, someone on HN will say: "Well, why did they have kids if they can't take care of them?" I think this thread handles it well - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8177756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8177756

simonh 11y ago

It's justa click-baity controversy piece. To paraphrase - "On the one had the legislation is weakly drafted and too vague to provide any useful guidance or actuly enforceable rules, but on the other this is wonderful and hurrah for Taiwan's Nany State!" The article's opinion is a contradictory, muddle headed and esentialy pointless as the law. Whatever your opinion on appropriate screen time for children, the law and the article aren't actualy any help whatsoever.

veidr 11y ago

This same topic came up on HN 3 years ago, and I took some shit for saying that I thought 2-year-olds shouldn't be playing with iPads[1] without having any kids of my own. Fast-forward to now, I have a 2-year-old and an 8-month-old, and with the benefit of experience all I can say is Yep, I was right as hell. Tiny children generally shouldn't use iPads, nor should they watch TV. I wouldn't support a law like this, but at the same time it is astounding how often I see toddlers plopped down in front of an iPad or TV set for hours, as if the mere fact that it makes them easier to deal with means it's an appropriate thing to do. Giving 2-year-olds a quarter of a Valium will do that, too; doesn't mean we should. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3693886 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3693886

facepalm 11y ago
Does that mean you have tried giving your kids an iPad and found that it has detrimental effect? Or how else has having kids given you more insights into the issue?
- nothrabannosir 11y ago
  You're right, good question. Just the mere having of kids doesn't make you an expert. But in this case, the beauty (or ugly) is not that OP can now say this without backing it up; it's that when you don't have kids, the roles are reversed. You don't have children? You don't know what you're talking about. You do? Now suddenly we want proof and all that jazz. He put his money where his mouth was, good on him. If he wasn't entitled to an opinion for not having kids at first, then, now that he has them, I say let the man have his hour.
  - facepalm 11y ago
    I don't exactly understand your argument, to be honest. Surely the majority of people who care about that kind of rules are parents anyway? If parents would agree that kids shouldn't have iPads, then no legislation would be necessary? So ultimately it is parents opinion vs parents opinion... He is completely entitled to his opinion, of course. I just don't see how merely having kids gives you any insights on the impact of iPads on kids, unless you give them an iPad.

facepalm 11y ago

Doctors opinions don't necessarily reflect scientific research. Please link to relevant research. There were some links in the article, but I find some of it inconclusive. The old problem of cause and effect. In general the whole discussion seems silly because there is such a wide range of things you can do with a computer or an iPad. Surely it makes at least a little difference how you use the device? Just as it makes a difference what kind of books you are reading? At least in terms of agility/movement/obesity, spending too much time reading books should have the same effect as time in front of computers. Yet I rarely see calls to limit reading time for kids?

tim333 11y ago

The main evidence in the article that ipads are bad is: >The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the most influential body to have released such guidelines, recommends that "television and other entertainment media should be avoided for infants and children under age two." So they're an influential body but I'd be curious to see the actual evidence. I mean if you worked for the AAP would you say sure go ahead and give them iPads, risking subsequently being found to have caused harm or say oh no be carful and thus cover your arse. They are almost bound to recommend caution as a default.

prof_hobart 11y ago

>A child's brain develops rapidly during these first years, and young children learn best by interacting with people, not screens Whilst probably true in isolation, this is rather a false dichotomy. You could equally say that kids learn better by interacting with people than with cuddly toys, so we shouldn't let kids have them either. Having a child watch TV,or play with a doll or an iPad, doesn't mean you will now stop talking to your children, and parents aren't going to be spending every single waking second talking to their kids. So the question that should be asked is whether TVs and iPads are better or worse for kids than the other things that they could be doing during the times that the parents isn't going to be actively interacting with them - things like playing with their dolls, crawling around the house, listening to music, sitting and staring out the window etc. And I'm guessing that the answer to that question is that they aren't intrinsically particularly better or worse than any of those other things, and that the problem comes when you let any one activity be the default way of keeping the kids quiet. Of course there are parents who replace any actual human interaction with 18 hours of TV a day. But the problem there isn't really the TV. If you took that away, it probably wouldn't be replaced with human interaction. They'd just find some other way to keep the kids quiet that didn't give them much stimulation either.

mjklin 11y ago

I knew about the AAP guidelines. But we decided to put on Daniel Tiger during mealtimes for my daughter from ten months old. It is a good distraction while we get some food into her. Furthermore, children under two interact primarily with their parents. They do not really play with other kids at all, even if you take them to a playground. So if AAP says "young children learn best by interacting with people", they are talking about parents for under-twos. At some points in the day, my wife and my daughter are just sick of looking at each other. So a little TV provides a welcome break. Yes, we try to limit it. But giving a blanket statement like "no TV under two" and making you feel bad when you cave in does not seem to help the situation. Also, what happens when 4-year-old Jimmy is happily watching his two hours allowed of TV, and 14-month-old Bobby wants to watch too? Do you banish Bobby from the living room because it might hurt his brain? One suspects the AAP recommendations are made knowing they will not be heeded. Like the eight glasses of water a day thing, it's one of those things adults tell each other "oh, you know they say..." If AAP were living on this planet with the rest of us, they would give more nuanced recommendations, just as USDA has had to do over the years with rec's on food.

wilsonfiifi 11y ago

I think the most important part of the article IMO is >..."made screen time a shared experience". Sitting with them and singing along to Barney and interacting with them when they try to mimic a dance is a more balanced approach to the whole TV and kids debate.