“Get out of our living rooms. This country is in danger of becoming a politically controlled nation closer to communist China. That’s all very well if you have three hours to wash the dishes, but some of us need to get things done. Gee, these toddlers are up to no good. What are they up to? Wait for it — they’re watching television!”
The outrage that has greeted reports that the Australian government is to issue cautious guidelines advising parents and childminders to prevent children under two from watching television seems remarkably acerbic. Across the world, however, the same debates flare up every time it is tentatively suggested that the electronic screens we began by placing in one room at home and now carry everywhere in our pockets may not be good for the development of children’s brains.
Television is no longer merely the drug of the nation, it is the pacifier, babysitter, wallpaper and teacher for our children. Increasingly it intrudes on the very first months of their lives. In Australia, young children spend more time watching television than any other activity. The average four-month-old gazes at the box for 44 minutes every day.
In the US, under-twos watch 1.2 hours a day on average. In Britain, older children have been calculated to spend five hours and 18 minutes watching TV, playing computer games or online each day, just over an hour less than the US average.
Behind the fury about strictures suggesting TV is bad for our children is guilt. Parents are uneasy about the effects that television has on their children and are quick to get defensive about switching it on.
“Whether it is the slack-jawed look their children have when they put them in front of the television or the tantrum when they turn it off, most parents have this unease about it but it’s a battle they choose not to fight. They have enough battles getting them to eat the right food,” said Michael Rich, director of the influential Center on Media and Child Health at Boston Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts.
We may now be highly tuned to what we feed our children’s bodies but we are less careful about what we feed their minds. Academics researching the impact of TV on the very young compare debates over its adverse effects with those over smoking a generation a half ago, or seat belts and cycle helmets more recently.
A draft of the Australian government’s guidelines says that screen time for young children “may reduce the amount of time they have for active play, social contact with others and chances for language development,” and may also “affect the development of a full range of eye movement [and] … reduce the length of time they can stay focused.”
Jo Salmon, associate professor of epidemiology at Deakin University, was one of the researchers who informed the Australian government’s draft guidelines.
“Children aged six to 30 months who are watching television have less developed vocabulary, display more aggressive behavior and have poor attention spans,” she said. “Parents and childcare centers are not justified in encouraging children, under the age of two, to watch television.”
While there is no evidence that so-called educational programming is harmful, she would discourage under twos from watching it.
“I really would not put my young one under two in front of a television. Generally, the evidence that’s out there says it could be detrimental,” she said.
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