For Media-Savvy Tots, TV And
DVD Compete With ABCs
by Natalie Hopkinson,
Washington Post, October 29, 2003
Infants, toddlers and preschoolers are spending far more time watching
DVDs and clicking TV remote controls and computer mice than with books,
according to a Kaiser Foundation study released yesterday.
The effect of such high-intensity media exposure is unclear, researchers
said, but what is clear is that the under-6 set is becoming far more
media-savvy than anyone expected. "We are pushing all these media further
and further down to the crib," said Matthew Melmed, executive director of
the Washington-based children's advocacy group Zero to Three: National
Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families. Melmed and a host of other
children's advocates, educational experts and children's TV producers were
on hand yesterday to discuss the Kaiser findings at the foundation's
Barbara Jordan Conference Center downtown.
According to the 1,065 parents surveyed for the national study "Zero to
Six: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers,"
a quarter of children under 2 have televisions in their bedrooms.
Two-thirds of kids under 2 use some kind of screen media (computer, DVD,
television) on a typical day, for an average of about two hours a day. And
for children under the age of 6, the average of two hours a day spent with
screen media is more than three times the amount of time they spend
reading or being read to. The foundation noted that the study is the first
of its kind and that more research is needed.
"Where previous generations were introduced to media through print, this
generation's pathway is electronic," said Ellen Wartella, one of the
study's authors and dean of the College of Communication at the University
of Texas.
The study's findings on media consumption for children under 2 drew the
most alarm for researchers, as the American Academy of Pediatrics has
recommended that infants and toddlers not watch any television. In those
crucial first two years of life their brains establish neural tracks that
need physical interaction to develop properly, according to Michael Rich,
a Harvard researcher and member of the academy.
"They should be spending time with siblings, with parents, with mud," Rich
said yesterday. "They should not be spending time with the television."
Less conclusive were the study's findings on toddler computer use. The
academy said yesterday that it has no recommendations about computers
because not enough research has been done on the subject. The Kaiser study
showed that nearly a third of children under age 3 have used a computer,
with 9 percent playing computer games on a typical day, for about 49
minutes on average. The parents reported that 14 percent of those children
have used a computer by themselves. That figure was 56 percent for
children ages 4 to 6.
In recent years, a slew of media products aimed at young children have
flooded the market, those experts noted yesterday. "Lapware," computer
software designed for infants as young as 6 months, is sold as an
educational tool. "Teletubbies," a TV program featuring four multicolored,
giddy and babbling characters, was the first television program in the
United States aimed at children under 2, said Victoria J. Rideout, another
author of the Kaiser study. And millions of "Baby Einstein" videos are
sold each year. But the Einstein videos can be overstimulating and of
dubious educational value, several panelists said.
"They've been selling a bill of goods to parents," said Alvin Poussaint, a
Harvard professor and expert on adolescent psychiatry, speaking of the new
products. Parents buy these products believing they can speed the
development of their children's brains, he says, though there is no
empirical proof that they do.
"When children watch television, they are being marketed to," he said. " 'Teletubbies'
was targeted to 1-year-old children, when the purpose was to market those
toys and it was effective. They sold a lot of toys. . . . We are making
children consumers at age 1. I don't know what's educational about it.
They are walking around going 'ooh-ooh, ugh-ugh,' and they talk like
babies."
Tina Wagner, a spokeswoman for Ragdoll Entertainment, which produces "Teletubbies,"
said yesterday that the Emmy-winning show does have educational value,
especially when it's a fact that children under 2 are watching television.
Toddlers need shows that are age-appropriate, she said.
Parents queried in the Kaiser study had an overall positive view of the
media products their children were consuming. About 72 percent of the
parents surveyed said that computer products mostly help children's
learning, 5 percent said they mostly hurt, and 12 percent believed they
had little effect either way.
Parents, eager to give their children a leg up in a high-tech and
academically competitive world, are drawn to the products, yesterday's
panelists said. A generation reared on television's highly acclaimed
"Sesame Street" is now rearing children of its own, they said.
The fear is "my kids are not smart enough, they are not going to go to
Harvard," Melmed said.
Survey co-author Wartella said more research is needed to conclude which
media have reached that "Sesame Street" standard, earned through three
decades of study.
But even "Sesame Street" is not what it used to be for young viewers. Gary
Knell, president and chief operating officer of the Sesame Workshop, said
the show's audience on public television is skewing younger lately, and
the producers have begun slowing the show's pace to gear it to those
younger audiences.
Keeping up is a constant struggle, Knell said.
"Kids are native to the technology," he added, "and parents are the
immigrants."
