Kids and Screen Time
http://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2011-11-17/kids-and-screen-time
Many parents find it daunting to navigate the exploding world of media for kids, with new apps, games, gadgets, and television programs coming out daily. Complicating matters are recent studies showing that screen time -- whether on a television, computer or mobile device -- affects learning and literacy, especially for the very young. But is all media equal? What about e-books, interactive games, educational television? We explore the latest on kids and technology.
Guests
Lisa Guernsey
Director of New America Foundation's Early Education Initiative, journalist, and author of Into the Minds of Babes: How Screen Time Affects Children From Birth to Age Five (Basic Books).
Jim Steyer
founder and CEO of Common Sense Media
Lesli Rotenberg
Senior Vice President, Children’s Media/Marketing and Communications,PBS
Related Links
Related Video
Watch Kids Increasingly Staring at Glowing Screens, Study Finds on PBS. See more from PBS NEWSHOUR.
Comments
Please familiarize yourself with our Code of Conduct and Terms of Use before posting your comments.
Our children are media free (age 9, 6). No TV, no videos, no video games, internet, etc. And it's not that they are busy with lessons, etc--each child has a 1/2 hour lesson a week. But I do let them play in the yard relatively unsupervised.
I just haven't found anything that truly seems to be value added in screen time for them. We're thinking age 10 might be about right for a "first movie".
it's definitely a big issue for our family. raising 3 year old and 1 year old boys...tv and cartoons are a part of our everyday routine. i am interested in waldorf education for my kids and they are definitely against tv time/screen time for young children. i am working on cutting back and eventually am hoping only for dvd treats and possibly saturday morning specials. during the summer we barely watched tv and now with the weather/season change i find myself allowing them more and more screen time. it most definitely will be an ongoing process but if i can limit it early on, i believe that it will be better for us later on. i'm not opposed to educational programming and open to technology that will help them learn....but overall want them to spend more time using their imaginations, being creative and playing outdoors then sitting in front of the tv or computer.
I'm not worried about candy vs. spinach, it's just that I haven't found anything on the screen that's better or more "effective" than real life.
It seems that the more media we are exposed to, the less we are able to focus on a single item/task for an extended period of time. Do you think that giving children access to TV/video games etc. during the "critical period" of brain development affects their ability to focus for the rest of their lives? i.e. Do you think our current generation of 10 year-olds will grow up to be dysfunctional adults?
In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates is concerned that written texts will assume dominance over speech. His fear was that texts lacked the ability to interact with readers. Thus stressing the importance of human interaction in the communication of ideas.
TV, books and other forms of media can only do so much.
Noel Lopez,
Arlington, Va