Seriously. It feels like not a day goes by without a headline touting the ill-effects of kids' media use and screen time. And that's just for this week.
More Kids Sleep With TV, Study Finds (Wall Street Journal)
Screen Time Higher Than Ever (New York Times)
Infants and iPads? It’s Not As Farfetched As You Might Think! (ABC News)
Kids Increasingly Staring at Glowing Screens, Study Finds (PBS NewsHour)
Trying to gauge the impact of growing up digital (Boston Globe)
Common Sense Media released a report this week, and the results are not surprising: Kids ages 0 - 8 spend an average of 1.44 hours watching TV or videos in a typical day. Forty-seven percent of babies (gasp!) watch TV too; up to two hours a day. And...(double, draw dropping gasp!!) kids have TVs in their bedrooms.
And here I sit, writing about all of this as my kids sit in front of the Disney Channel so I can write this blog post.
I'm not so shocked by the results of the study or the news media coverage, but by our collective obsession as a culture. Are we in denial? Clearly, the TVs and iPads and mobile devices are ON. And despite YEARS and YEARS of negative coverage when it comes to the ill effects of children's media consumption, we're not slowing down. Maybe it's the American Way. More, not less! Why should someone tell me what, where and when my kids can watch?
Meanwhile, apps abound. Good apps, too. And really excellent educational TV. It's all part of living in the modern age... or is it?
Thoughts?
