The Influence of Television on Babies

Gone are the days when the normal routine of babies and toddlers were limited to napping , eating , babbling and playing with toys . A recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that in a typical day , a whopping 61 of babies aged one year or younger watch screen media consisting of TV , computer and videos with an estimated 43 of children under the age of two watching TV everyday (Glaser , par . 1

Nearly a decade since the American Academy of Pediatrics declared a moratorium on screen time for children ages two and below

, the overwhelming statistics show otherwise . Add to this the increasing demand for electronic media as a means for parents to manage busy schedules , keep the peace , and facilitate family routines such as eating , relaxing , and falling asleep ( HYPERLINK "http /www .kff .org www .kff .org , par .1 ' With a demand like this as their ally , marketers of baby media are more than happy to pitch their products as beneficial to a baby 's development . For long-time media players such as Walt Disney Co . and Sesame Workshop to newcomers BabyFirstTV and BabyTV , tapping into the diaper demographic has remarkably racked up sales by millions of dollars more . This epidemic has spread far and wide , even taking other forms like Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby videos and games widely accessible and affordable hence fueling this demand . But who can blame them ? To date , there still has been no conclusive study made on the influence of television viewing on babies . In Shin 's article , she quotes a pediatric researcher from the University of Washington who said that we 're in the midst of a huge experiment on the next generation of children , we don 't know the effects and we 're letting them watch (Shin D01

The debut of Sesame Street in 1969 has established the belief that television can be an educational medium for toddlers two years and above . However , children falling under the said age bracket have been found to be increasing in number . With claims of stimulating cognitive development ' backed up by child development principles and feedback from child psychologists (Shin D01 ' parents of babies have often turned to television as a reliable source of stimulation ' for their children . The statistics showing that spending more time on television than interacting with parents is the springboard from which some research claims to link TV viewing to diss such as ADHD , autism , communication deficits and later obesity ( HYPERLINK "http /www .askbaby .com " www .askbaby .com , par . 1 ' These , however are merely speculations that parents can take precautions against until further conclusive studies have been established to prove otherwise Another research on the effects of television exposure to infants has been explored by Tufts University . A leading specialist in children 's nonverbal communication , Donna Mumme , along with Anne Fernald of Stanford University have found that 12-month-olds are able to draw implications for their own actions by observing televised emotional reactions of another person toward a particular object , such as a...