What is Digg?60 Comments
- sarazen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+31How do you get a baby to watch TV? None of my 4 kids gave a darn about TV until they were around 3 which I guess is a good thing, but I must admit there were those odd moments when I looked on at the kids of others sitting quietly in their strollers, or calmly watching TV. Meanwhile one of mine was throwing a telephone in the toilet, or catching and eating a live frog and I would find myself wistfully thinking if only....
- jollyllama, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Freaking babies. Aside from watching TV all day, they're also unemployed, crash at your place without paying rent, and drink all your breast milk.
- zydeco, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I've seen one year-olds totally zoned out on Baby Einstein. It happens. Hell, *I* get hypnotized by the little penguins going down the ramp, one after another after another after another....
- pixelbasic, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10As in most all things....moderation is key. And obviously with young ones content is king.
It's the people who use their TV as a pseudo babysitter at three hour intervals. - Oculus, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11“Kids who watched less than one hour of TV per day were twice as likely to go to college as those who watched three or more hours per day,”
Does anyone else think that basing the probability of going to college only on the amount of TV you watch as a child is absolutely ridiculous? Having parents that went to college, or that encourage you to go to college, geographical location, family income, etc., would not skew that number in the slightest, I'm sure. I hate stupid statistics which is what most of this article is filled with. - codegator, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Why that's ridiculous! I watch TV all the time and my attention span is ... er, what was I talking about?
- xerus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8...HOLY *****... what the hell happened to Fark?
- Lister169, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7"'Even watching more than an hour of TV per day had some adverse consequences, but three hours was much worse than one hour, and two was worse than one,' Jeffrey Johnson of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the New York State Psychiatric Institute said in a telephone interview."
Johnson went on to say, "Also, 1.5 hours is worse than 1 hour but not as bad as 2 hours and 1.25 hours is only a little worse than 1 hour while 10 hours a day is much, much worse than 1 hour a day but not nearly as bad as 15 hours a day which is only slightly better than 15.5 hours a day..." - jollyllama, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I mean, I'd assume they controlled for all those things. If not, then yeah, you've got a point. But I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that the researchers aren't complete idiots.
- rnwen2750, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@ pixel basic - What are the people who let their children watch tv for hours - you did not continue your sentence. :)
As a former babysitter and someone who grew up with a younger sister who was significantly younger than me, I can safely say that television is (as used in most American households) not a healthy thing. Yes, there are individuals that use television sparingly and read to their children at night, etc., but those people are not the norm. Much more often, parents plunk kids down in front of the tv at night instead of reading to them, playing games with them, or going outdoors for some exercise. I find that very sad on many levels.
One reason that I find that sad is because the kids who watch tv everyday are (in my experience) more flighty, less intelligent, and more prone to bad behavior. Mom and dad use the television as a reward and as a treatment for anything bad going on in the child's life instead of using television as a tool to augment the child's development.
Now, I am not saying that every second of a child's life should be taken up by reading with mom and dad or other "mental" activities, but some people seriously need to put the remote down and educate their children with media that is proven to augment their learning.
That being said, I did watch "Reading Rainbow" as a child (we only had PBS) and I loved it. But then my mom started making dinner during the time it came on and I was more interested in "helping" in the kitchen than in the show. - Borfo, on 10/12/2007, -6/+9Um... Ron Paul was a baby once... Why don't they even mention that?
- rnwen2750, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3You have breast milk?
- N3tw0rk, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7"A study from the American Academy of Pediatrics shows that watching videos as a toddler may lead to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD, also called ADD in UK) in later life."
http://www.aap.org/advocacy/releases/tvapril.pdf
"The first 2 years of life are especially important in the growth and development of your child's brain. During this time, children need good, positive interaction with other children and adults. Too much television can negatively affect early brain development. This is especially true at younger ages, when learning to talk and play with others is so important. Until more research is done about the effects of TV on very young children, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) does not recommend television for children age 2 or younger. For older children, the Academy recommends no more than 1 to 2 hours per day of educational, nonviolent programs."
http://www.aap.org/family/tv1.htm - alpinweiss88, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7@sarazen...
Our daughter is 2, and she loves watching some shows on Noggin (but not all the time). One of the shows is Jack's Big Music Show, which is very musical...it is sort of a Muppet Show type thing. I like the Noggin channel, they run kids shows and no commercials. It is a huge difference when you flip over to Nickelodeon or a network channel with tons of commercials for crap. She also likes Sesame Street, which I think is a good thing.
We found the Baby Einstein DVDs were totally useless crap, but she loves the Signing Time DVDs. By the time she was 18 months, she knew at least 50 words in sign language! She was able to communicate with us before she could talk. It was really neat, and we think that it really helped to keep her frustration down. Now she is two, and even though she can talk, she still likes them and learning new signs. Sometimes she does kind of zone out watching them (not always a bad thing), but it is almost like she is soaking it in.
Like most other things, TV can either be bad or good for them. We are trying to take the approach of making it a good thing. I read the article in question, and it was a bunch of talking about nothing. There was no evidence or support for either side of the argument, it was just a bunch of blah blah blah. - 06eap, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Guitarwizard and Achalemoipas: As for ADD or ADHD not existing, you people are the reason there is still so much stigma about getting medicated. I am not saying we don't have a problem with over medication in this country, but I would hope you would agree that there are at least some people out there who don't function very well off of medication.
I grew up without being medicated. I did well in school minus behavior issues. I even graduated first in my high school class. In high school I got by on being smart but not reading the texts books. And, it wasn't as if my high school was easy either. And, off to college I went. It wasn't until I was two years in that I finally had enough of myself. My inability to read and take in material was frustrating beyond no end. I hated myself for not being able to remember to pay bills, for not being able to focus when I had to, for interrupting people, etc. I had learned compensating mechanisms. Writing lists, on paper and on my hands. Caffeine (a sort of self-medication). But, it was hard, especially when I was in an academic setting where it was very important to keep your brain focused.
So, I went and got medicated. Did I suddenly become the genius kid? Well, I already was... (jk) No. But, I was able to read the news and actually absorb what was going on in the world. I was able to focus in classes and actually make intelligent comments that didn't come out all garbled. Life became a lot easier. Every day was no longer a fight with myself.
The reason I didn't get medicated earlier was because I didn't want something to be wrong with me. I felt I would be labeled as 'stupid' and just cheating by being on a drug. I remember crying over my high school biology text book because I just couldn't understand it (because I couldn't take in the material enough to process it). My mom had tried many things when I was growing up: counselors who thought I had been sexually abused, psychiatrists (I actually was on meds for ADD for a few months, but refused to admit they worked), food diets (the thought being that foods were affecting my moods. At one point I felt all I was able to eat were rice cakes. My mom thought she noticed an improvement in my behavior, but it was probably because I was starving.)
I agree that more kids are medicated for ADD than probably need to be, but I also know that there are those out there who should be. I am not saying at a young age is the best time to do it because kids will be kids and are active and don't have long attention spans anyways. Just don't judge it saying it doesn't exist. It is people like you who make me embarrassed to tell people that I have it.
As for TV: We didn't watch TV when I was growing up. We had a small black and white in the kitchen. The babysitter was instructed to keep me away from it, but it had an allure to me. Could it be that the propensity to want to watch TV is a signal for ADD and not a cause? Again this study isn't taking one group of kids and forcing them to watch TV and taking another group and forbidding it. You know what? Now that I am medicated, I hate TV. I mean I will watch a show or two every now and then like normal people do, but being able to sit in front of it and zone out isn't possible anymore.
Maybe there is some other factor in our society that is causing a rise in ADD/ADHD. Or maybe it has always existed and it is only now that we have the power to medicate it.
Keep in mind that I am not advocating TV watching. - cb1982, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I'd like to swamp my Step-Mom with articles like this. I moved in with my Dad and Step-mother when I was 15 and at that time she was pregnant with my little brother. As soon as he could hold his head up on his own she'd prop him up in front of my Dad's 42" TV and there he would stay until he pooped or needed to eat. He is currently 8 and he's always had disciplinary problems in school, low grades, etc. because he doesn't know how to interact with anything that doesn't have a bright flashy screen or come with a remote control. She took him to 2 dif. Dr.s to see if he had ADD and the two Dr.s said no - that he just needed to get out more and socialize in situations that didn't include watching TV, and maybe his attention span and behavior might improve. When she couldn't get the answer she wanted she took him to a third Dr. who of course diagnosed him with ADD and now he is medicated (For no good damn reason) and only improving slightly. It just erks me to know she's repeating the same old mistake with the 2 kids she has had since him. When will parents start taking responsibility for their mistakes instead on blaming their kids poor behavior on scape-goat diseases like ADD and ADHD? I am certain there is a handful of legitimate cases out there but I bet 75% of them are just excuses for bad parenting. RANT OVER
- jollyllama, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3superdupergc:
As someone who's done a fair amount of quantitative social science work, I can tell you that while yes, there is a lot to control for, there are lots of good techniques to isolate variables. Actually, I'd say that isolating the effects of individual phenomenon is about 90% of the quantitative work for this kind of thing (not including data gathering, which probably just consisted of watching lots of episodes of BSG with babies. BTW, babies are pansies and cry when Adama gives an emotional speech). - altidude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Dude, are you sure you're not the one who watched too much TV?
- rnwen2750, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Compounding variables can be minimized by increasing the sample size. Using statistics, researchers can calculate the precise number of participants/people surveyed needed in order to isolate a particular segment of a research study.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Guitarwizard and Achalemoipas: As for ADD or ADHD not existing, you people are the reason there is still so much stigma about getting medicated. I am not saying we don't have a problem with over medication in this country, but I would hope you would agree that there are at least some people out there who don't function very well off of medication."
People keep digging me down but oh well. I'm going to speak my mind.
See, you're talking about over medication -- and thus re-enforcing my point. And we're talking in specific about ADD here. My father is an MD -- obviously there is a time and place for medication, but he and I both feel that most kids with "ADD" just need more attention or to be challenged.
Look at yourself talking about "zoning out" in front of the TV. This is not a productive behavior. And people still dugg me down for enforcing the arts and music over television, which is completely a passive experience. I even argued that I own an HDTV, and people still didn't get it.
Does anyone out there still read books and play music? Sheesh, go watch some TV, haters. - superdupergc, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3i doubt it... that's a lot to control for. i bet there is a correlation, but not a causation.
- tech42er, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1LOL. I doubt it's that strict a correlation though.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1By the way, I love your "you people" stereotype.
Judging so quickly, yet knowing nothing about me. Not to mention that I've had to use medication for depression -- a REAL CHEMICAL IMBALANCE.
ADD is still overhyped and overtreated. Pay attention to your child, don't set him in front of a talking box. - gypsi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2lazy parents, lazy kids. next.
- tech42er, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Or maybe it's overdiagnosed?
- dralter, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Jay Leno says the little couch potatoes are called Tatter Tots.
- tech42er, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1IS reading that "mental"? I spend every moment of every day reading.
- skurm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1grats on the keeper......
Do you you tell her how retarded she is or choose to only share it with everyone else? - Wacer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@altidude
I watch less than an hour a week. Who wants to watch a show to get bombarded with the same stupid commercials over and over. I am on the computer and I can hear my wife watching it in the background. I hear JG Wentworth, Countrywide loans, James Sokolovem, and Visa commercials over and over. Someone should take that Wentworth out and drop him off on a uninhabited island. - tech42er, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sorry, meant to digg you up. It's idiotic, even if they control for all other factors, to think that the amount of TV you watch has any lasting affect on your intelligence, let alone whether you get into college. Speaking of which, I'd assume the majority of people nowadays do go to college, so you'd be hard pressed to find those that didn't go.
- drjekelmrhyde, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I liked the fark title better but I still dugg your story
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=2789579 - madeingermany, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3You mean my kid won't grow up to be genius, when I show him Baby Einstein DVDs all day long?
And I really wanted to get my hands on those new Baby Gates and Baby Jobs DVDs! - altidude, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2You could always do what I do; take care of that business after the kid goes to bed. Get yourself in bed at about, oh, 2AM. Go to work wrecked the next day. Repeat for the next 4-5 years.
- rnwen2750, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wow, he's not getting any tonight. On another note, you could get a TiVo and then neither of you would have to listen to the commercials.
- jordan1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2you sleep with your baby? sick bastard!
- Wacer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@skurm
I tell her but she doesn't care. She said that addiction of TV is genetic because her dad is as well. Lol - ajkrik, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1My wife says it's as close to a FFM three-way I'll ever get! Breaks my heart. (hey, wait, I never actually said we slept together. Sick bastard.)
- BigJuiceMan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2And THAT is why I bought a 50" plasma TV right before our son was born! think of the children!!
- hagbard72, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1TV is no problem in our house, we don't have one.
- Lister169, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1The article should have been titled: Television Cooks Tater Tots
- rollem, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3The sources for the article readily admit that there is a lack of evidence concerning young children watching television. There is strong evidence, however, that children over 8 shouldn't watch more than an hour or two of television a night. I thought this article would have more to say about the negative physical effects that too much television may have. Speaking of which, I've been in this cinderblock hell for too many hours... free me!
- Wacer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Television for children is bad. In the US where the obesity if getting so out of control that some families are raising a herd of baby elephants. They need to go to the park, interact with society, ride a trike, splash around in water and mud. Putting them in front of a boob-tube might help them mentally to a degree with good programming but at the price of everything else.
My wife grew up watching TV and she is too retarded (trained) to not read books, study, get hobbies, ride bike. She sits in front of the idiot box and doesn't have a clue on how anything works in the world. There is enough stupid people in this world, we don't need to generate more of them. - skyfire1, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2But Mom said obesity is in my genes!
- menichols, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Please.
Babies have enough stuff to deal with - diaper changes, teething, etc. Why can't we just let them off the hook this one time? They're going to get in enough ***** for being lazy in their teens, anyway. - rnwen2750, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@ GuitarWizard - I would agree that ADD is overdiagnosed and overmedicated (at least in the US), but there are real kids out there with real problems associated with this disorder. I have worked with them and they are not lazy, or strung out on hash, or dumb - they are intelligent, keen-witted people who just have a hard time keeping focused.
- laiyinkoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The Shichida Method for Kids age 0-6. A revolutionary Right-brain Early Education system founded by Prof Makoto Shichida of Japan. Ideas for games and activities to play at home with your child to stimulate natural right-brain abilities such as perfect pitch, ESP, photo memory, speeding reading, arithmetic, etc. Forum and free teaching materials at http://www.shichidaparents.com/rc/index.html
- 1jaxstate1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1LOL@getting a 3 month old to watch TV. The person says that it leads to ADHD must not have a child. At 3 months old, a child doesn't really pay attention to anything more that 30 seconds.
- ajkrik, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1My 2 year old didn't watch TV (vids and dvds) until she was about 22 months. I'd just had enough of 14 hour Daddy as entertainment stuff. She speaks very well now, understands complexity and runs around most time the TV is on. I see her maybe every 45 minutes standing by the couch focusing on something that's going on. She NEVER plops down on the couch like a "couch potato". We select the DVD's she watches and other than that she watches PBS.
The American Association of Pediatricians is the same group that says "never sleep with your baby." Give me a break!
More culture of fear promoted by the media. - Gazpacho, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2My nephew isn't even a year old yet and he will stare intently at the TV as long as it is on. Poor little fellow is probably going to be an only child, and that may be his main source of entertainment. When I was a kid I watched a lot of TV since I wasn't allowed to have friends over and the neighborhood was too dangerous to go play outside without someone keeping a close eye on me. Look at me now, I'm drinking a diet cola, eating Teddy Grahams, and posting on Digg. :/
- Dross, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Kids brains are still developing and growing (obivously) if you put a kid in front of a TV you are telling the developing brain that this IS important and that this IS their environment.
The brain adapts and grows to process this kind of visual data more efficiently (when watching a lot of TV). Notice how kids' TV jerks and changes images quickly? Marketing studies showed this grabs the kids attention and holds it, frankly it makes me ill when I watch kids TV. Bugs Bunny they are not.
Now you can put a kid in front of a TV or interact with them both physically and mentally either way you are doing some hard coded bootstrap programing. Learning to process TV images is not generally considered a good thing, although given this crowd it is debatable.
Our two children don't watch TV, period. My wife who has a EdD in early childhood education won't allow it.
And these kids are doing extremely well. (My wife says so!).
My oldest daughter was raised on the classic cartoons, bugs, dafty, etc. And she got an 800 on her math SAT. So go figure. -
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