Children watching TV – “Good”, “Bad”, or “It depends”?

Children watching TV – “Good”, “Bad”, or “It depends”?

The debate on positives and negatives - mostly the latter - about television watching by children less than five years old has been going on for a long time. Should young children watch any TV at all? How much TV watching is ok for kids? These are common discussion topics.
• The American Association of Pediatrics says children under 2 shouldn't watch TV at all, and that older kids should watch no more than two hours a day.
• But a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that 68 percent of American children under the age of 2 watch TV or videos daily.
• Literacy Trust of UK publishes research findings on pros and cons of TV watching habits among children.
Most of the time, we parents hear about these studies and guidelines from popular press articles like these:
• Children's progress 'hit by TV'
(But the 2-5 group may benefit from educational TV)
• TV 'may stunt toddlers' learning'
(Less than half hour of TV for three year olds recommended)
• Good news, bad news for tube-watching tots
(Content is the key)
• Television and ADHD
(Link between TV watching and lack of focus)

What is our take on this topic?

First, two observations:
• Like most social science research, there are far too many challenges in these studies. It is too difficult to isolate multiple factors. Hence, academic studies give us useful nuggets but can’t really be treated as conclusive.
• Parent’s common sense, keeping an open mind and learning by observing what works and what doesn’t with their own children – these are as powerful tools as ever to answer such questions. In our opinion, these are as important as academic research, if not more.

Second, for the 2-5 years age group, based on our own experience and common sense, this is what we have to say:
• Bad part of too much TV watching is that it is a passive activity. It can takes time away from being physically active. So important to watch out for this effect, particularly if the child is tends to be not so active or shows early signs of obesity. We promote the ad council awareness program on childhood obesity through fun video ads like this (and more). See also our previous post on childhood obesity dangers.
• Another bad aspect of too much TV is potentially time taken away from social interaction. Hence, this is particularly important for children not having a regular outlet for interaction with other children – in child care or playgroup settings, for example.
• Children, left to themselves, get bored watching TV beyond a point and switch to doing something else – playing with real toys, for example. When you see that happening naturally and within reasonable time, there should be no reason to worry.
• “Interest and Stimulation work better than Rules, Discipline or Fear”. If you want to distract your child away from TV, it is a good idea to come up with something more interesting to do at that time.
• Do you take time to be with your child when your child watches TV? This is so important. This is the only way you can figure out what works and what doesn’t for your child.
• Children’s TV programs are often more about fantasy than reality. But that is not a bad thing. Imagination is their strongest asset. As Albert Einstein said – “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Einstein was famous for his thought experiments.
• Imagination is also one of the best tools of building knowledge. As children didn’t we learn most of our early vocabulary and concepts in the course of listening to stories or playing games?
• TV watching can take time away from reading and impair literacy. However, choosing programs with text (e.g., subtitles or captions), blending the watching with occasional spelling questions can easily overcome this issue to some extent.
• Playing with computers is also a physically passive activity like TV watching. However, it also stimulates a child’s mind. There is some interactivity involved.
• It is a very good idea to blend something with TV watching to make it slightly more interactive. Questions and answers about the content during TV watching is a great fun exercise for parents to see how a child’s mind works.
• Finally, DVR is a great tool. If you find really compelling content that fires your child’s imagination and has good learning content, program it for repeat watching. We find it a great learning device.

Here are a few questions to social scientists (and to all of us).
Could it be that the one or more of the following are the real problems?
• Parents don’t have time or interest to be with children when they watch TV.
• Adult habits of TV watching (quantity, quality and compulsiveness) in the household.
• The quality of content and the TV watching environment – over which parents are not exercising control.
• Where we find link between children’s excessive TV watching and subsequent lag in reading, there is also a link between excessive adult TV watching and lack of interest in reading or books in the household.

We admit that we are much less sure about the applicability our common sense approach for children less than two years old. We would like to refer our readers to these interesting books in doodledays book corner that discuss this topic further.

Bottom-line: In our opinion, the answer is “It depends”.
Imagination, Imitation, Involvement, Repetition, Recognition – are the key elements of childhood learning. Judicious use of all media – including TV, Video, DVR, Computers – can play a role in this.