A recent study found that children ages 2 to 5 average more than 32 hours of screen time a week.
32 hours... That's nearly an entire 40 hour work.
Is it just me or does that seem like a ton of time?
Please don't get me wrong, my little guy watches TV. Without the help of the Little Einsteins and their red rocket ship, I'm not sure dinner would get cooked most nights.
I am thankful that he will sit still for a half hour if I put on a show. I have figured what I can accomplish in a half hour block of time almost to the minute.
And, if I'm being honest, there have been days when he has watched way too much TV (like when I couldn't get my head out of the toilet last summer during my first trimester).
I totally understand that sometimes you just do the best you can.
But doesn't averaging over four hours a day seem a bit extreme? That is a huge chuck of their lives.
The article also says that kids age 6 to 11 average 28 hours of screen time a week. I find that pretty darn impressive considering that they are probably in school.
When are they going outside, reading a book, playing with friends, or coloring? When are they playing pretend or learning how to become adults?
The scariest thought of all is this quote the director of a director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood:
"Once you start hooking babies on media, it's harder to limit it. If we start children early in life on a steady diet of screen time and electronic toys, they don't develop the resources to generate their own amusement, so they become dependent on screens."
It seems like we're doing these little bodies and mind a great disservice if we put them in front of a screen all the time.
I honestly hope it comes out that the study was flawed in some way and that the numbers aren't accurate.
I'm also inspired to make sure we keep the boob tube turned off a little more.
21 comments:
I saw that too and I was absolutely shocked! I really shouldn't be surprised, but yet I was.
Such a good point. So many times the TV is used as a babysitter. Trust me, I've pacified my kids with TV before while I accomplish something. Not proud of it, but it happens.
I have to admit to actually see the number is very sobering. But I can totally see how and they came up this number. My kids watch a lot of time, way too much at time.
I need to limit their time but what else am I suppose to do with them?
My parent's tv was broken for a couple of years when I was young. I don't recall feeling particularly hard done by, either. I will confess, tough, that when they got it fixed, when i was ten, I watched a boatload of stupid shows night after night for a while.
Whether you like it , or realize it- the world, and how it communicates is changing.. How kids, and what kids learn is radically different from how and what we learned.. I dislike the detachment from actual physical participation in a task.. but our technical society requires less of than that ever in the history of Humankind. It is up to the parent to keep the child grounded in a real world, learning skills that may be needed again someday..
We don't have television in our home. We don't miss it one bit. We are active with exercise and we actually talk to each other every single day.
Have a terrific day. :)
It is a scary number. Yet, I think it's all too common that kids are spending so much time in front of the tv. (and computer)
While I agree, times are a-changing and they do learn and experience technology very differently from "back in the day", but at the same time, the world is still a physical place, people still have to go to school and work and have relationships and eat and drink and have a life.
I'm not immune - my kids watch tv. But I do make efforts to get them engaged in other things, too. Something I always have to remain conscious of.
My kids watch a ton of TV. Probably equal to or more than 32 hours a week-but I don't feel a single drop of guilt over it. They watch 100% educational programming, and they spend just as many hours running around and playing since they're homeschooled. I don't think that it's the quantity that matters-in my opinion it's the quality of the programming and what the parents do with the REST of their child(ren)'s time that is going to determine if TV watching is detrimental to children.
My kids are just fine. My 20 month old can speak almost 100 words and phrases. My 5 year old can name and draw all of the major bones in the body, speak more than 30 phrases in Mandarin, and give examples of adverbs-many many of these ideas were introduced via TV and only later cemented by me. TV can be a tool, if used properly.
I also agree with the previous poster in that the world is a lot more technology oriented today than it was even when I was a kid. To not allow children to interact with electronics or media would be putting them at a disadvantage in the future.
I agree about kids not learning to entertain themselves when they have too much screen time. At the age my boys are many of their friends are addicted to video games. We don't have an XBox or any of that because it's enough work to limit TV & computer without one more thing to limit.
I'm shocked sometimes when they have friends over who think that there's "nothing to do" when they hear that we don't have video games. It's almost like my kids have to coax them into believing that it will be fun to take out the bikes or play ball.
Thinks have definitely changed since I was a kid when there were no video games and only a handful of shows for kids. You couldn't get addicted when there was only about 10 hours of children's programming per week.
I'm guilty of letting my little one watch too much TV and I feel completely guilty over it. I have made a huge effort to cut back ever since I read something similar to that study that you read. What I read was the same in the sense that children don't learn how to use their imaginations if they are always watching TV. Makes sense and it horrified me at the same time, what could be worse than a kid without a good imagination?! Well, I suppose there actually could be worse but it is pretty bad and what made me wake up and shut the TV off more often. The good thing is that even when it's on she is playing in another room with her toys and not even watching it.
OK, so I just did the math on my almost four-year-old's TV time and...well, let's just say I'm not proud. He's not watching more than a day a week, but still - I'm not proud.
I will say, though, that he only watches shows on PBS (and that's why it can be hard to decide when to turn the TV off sometimes - it's easy to see the value in each show that comes on) and the occasional DVD. We don't have cable, by choice, because during the one period of time we did have it, we all watched WAY too much TV.
For my older kids (11 and 9), I developed a token system - they each have four video game tokens and six computer tokens, each one good for 30 minutes of play. The interesting thing is that since implementing this system, they spend WAY less time doing both - they're so afraid of using up their tokens too early in the week that they save them, and NEVER use them up! It works for us.
I think we are all aware of this excessive time spent in front of the TV but don't have good ideas about how to change it. Probably because mom and dad are right there with them timewise.
That's a shocking saddening statistic, yes. And childrens' brains do not develop the correct pathways they should with such passive inactivity.
I've certainly let my kid watch too much tv on occasion, especially towards the end of summer. It takes a lot of work to keep them occupied with productive things but it's sure benefcial to limit screen time for kids.
But I'm all growed up and quite happy with my screen addiction. :)
Wow, shocking statistic. For me it's a constant job to keep my girl doing non-screen activities but I know it's worth it. She does get an hour a day so I think that's okay now that she's eight.
I guess I don't view the TV as a bad thing.
Ours is always on.
Not always on children's shows though. The kids probably get to watch at least 2 hours a day. Sometimes more if I have a headache. Most of the time the TV is on CNN or one of my programs though.
this is why there is such a high rate of childhood obesity. I use tv too sometimes but I do limit it.
Me, too!
I just wanted to comment again and say that although my children appear to watch more TV than anyone else's here they are neither obese nor lacking imagination. Our oldest is by far and away the most creative and expressive child I have ever met, and all of my children actually lean so far to the thin side that we have to actively work to fatten them up.
I wanted to point out that TV watching alone can't reasonably be blamed for obese, unimaginative children. It's easy to blame TV for what ails children, after all the 'experts' do it, but the truth is that their PARENTS are the most important factor in their lives.
The TV doesn't decide whether to feed them chicken nuggets or spinach salads, whether or not to read to them, whether or not to spend time on the floor with the kids engaged in active imaginative play-it's just a box of wires. It can't do anything the parents don't let it.
I'm pretty liberal about TV, and to be honest, I sometimes wish I could get my kids to watch MORE. My kids are just not the type to sit still in front of the TV for hours at a time. It seems the TV is always on, but very rarely are they sitting in front of it, transfixed. They want to MOVE constantly!
Yes ... that strikes me as way way way too much time. I know so many parents who keep the TV on ALL DAY LONG so I wonder if they are counting stuff like that. I worked hard to make sure my son didn't watch too much TV and I've succeeded ... he doesn't. But sometimes, when I need a break, I wish he did.
I have heard these statistics, but sometimes I have a hard time believing them. Especially with the toddlers. What toddlers have that kind of attention span? Just kidding...though I didn't appreciate it at the time, but my kids just didn't WANT to spend that much time occupied with the TV. They would have much rather have been bothering me, I mean loving on me, than watching TV. Maybe they aren't as smart as regular kids. I just thought of that...
A lot of 'people' who throw out statistics have an agenda. I'm just saying. BUT I definitely don't want to imply that I think TV babysitting for hours on end is good for a child in anyway. Wow, I'm soapboxing today; as you can tell as you read all my catch up posts! I don't mean to come off all know it all. You just get me to thinking...;)
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