My wife and I chose to adopt a "no screen time" policy for our child, who is presently 7 months old. Here are my observations so far:
1. At a restaurant with TVs, we've observed our child go from laughing and socially engaged, to completed zoned out and unaware of people in mere seconds, just because the television appeared in his field of view. :-(
2. At less than three months of age, he had a fit when pulled away from the television, under the watch of in-laws.
3. Both parents have iPhones, Macbooks, and have a tendency to flop in front of the TV (Roku, Hulu, Daily Show) in the evening. Our no screen time policy prevents us from gazing into our own screens without paying attention to the needs of our son.
4. Finally, most advertising is obnoxious and has no place in my home. Why expose our infant to it? He'll have the rest of his life to be accosted by ads.
My wife and I have found similar results as an experiment with three of our children (yes, experiment) progressively allowing more screen time per child at a younger age. We have found that attention span alone is inversely proportional to the amount of screen time allowed.
We now limit to just 1/2 hour per day per child in a family of iphones, ipads, itv, laptops, kindle, etc.
As a result, our oldest who collectively has as much screen time as our youngest is into reading/writing, drawing and someday soon I intend to get her writing some code. Of course, your millage may very, and I'm not quick to judge others when it comes to parenting. Not an easy task.
While I completely agree with you, the one thing I question about the restaurant tv example is, does the child zone into the tv because it is something they rarely experience and provides changing imagery that catches their eye?
Again, I don't disagree with the overall point, I just wonder if their interest that you are experiencing is due to the intrigue of something new and not necessary zoning out just because it is a tv.
I have the same experience. Even if the TV seems to be tuned to an "ads-only" channel, or some sporting event that holds utterly no interest to me, it captures my attention repeatedly.
It's like the visual equivalent of a mosquito buzzing by my ear; not at all desirable, but extremely difficult to tune out.
>"Finally, most advertising is obnoxious and has no place in my home. Why expose our infant to it? He'll have the rest of his life to be accosted by ads."
Advertising for products used by children has changed dramatically over the past few decades. Juliet Schor's book Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture documents the change and the strategies used.
It is one of the most influential books about raising children I read.
I have older kids. When we switched from regular TV to DVR, Netflix and iTunes (eg when we stopped watching commercials), their desire for inane stuff dropped significantly.
That alone makes paying for a series on iTunes worth it for me.
Can you summarise the interesting points rather than sending us all off to read a whole book to find out how advertising has changed over the past few decades?
I agree, at that age any observation is purely conjectural. In my case, with less than four months of age my daughter would have a fit for nearly anything including us just trying to move or acomodate her position to get more confortable.
At that age they are just passively interacting with the world, so it would really make no difference it they stare at the TV, a mobile toy or the parents interacting with each other. Whichever is most colorful or resambles a face is more likely to attract attention. It's only after three months or so that you can say that the baby can somewhat interact with anything.
1. At a restaurant with TVs, we've observed our child go from laughing and socially engaged, to completed zoned out and unaware of people in mere seconds, just because the television appeared in his field of view. :-(
2. At less than three months of age, he had a fit when pulled away from the television, under the watch of in-laws.
3. Both parents have iPhones, Macbooks, and have a tendency to flop in front of the TV (Roku, Hulu, Daily Show) in the evening. Our no screen time policy prevents us from gazing into our own screens without paying attention to the needs of our son.
4. Finally, most advertising is obnoxious and has no place in my home. Why expose our infant to it? He'll have the rest of his life to be accosted by ads.