Attention Toddlers

The April issue of the journal Pediatrics has bad news for TV toddlers: You're being "rewired."

The story is covered today in multiple media outlets. I originally heard the story on NPR. I also read it on CNN.com. But the irony of linking to a TV site for a story about the evils of television was too much for me so I'm linking to The Washington Post version of the story instead:

Very young children who watch television face an increased risk of attention deficit problems by school age, a study has found, suggesting that TV might overstimulate and permanently "rewire" the developing brain.

The Washington Post article goes on to quote a researcher who says that "unrealistically fast-paced images typical of most TV programming may alter normal brain development."

These findings are not startling. In fact, one might wonder why it has taken so long to establish such conclusions. The content of most television shows is objectively bad (from both taste and value standpoints). Unanswered in the news accounts (but perhaps answered in the study) are the following questions.

• Do the findings apply only (or predominantly) to commercial programming?
  
• What role do commercials play (as distinct from the program itself)?
  
• Do "slow-paced" moving images engender the same effects?
  
• How are the effects of movie watching different from that of TV watching?
  
• Are home movies similarly detrimental?

I presume that "unrealistically fast-paced images" must refer to the quantity of edits that are typical of modern moving picture content, regardless of medium. If my supposition is correct, I wonder how much different a daily 2 hour Disney flick is from a daily dose of PBS Kids. And how different are either of those from the same quantity of normal network fare?

These are important questions to me and my toddlers. In our household we firmly believe, as Aimee is fond of saying, that "TV is the Devil." As a result we watch very little television. (For me, even less lately. With the dual distractions of blog reading and LSAT studying, my personal TV time since November is probably less than an hour a week.)

And yet, despite our best efforts, the TV does get clicked on for the kids -- Jonathan, really -- more often than I would like. He probably gets a Disney movie or a taped Nickelodeon show (Blues Clues, Little Bear, etc.) or an infusion of PBS Kids three or four times a week. It's very easy to rationalize even this minimal television viewing. As in: It's only a few hours a week...It's PBS (or taped) and therefore no commercials...It's "educational"...Just one program while I finish up this thing I've been working on...He's not feeling well today...It's too hot/cold outside.

I'll have to keep in mind those tiny little dendrites being "rewired" by The Devil the next time I try to use one of these rationalizations to make me feel better about clicking the On switch.