Study: Kids Under 3 Should Be Banned From Watching TV

An anonymous reader sends this quote from The Guardian: "Doctors and government health officials should set limits, as they do for alcohol, on the amount of time children spend watching screens – and under-threes should be kept away from the television altogether, according to a paper in an influential medical journal published on Tuesday. A review of the evidence in the Archives Of Disease in Childhood says children's obsession with TV, computers and screen games is causing developmental damage as well as long-term physical harm. Doctors at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, which co-owns the journal with the British Medical Journal group, say they are concerned."

Comments

First sentence is a doozy.

[Guano_Jim]

Doctors and government health officials should set limits, as they do for alcohol on the amount of time children spend watching screens

I agree totally. Three-year-olds get really belligerent after a beer or two.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

try a light beer, I find my three year old actually prefers it.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm Freddie, 30 and my mom sets limits on how much beer I can drink. No reason why the gub'mint should do that.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Mine usually just fall asleep.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[wierd_w]

A comma, a comma, my kingdom for a comma!

(Sentence makes perfect sense after properly escaping the dependent clause.)

Doctors and government health officials should set limits, as they do for alcohol, on the amount of time children spend watching screens.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[cybernanga]

Children under 13 should be banned from pubic schools.

Indeed!

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Dishevel]

Seriously though.
Government should stay the fuck out of it.
Parents should raise their children. Maybe if we did not make it free to have kids by picking up the tab for them the less responsible people would have less of them.
If they want to have the TV babysit their kids they get the kids they raise.
Give it another 30 years and Government will just take the children after birth and raise them. Can not leave it to parents to raise their own children.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[notsoanonymouscoward]

In other news, guy with no qualifications makes unqualified statements...

But the issue is controversial and his opinions and standing are questioned by Dorothy Bishop, professor of developmental neuropsychology at Oxford University who says that although this is an important topic, Sigman's paper is not "an impartial expert review of evidence for effects on health and child development". "Aric Sigman does not appear to have any academic or clinical position, or to have done any original research on this topic," she said. "His comments about impact of screen time on brain development and empathy seem speculative in my opinion, and the arguments that he makes could equally well be used to conclude that children should not read books."

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[ShakaUVM]

Actually, it still implies doctors are setting limits on alcohol for children. =)

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

Give him a break, he's a shitfaced 2 year old.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Radtastic]

Seriously though. If they want to have the TV babysit their kids they get the kids they raise.

Unfortunately, rights surrounding the raising of children can't be as simple as you think they are.

Everyone else 'gets the kids that you raised' when you do an in adequate job in preparing them for life. Certainly, not in every case, but you can probably link higher incidents of poverty, crime, teen pregnancy, and maybe a dozen more undesired outcomes of which a person's course in life was directed fairly early on in life because of poor parenting.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[wierd_w]

Yes, but it does so much more clearly!

How does the author of this article expect us to know that the pediatric doctors are properly setting the limits on television like they do for alcohol, if they don't properly punctuate their sentences!?

We might get the mistaken idea that they are regulating the placement of alcohol on top of televisions, or some similarly silly miscarriage of authority!

Clear and proper English is a necessity to proper communication!

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

the arguments that he makes could equally well be used to conclude that children should not read books.

Correct, Allah came to that conclusion years ago.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Belial6]

Sure, but the parenting that is recommended by the 'experts' is the bad parenting. Even the recommendation that children should have screen time is caused by the 'experts' making conclusions and then looking for evidence to support it. The reason that you see a correlation between poorly developed kids and large screen times isn't due to the screens. It is due to the child being exposed to an extremely limited set of information. You see this behavior across almost all demographics. The parents see that their kid likes a particular video and the parent puts the same program in over and over and over. It truly is a case of correlation instead of causation. It just so happens that TV is the witch that child development 'experts' obsess on hunting.

Having the government tell people the 'right' way to raise children is just throwing fuel on the fire.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[UnknownSoldier]

And your qualifications are where?
And your raised how many children?
And your results were independently certified by whom?

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[sidthegeek]

Agreed! They've got a lot to deal with!

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[R3d M3rcury]

But it well known that Dorothy Bishop is a tool of big screens.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Austerity Empowers]

That's true, but I don't know to what degree I want to support it. I am all for using the social good on provable facts. I don't feel that anything in the soft sciences should ever be used as justification for anything, nor do I consider their data to be proof of anything except that they wasted their education on false science. In short I don't trust that these doctors know what is good for kids when it doesn't involve broken bones and viruses.

We supervise our children carefully, and honestly Nick Jr., Sesame Street and many of the iPhone games out there have been the best form of education that I think can be offered to the 2-4yo crowd. Their tolerance for parenting is as minimal as a kid of any other age, but they will watch tv and they will keep messing with that phone until it stops working. If you can make sure the TV is playing something reasonable educational, you trick them in to learning. I'm not saying it doesn't also go along with OTHER good parenting steps (like reading to your child every night, or sitting down with him and trying to play, or basic interaction, etc.), but there's nothing evil about the boob tube itself. It's abandoning your child to the tube, not monitoring what is on it (or expecting that TV will conform to anyones idea of a social norm and play appropriate content for your child all the time) and general neglect that is bad for kids.

I'm fairly certain TV and video games have taught my oldest child how to read, write and do basic arithmetic before he turned 4, because I don't think anything my wife or I have tried to do had anything to do with it. When we play with him, it's boring. When he sees it on a video game (often with bouncing furry creatures), it's awesome. Minecraft was probably better than legos in encouraging him to come up with creative solutions to problems.

The government can just stay the hell out of my home, if I want a doctor's opinion I will seek it.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[rubycodez]

no problem, a few hits on the bong will chill them out

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, that's right, the irresponsible will pull their socks up and take responsibility for their children because they are now in even more poverty.
OR back on planet Earth:
You will get yet more kids raised in utter poverty, leading to lowered IQ through nutritional deficiency, leading to less education and opportunity, leading to lower paid jobs if any at all.

Pair this with the resentment have-nots develop when surrounded by haves, and bombarded with advertisements for things they cannot afford, and the obvious recourse is to prey on their fellow humans to fulfill their needs, real and perceived. Remember the lowered IQ.

The only thing wrong with the "Stop assisting them and they'll do it themselves" argument is that it ignores completely ignores the fact that if they could do it themselves they would. People really aren't enamored with poverty.
The path out of generational poverty is long and slow and requires positive assistance, and may never have a 100% success rate.

Only the confirmed heartless conservative with their head jammed up their arse thinks that forcing more children into poverty and suffering is a good thing.
This is what happens when ideology trumps humanity.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[chrismcb]

..., but you can probably link higher incidents of poverty, crime, teen pregnancy, and maybe a dozen more undesired outcomes of which a person's course in life was directed fairly early on in life because of poor parenting.

Sure, that may be true. But even if there is a law that is passed that limits how much tv a child can watch. There will STILL be poor parenting that will lead to those higher incidents.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[AK Marc]

Their tolerance for parenting is as minimal as a kid of any other age, but they will watch tv and they will keep messing with that phone until it stops working. If you can make sure the TV is playing something reasonable educational, you trick them in to learning.

The problem with these proclamations is that there is no allowance for things in moderation. It's also easier to measure screen time than book time. And, the researchers are all humans, and we are biased to prefer the way we were raised or are raising our children.

If 22 hours a day in front of a TV is bad, and 0 hours a day in front of a TV is better, that in no way indicates the interpolation of 1 hour a day is worse than 0 or that 2 hours a day is worse than 1 and better than 3. It may be that there is some number in the middle that's best, and the edge cases are both bad, even if one is worse than the other.

Or, as others have hinted at but not stated overtly, perhaps it is that TV time negatively correlates with book time. Parents that give their children 8 hours a day of TV give less book time than those who ban children from TV until 18. And it's the book time that causes the measured outcomes, and if they figured out how to give 12 hours of book time and 8 hours of TV time a day, 8 hours a day would be irrelevant to their outcome.

But they aren't looking for a cause in a logical manner, but looking for things to get published and get funding for more study.

But for parenting, despite the people that whine about "you aren't their friend, you are their parent" you can more easily parent if you are their friend. I can get my 2 year old to do just about anything. He'll eat foods I ask him to, and he'll run when I say run, and stop when I say stop. And the best thing about reading to them is they learn to like reading, and that's the important thing.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Alien Being]

Did you mean "thought control" or was that just some dark sarcasm?

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[AK Marc]

And your raised how many children?

I find that to be false, useless and offensive. Before I had kids, I gave my sister advice on more than one occassion. She, like so many others gave the "you don't have children" response. Later, after I had a few of my own, she came back to me and asked if it was what I thought. "Of course it is" was my response. My advice, given as a childless 20-something was correct. It was correct when I was a 20-something with no children. It is correct when I am a 40-something parent. To dismiss good advice because you don't like the source seems absurd, but parents everywhere do it.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[MightyYar]

you can more easily parent if you are their friend. I can get my 2 year old to do just about anything. He'll eat foods I ask him to, and he'll run when I say run, and stop when I say stop.

I'd say you have the parent thing nailed, but you need to work on the "friend" thing! :)

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything's a matter of degrees. People just disagree on where the line in. It'd be hard to argue that shaking a baby is a parenting tactic and that government should stay out of it. What about telling you're kid he's a piece of shit, a mistake and you wish he hadn't been born. You just disagree with where the line should be drawn.

Once upon a time, things didn't sort themselves out so societies formed governments. Argue with what they say, not some inane drivel about gubmint.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[PopeRatzo]

Government should stay the fuck out of it.
Parents should raise their children. Maybe if we did not make it free to have kids by picking up the tab for them the less responsible people would have less of them

When you say "less responsible", I assume you mean "poor".

But see, it's not just poor parents who turn out to be shitty parents, and society pays the bill either way.

It's possible that if parents were doing their job, we wouldn't need government to try to do something it wasn't designed to do and raise their kids for them.

To be fair to parents, though, when mom and dad both have to work full time it doesn't leave a lot of time and energy for parenting. My friends in Finland who have a couple of kids both are allowed to have extensive time off to take care of the kids without losing their jobs or income. They work for private industry, but that society puts a higher priority on raising kids, I guess. They also have a lot less violent crime (all kinds of crime, actually) and, strangely, greater social mobility than the US.

Over the past 30 years, the erosion of the middle class has also meant the erosion of all sorts of social metrics. And the one statistic that has the greatest correlation to all those declining social standards is increasing income disparity. Greater inequality, past a certain point (which we passed in the 1980s) causes just about every single measurement of a society's health.

The problem is not the government. The fact that the government is becoming the family of last resort is just a symptom. The problem is we've got an economic elite that has decided to shit on the social contract, reflected mainly in a corporate ownership class who no longer feels any connection or responsibility to society, because their "global" status has unmoored them from any particular society. They are above all that now, having broken away from any community save the community of the elite. And the rest of society is just eating each other, young ones first.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[fruitbane]

Yeah, I think I can speak for all other rational human beings in demanding to see some evidence of those assertions.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you're afraid that all the teachers are in a conspiracy to brainwash the kids into some liberal agenda; as if that is what you would do if YOU were a teacher (and you probably could be, just go apply.....) yet you make no mention of religious schools, whose ACTUAL PURPOSE IS to brainwash kids........ got it.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Gripp]

Government should stay the fuck out of it.

This. Period. Why for the love of sanity would ANYONE be like "hey, you, mr gobment! Can you come dictate how we live our lives, pleeeeease?"

Yeah, no. Kids *should* be raised rather than babysat by the TV. Yes. But making laws that dictate things like this is a step in the wrong direction; for so many reasons. Instead what we ought to be asking for is new laws that limit the amount an employer can ask of employees. I personally like the Austrailian over-time laws, as a start. They allow for occasional OT without penalty to the company, but NOT constant life-sucking that is the modern "at least you have a job" motivator for increased margins - at the cost of increased unemployment rates, and your personal time. Then people might actually have the time to watch and spend with their kids. It's at least a step in that direction. Incentives for telecommuting would be ideal as well. There is little reason it isn't done more extensively. Mostly petty bickering and fear that employees wont actually work. But... how about you actually measure them based on performance?

I want to avoid going on a full blown tirade here. I've personally had several jobs that demanded 60+ hour weeks from its salaried staff, and acted as if it was not only normal, but anything less made you a slacker. Even if for only a week. And I'm maybe overly bitter about it. But my point is, there are many things like these that could be done to accomplish the desired effect (plus many other positives) without giving the government intimate control over our lives. How about we do them instead.. thanks.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

How about this. You get to raise your kid however you want, but if it goes around fucking up society later we get to euthanize it.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[AK Marc]

He does it because I'm his friend, not because I'm an overbearing authority figure.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

"What about telling you're kid..."

You should not have any children.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Belial6]

Of course, that is one of those fake requests for citation. It is like telling someone that if they don't like how the cars are designed that they should start their own car company, or if they don't like how their ISP is run that they should start their own ISP. Technically possible but in practice producing so large of a cost that no one is going to do it to prove their point on an internet forum.

Even if I pulled a bunch of links to show my point, you would pull a bunch to counter it. You would come up with more because the 'experts' have their canon. It is an industry filled by a self selecting group that act as an echo chamber for supporting their canon. They do studies, and then jump to conclusions with no explanation for how they got their conclusions from their data.

I on the other hand do explain how I come to my conclusions based on their data. Which part is it you think isn't rational? The part where I say that kids who have their information limited get stunted? The part where I say that parents play the same program over and over? The part where I say that playing the same program over and over is limiting the child's exposure to new information? The part where I say that this crosses demographics? Really. Which part do you think is irrational?

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[flyingsquid]

Doctors and government health officials should set limits, as they do for alcohol on the amount of time children spend watching screens

I agree totally. Three-year-olds get really belligerent after a beer or two.

Really? Mine usually asks the girl next door if she'd like to come over and play doctor. She always says no, then he gets moody and quietly stares into his sippy cup. After that, it's outside, and after a couple of laps around the yard in his Power Wheels, he usually ends up hitting the rhododendron.

I guess every kid is a bit different. But that's what makes being a parent so great!

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[sjames]

What government can do is fix the damned economy so that it doesn't require two parents working full time. Then the parents will have the time and energy to do a better job parenting.

As for government raising kids, if 'the system' found parents raising their kids the way kids 'in the system' are raised, they'd throw the parents in jail and take the kids away.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[jandersen]

Certainly, not in every case, but you can probably link higher incidents of poverty, crime, teen pregnancy, and maybe a dozen more undesired outcomes of which a person's course in life was directed fairly early on in life because of poor parenting.

Sadly, the problem here is poor parenting skills, and it is going to take more than legislation to sort that out. Personally, I think a number of important life skills should be taught in school - parenting being one, but also things like household management (cookery, basic cleaning, family economy etc). And since it actually is a problem, how to handle intoxication and recreational drugs use - it would be far better to approach this subject with a clear and open mind, rather than hushing it up and leaving it to shady characters like we do now.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Cytotoxic]

And your raised how many children?

I find that to be false, useless and offensive. Before I had kids, I gave my sister advice on more than one occassion. She, like so many others gave the "you don't have children" response. ... My advice, given as a childless 20-something was correct. ... To dismiss good advice because you don't like the source seems absurd, but parents everywhere do it.

As a 40-something parent I agree. But I will also add that being a parent teaches you quite a bit of humility and not to judge other parent's choices too quickly. Kids will teach you what they need - and every kid is different. Often very, very different. I have friends who don't put their 5 year old down until after 9. Seems to work for them. I wouldn't do that with my kids for anything - on the rare occasions they have to be up late we pay for it for 2-3 days afterwords. So depending on who's looking either our friends are crazy lax parents who are raising sleep-deprived kids or I'm a crazy-obsessive, overprotective parent who is too fixated on an early bedtime. And unless they were the ones raising the kids our putative observers would be opinionated idiots. Heck, all three of my kids are quite different in their needs, personalities and response to discipline. That's where the "you don't have kids" meme comes from. Every kid is different, and although there are plenty of general-case pieces of good advice, it isn't good advice until applied to the correct kid.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[AK Marc]

Yes, the children are little people, with unique personalities from birth. And the instant uniqueness is something that's hard to understand for a childless person who sees babies as generally universal (they all looked the same before my own, now they do look a little different), but having childcare experience and a psychology degree, I had some theories about people interactions that I generalized to children that I'd offer when appropriate, but it's like being an atheist in church. You may be right, but nobody wants to hear it. You have to have been baptized with your own children to be able to comment on others, even if your comments are true and useful.

It's not the advice that's the problem, it's that anyone, anywhere would dare question *your* ability to raise your own children. But that doesn't apply to generalities like the OP I was responding to. There's nothing that indicates a childless person can't speak intelligently on child rearing. Dr. Spock had no children and was one of the most popular child psychologists ever, like a Dr. Phil and Dr Oz all rolled into one. He was childless.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Xenna]

It's not an advice, it's an opinion.
Opinions are like... (etc.)

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[MightyYar]

I was trying to make a joke about how your idea of a friend is someone who is obedient... ah, well.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[serbanp]

he, he, the "terrible twos" is about to happen to your wonderful child. Some will catch it when they're 2 1/2 yo, but there is no way to avoid it. You'll see then how much the "friend" thing is worth...

Good luck!

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Red flags here:

- "Of course it is" - your opinion on how to raise children didn't change when you had actual experience of children - indeed, you seem to find this not only natural but something to be proud of - very worrying
- "correct" - your opinion that your advice is "correct" when advice cannot be correct, only better or worse
- "dismiss good advice" - your opinion that people knowingly reject good advice; in fact you can't tell if advice is good or bad without hindsight

You don't say if your sister later accepted that your advice was good, which is key. Right now it looks as if you gave her bad advice, and through stubbornness and a refusal to learn new things, are now following your own bad advice with your own children, having learned nothing.

*or* you may have studied child psychology at college and have genuine knowledge; you don't say, although that's kind of key too.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Poverty in the Western world doesn't exist because people aren't prepared for life; it exists because life is stacked in favour of the rich. We are perfectly rich enough as a nation to keep those who can't support themselves from poverty. We just choose not to, instead allowing a small proportion of individuals to annex large amounts of resources for their private use. Even if everyone was perfectly prepared for life, poverty would still exist under this regime.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[TapeCutter]

Clear and proper English is a necessity to proper communication!

Clear yes. Proper - not really. Both version are cromulent English, the meaning is so fucking obvious to a native speaker that my parser didn't even slow down and try to interpret the syntax differently.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[TapeCutter]

Maybe if we did not make it free to have kids by picking up the tab for them the less responsible people would have less of them.

This is insightful? Lemme guess, you and the moderator are not parents. You've both received some form of of targeted government assistance in the past but are too selfish to admit it for fear that someone else might get one or two crumbs more than you.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Alex Belits]

Right, but then the rich won't be able to blame everyone for supposedly being stupid.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[TheRaven64]

Or make you liable for it, not until some arbitrary age, but until it demonstrates the ability to be a functioning member of society.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, though, these "experts" should already have ruled out those assertions as possibilities before recommending policy changes. If they haven't done that, then one actually doesn't need evidence to dismiss their claims.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[xaxa]

Agreed! They've got a lot to deal with!

Strongbow's fine for kids, it's got fruit in it...

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[wierd_w]

This is a fallacy. Let me help you.

(Cue cheesy 1950s documentary music.)

Mr. And Mrs. Smith live in a quiet suburban neighborhood. Mr. Smith has a decent job. Nothing special, Bob Smith just runs a computerized screw press. Mrs. Smith stays at home, watching and caring for their lovely 3 year old daughter Tiffany.

As little Tiffany grew up, she started primary school, leaving Mrs. Smith with a great deal of unused time on her hands, and a rising food bill for their growing daughter.

One day, Mrs. Smith approached Mr. Smith about the prospects of taking on a part time job. She'd still be home in time to see their daughter Tiffany come home from school, and to ensure that all the domestic chores were done, and the family would get a little spending money they could use to go on a family vacation some time. Afterall, that's what the Jones family had done.

Little did Mr and Mrs smith realize, but as the amount of consumer buying power of the median household increases, so too does the cost of various consumer products, due to the intrinsic nature of the lw of supply and demand.

Here we see a simple graph, depicting the willingness to spend, intersecting the willingness of a merchant to sell.

As you can clearly see, that as Mr and Mrs smith's financial fortunes improve, their willingness to spend extra on products they routinely buy increases. The natural market reaction to this event, is the inevitable adjusted price offered by merchants.

Now, Mr. And Mrs. Smith are both required to work. Mr. Smith still works as a screw machine operator, and Mrs. Smith still works part time at the local nursing home. But, now that they are both working, the market has naturally taken advantage of their increased buying power. Now instead of Mrs. Smith working just to help improve their quaity of life, she has to work just to make sure the two of them can pay their bills each month.

Seeing that the two of them are still struggling financially due to increased costs of living, Mr Smith suggests that Mrs. Smith switch to a full time occupation...

Now, dear viewers.. where do you suppose this will lead?

In just 5 years time, Mr and Mrs smith will both be working full time jobs to purchase the same products they have always purchased, and which they were previously purchasing on only a single breadwinning paycheck just 10 years earlier.

Working a second job, or sending a spouse to work only improves your financial situation in the short term, unless the practice is significantly undesirable that the pactice does not become mainstream.

Market forces directly mirror, and correlate with the statistical mean of consumer spending and buying power. The very wealthy occupy only a very tiny section of the population distribution; see?

As such, the very wealthy never truly experience the dramatic decline in their buying power as a result of a financial practice becoming a mainstream idea. Their contribution to the greater statistical game is miniscule, compared to the market forces at work in the median income bracket.

As a result of Mr. And Mrs. Smith, and their neighbors, the Jones family, the Applebaum family across town, who were previously just barely getting by on Mr. Applebaum's miniscule pay as a waiter at a roadside cafe, are now deeply stricken with povery, as the prices of common and vital consumer goods quickly exceeds their ability to purchase.

What is a "thriving economy" you ask?

A thriving economy is one where products are highly available, and merchants feel a modest degree of surety that they will continue to make profits and growth of their business investments. As such, a "thriving economy" is one in which Mr and Mrs Smith, representatives of the majority of the median income bracket, have their income presicely balanced by a highly lucrative and market accepted pricing structure.

The attempts of Mr and Mrs Smith to climb the ladder of affluence has instead only shifted the status quo, plunging other families into poverty,

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[reboot246]

No, poverty is a choice. There's no shame in being poor, but it should be extremely shameful to stay poor. Opportunity is everywhere if you're not too lazy to grab it. The key is education, and anybody who wants to learn will find a way no matter their circumstances.

If you divided all the money in the country evenly amongst all the people, in a year or two you'd have rich people and poor people. That's human nature and nobody can change it.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Which part is it you think isn't rational? The part where I say that kids who have their information limited get stunted? The part where I say that parents play the same program over and over? The part where I say that playing the same program over and over is limiting the child's exposure to new information?

Yes, could elaborate on why you think kids get stunted by having their "information limited", and what you mean by "get stunted"?

It's known that long-term information overload (generally through bad habits like multitasking and constant channel surfing on TV/Youtube) leads to deficits in attention and working memory. Hence the phenomenon that hyperactivity and short attention spans are considered normal now.
Children, however, do actually like to re-watch the _same_ movies in full, and IMO it is healthier for their brains than constantly flipping through channels or videos.
That said, I would agree that TV input (for all humans, but especially children) should be restricted, perhaps to an hour or two per day.

However, we should separate the act of watching TV from the act of playing video games. These activities are often conflated, but they are very different.
It's been demonstrated in many contexts that playing video games IMPROVES intelligence in various facets. For the most part, executive function and working memory benefit, but other thinking skills too. For example, Tetris - perhaps counterintuitively - actually improves language skills, and in experiments has been associated with a measurable increase in the thickness of the brain's cortex.
Violent video games (i.e. first-person shooters) have been shown to improve visual perception and attention.

The thing to be careful of is that _excessive_ gameplay can lead to an overdeveloped reward centre and poorly developed inhibition pathways - the same type of configuration observed in the brains of drug addicts.
But then, too much of anything is a bad thing, right?

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[dywolf]

The "friend" proverb isnt an all or nothing statement. its simply a reminder that when push comes to shove, ie when a hard decision comes up, you have to remember that your responsibilities as a parent come first. a "friend" might look the other way when a kid sneaks something they shouldnt, a parent wont. you can be friends with your kids, just not to the extent that you lose your authority as the parent. that's all it means.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[dywolf]

your assumption is wrong.
less respsonsible means exactly what it says: people not capable of keeping their legs closed or using wrappers.
is there a correlation there? i dont know, you tell me. you seem to think there is, or that most people think there is.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[dywolf]

reading comprehension. you dont have it.

where does he imply his advice was ever bad? quite the opposite he says he is using his own advice, and it works.

why is it worrying that his stance didnt change? he didnt even say what specific advice he gave, but you are fronting the assumption that it doesnt matter, he didnt have kids, ergo he must have been wrong and it should have changed when he did have kids...and the fact it didnt is "worrying" .... but you know, he couldnt have just been right all along like he asserts.

your statement about correctness is simply illogical and wrong.

"dismiss good advice" comment..."you know Margie, you really should put those plastic covers over the unused outlets" ... good advice... no hindsight needed. and people knowingly reject good advice, all the time. part of being human.

raising kids is not the be all end all school of whats right and wrong about raising kids.
-believe it or not, rational logic holds true regardless of parental status.
-most of us tend to be very like one or both of our parents, and the natural inclination is to raise our kids the same way. but if you are honest with yourself, you can look back at your own arising, and determine what worked on you, and what didnt. what was right, and what didnt really work. and you even need kids to do it.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[RobertLTux]

"There's nothing that indicates a childless person can't speak intelligently on child rearing. Dr. Spock had no children and was one of the most popular child psychologists ever, like a Dr. Phil and Dr Oz all rolled into one. He was childless."

Most likely he was smart enough to give good advice and also smart enough to know that HE HIMSELF having children was not the "logical" thing to do. Some folks either forgo having kids or end up consulting with Dr Daniels late at night. Wanna bet he actually watched a bunch of kids in his time??

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

oh bullshit. you are full of bullshit.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

I on the other hand do explain how I come to my conclusions based on their data. Which part is it you think isn't rational? The part where I say that kids who have their information limited get stunted?

No, that's fine.

The part where I say that parents play the same program over and over?

Yes, explain how you got that. It's central to your argument. It also sounds a lot like the "making conclusions and then looking for evidence" you mentioned earlier.

The part where I say that playing the same program over and over is limiting the child's exposure to new information?

No, obvious.

The part where I say that this crosses demographics?

Yes. How do you know this?

Really. Which part do you think is irrational?

See above.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

And I have had multiple people come to me after they had become parents to tell me how wrong they were. So there's that.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a 2 year old. At that point they have not figured out much in life. They are working on it. They are just getting this speaking thing down. They sometimes have been recently trained to use the bathroom... Mom and Dad have superpowers of knowledge. Many kids arguments start of the sort 'my dad says xyz' 'well my dad says abc'...

Sounds like the gp has a decent kid that will listen. My friend had 4 kids. He raised them in the EXACT same way, he was very careful to do so. One was nice helpful and would listen to any authority figure. The second one. That was a handful. Willful, disobedient, and all around a brat. 3rd one is a nice simple kind of kid who bounce back and forth on listening and not. 4th one to early to tell yet. People are people and even from the same parents you can have totally different outcomes.

Kids are stupid (inexperienced is a better word). But they are also smart. They pick up on your behavior and mimic you. Treat them like people and they will warm up to you. Treat them like objects and they will react the same way an adult does, with disgust. They just do not know how to put it into words yet.

My family always say 'you are so good with kids'. Its because I treat them like people and not some weird foreign object. HOWEVER, being a 'friends' with them carries great risk. As you are an adult they see a way they can take advantage of you to get around their own parents rules. Some people are like that. Kids are no different. The gp is taking a very risky method to parenting. One that works very well when they are young (as people are usually looking for acceptance and kids are no different just inexperienced). When they get older and you need them to listen, they will not. You dont have to listen to your friends advice after all... I have seen many parents make the same mistakes many times. They then end up with a teenager (a very critical point in life) who does dumb things because 'mom and dad are stupid and dont care what i do'. You need to show that you *very* much care what they do.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Doctors and government health officials should set limits, as they do for alcohol on the amount of time children spend watching screens

I agree totally. Three-year-olds get really belligerent after a beer or two.

No alcohol OR tv for my kids until they turn three? Talk about three boring ass years! What am I supposed to do with them, play some stupid games?

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

That was highly interesting. Why isn't it +5?

As far as I can see, if the parent post is correct then this boils down to some variation of the tragedy of the commons.

Basically the optimal solution is for everyone to LOWER their wages, but in short term that's going to screw you over. Nobody wants to screw themselves over for other people, they want MORE money not LESS. So they improve their own situation and as a result those worse off are even worse off.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[jeffmeden]

It's widely criticized and demonized because all the women who started working didn't take "token" jobs that were created just to have an excuse to give them pay (as you imply) but instead they have an economic outcome and contribute to GDP. Care to take a run at that again with a "solution" that doesn't cripple the nation? Here's a hint, you got most of it right.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Luyseyal]

Tinky Winky: I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I choose Dos Equis.

/the most interesting toddler space alien in the galaxy

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Ash Vince]

The government can just stay the hell out of my home, if I want a doctor's opinion I will seek it.

In the US that is fine. Over here in the UK where the study pertains to though (you already have the guidelines they are calling for in the US incidentally) we have this thing called the NHS. It basically means that if your kid needs glasses before the age of 18 or after you retire then the government pays for them. So why shouldn't the government try and prevent you from needing glasses in later life by giving your parents some gentle advice, even though they didn't ask for it.

After all, if you really want to you can still ignore and just plonk your little sprog two inches in front of a TV all day and let them destroy their own sight through eye strain.

I have spent years doing 18 hour days in front of computer monitors and still have pretty good eyesight at nearly 40. I think a large part of that is thanks to some advice I got when I started getting chronic eye aches at 16 or so. I went to an ophthalmologists thinking I needed glasses and found out that I actually had spot on vision, but the pain was probably due to me not blinking as the refresh rate of monitors tricked your subconscious into thinking you had so didn't need to. This caused my eyes to dry out and seemed to be the root of my problem as the eye aches went away when I started consciously blinking regularly.

Even now we still give advice to adults about not staring at monitors all day without taking a break. Surely then it is even more important to give the same advice to children only being far more cautious since their eyes are still growing and developing.

On a similar note what about school? I believe it is mandatory for you to send your little sproglet to school still in the states? Should we just leave that up to the parents entirely as well even though a child getting to 16 and being unable to read and write is pretty much guaranteed to be a grade A fuckup who can't earn a living and will therefore cost society a fortune in prison fees (prisons are expensive btw)? Here in the UK you children will be taken into care and brought up by the state unless you can prove that they are being educated, either by a school or a private tutor of some kind and are keeping pace their peers.

The reality is that when it comes to bringing up your children their are times when society has to steer you in the right direction as if your screw it up completely society has to pick up the pieces, not you. We in the UK actually recognise that society has a far greater role than you in the US seem to and so are far more accepting of this sort of thing. Laws are just the codification of societies rules.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Dishevel]

No.
You are correct.
Paying out more money every time some slut with a need "to be loved for who she is" is the right way to go.
I am sure that it has no negative effects on society as a whole.
If you think the government can do a good job raising your children, drop them off at an orphanage.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Dishevel]

When you say "less responsible", I assume you mean "poor".

You can assume what ever you want. If you would like you can turn this into a have vs have nots. Or even a 99% vs 1%.

Of course the poor who are responsible people do tend to have 5 children they have a tough time paying for.
Rich or poor. If you have more children than you have time or money for you are a fucking idiot and should be shot.
Is that clear enough for you?
Having children you can not afford or do not have time for is child abuse. Having them jsut to have them makes you a fucking horrible human being that needs to die.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have problems with the study. Some kids are doomed because their parents are douchebags. Possibly these are the parents that are more likely the ones to just stick their kids in front of the tv. Perhaps we're looking at a symptom and not the cause here.
Also how do they expect to enforce this?

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[judoguy]

I pretty much agree with you on this in America specifically. Some people are going stay poor no matter what, but most people here can better themselves to some degree even if it's really hard. Any given person will be born with strengths and weaknesses that can make life damn hard or a lot easier.

As a wise man one said in the debate about fate vs free will "Fate is what you're born into, free will is what you do with the hand you're dealt."

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

And how do kids learn that the key is education, in time for that lesson to be valuable?

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[PopeRatzo]

Of course the poor who are responsible people do tend to have 5 children they have a tough time paying for.
Rich or poor. If you have more children than you have time or money for you are a fucking idiot and should be shot.
Is that clear enough for you?
Having children you can not afford or do not have time for is child abuse. Having them jsut to have them makes you a fucking horrible human being that needs to die.

Last month, a drunk 16 year-old Lake Forest ($$$) teen killed a woman with her 2012 BMW.

She won't get any jail time.

This week, a 17 year old black kid, looking around and noticing the only active economy in his neighborhood, will be sentenced to 5 years for having 11 grams of cocaine. A 32 year-old investment banker will commit 15 counts of securities fraud, costing thousands of investors 20% of their life savings, and there will be no prosecution and no one will take notice. And on the rare occasion where there is a prosecution, he will pay a settlement, while admitting no wrongdoing, of about 2% of his profits from the fraud.

And you say that I'm the one who wants to "turn this into 99% vs 1%". Here's a news flash: It's always been about 1% vs 99%.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[judoguy]

>>The problem is not the government. The fact that the government is becoming the family of last resort is just a symptom. The problem is we've got an economic elite that has decided to shit on the social contract, reflected mainly in a corporate ownership class who no longer feels any connection or responsibility to society, because their "global" status has unmoored them from any particular society. They are above all that now, having broken away from any community save the community of the elite. And the rest of society is just eating each other, young ones first.

That's right, if we just had more government to run our lives, the evil "corporations" couldn't do all the bad stuff.

The evil corporations, and I do believe there are evil corporations by the way, *get* to do evil stuff because of a totalitarian state, (or at least wanna be totalitarian state) that supports them.

See ObamaCare. It punishes those wascally insurance companies by making sure every American is forced to buy their products.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[MozeeToby]

cripple the nation

Fuck the nation, maybe the OP cars about the people instead?

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Dishevel]

Let me guess. You are either not a parent or ...
You are one of those parents that believes that the word "No" is bad for children to hear.
You are one of those parents that does believe that McDonalds commercials force you to feed your children fast food.
You believe that public schools are good and that they are where your children should learn their values from.

I have 2 children that I support. I did not father either of them.
I talk to my children. I say no. Sometimes they hate me for it.
My children are not my buddies. They are not my equals. They are children. If I do a good job they will be good people.
That is my fucking job. I do not have more of them because
A) I can not afford more without taking money needed for the other two.
and
B) I do not have the time to work and raise the two I am raising and have a baby.

But you go ahead and make assumptions. You life will end up as successful as your assumptions.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Cytotoxic]

Interestingly, Dr. Oz and Dr Phil are woo-spewing kooks and more modern pediatric research has moved away from much of Spock's advice.

Still, Spock changed the way the western world thinks about raising kids, and for the better. I'm not sure I'd be happy about being linked to pop-psy TV personalities like Dr Phil and Dr Oz.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Dishevel]

Drunk Lake Forrest teen in 2012 BMW? Put her fucking parent away. Lock her up til she is 21.
Poor black kid has no choice. Some have the balls to get out and make a successful life. It actually can be done.
Some white collar criminal thieving from those who trust him? 15 years in a federal prison.

Fix the problems. Throw out the judges and the DAs if they are not doing their jobs.
Do not just hate people with money or success. That is fucking stupid.

It is not rich vs poor.

It is citizen vs government. Figure out who your real enemy is.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[tlhIngan]

Parents should raise their children. Maybe if we did not make it free to have kids by picking up the tab for them the less responsible people would have less of them.

Great. Now explain Africa, where families are easily having 8-10 children each. Compare with say, Europe, or North America, where the average family is 2.6 kids.

Less responsible people will, by default, be less responsible - they'll just continue to pop out kids to satisfy primal urges. The responsible ones are the ones who use both a mix of birth control and self-control (and accidents still do happen, so short of mass vasectomies or hysterectomies...).

In fact, one of the reasons why poor families have more kids (even though it makes less sense - more mouths to feed and all) is because hvaing more kids mean having more people who can work the fields and make food and such.

(One could twist it into saying child labor laws cause poverty, too, since children aren't allowed to work to earn money without strict controls. Then again, these children will probably skip school to work, too.).

If you want a more radical solution - well, birth licenses. If you're not responsible enough, the government can prevent you from popping out kids you obviously cannot support. Oh wait, we have that too, it's called "One child policy" that doesn't seem to be working all that great ("little emperors", severely skewed male-female ratios, and an underground economy in abortions).

The responsible ones aren't the ones you need to care about. It's the irresponsible ones, and they'll continue to be irresponsible, government aid or no government aid. Oh, and the responsible ones will have to pay either way - think those kids the irresponsible ones are popping out will grow up to be upstanding citizens? Like spam, society will pay for someone's irresponsibility.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[fruitbane]

Not at all. Let me quote you here:

"Sure, but the parenting that is recommended by the 'experts' is the bad parenting. Even the recommendation that children should have screen time is caused by the 'experts' making conclusions and then looking for evidence to support it. The reason that you see a correlation between poorly developed kids and large screen times isn't due to the screens. It is due to the child being exposed to an extremely limited set of information."

You say that expert-recommended parenting is bad parenting, and you just leave that open, general statement to flap in the wind with nothing to hold it up. I certainly take issue with that assertion. Further, I think there's a dearth of evidence that these 'experts' you like to put in single quotes are simply looking for evidence to support their position. When doing research you do have to have a hypothesis, and that means testing a particular assertion. You have only the current research when doing evidence analysis. I certainly wouldn't want them trying to incorporate "common sense" into their results, because most analyses I've seen of "common sense" indicate that such stuff is usually anything but correct in most cases.

How do you know the cause of a correlation between poorly developed kids and screen time? Have you done research on the topic? That assertion requires evidence, not just gut feeling or common sense. It needs a citation or two to hold it up. It is a very specific claim and therefore needs some backing evidence.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[micahraleigh]

(Value of anarchy) > (Value of government that controls how much TV my kids watch)

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[HeckRuler]

Little did Mr and Mrs smith realize, but as the amount of consumer buying power of the median household increases, so too does the cost of various consumer products, due to the intrinsic nature of the lw of supply and demand.

Here we see a simple graph, depicting the willingness to spend, intersecting the willingness of a merchant to sell.

As you can clearly see, that as Mr and Mrs smith's financial fortunes improve, their willingness to spend extra on products they routinely buy increases. The natural market reaction to this event, is the inevitable adjusted price offered by merchants.

I'm not entirely sold on this part here.
Sure, everyone has more money. That's essentially inflation. Demand for... everything... increases and prices go up.
But since everyone is working more, there's literally more supply. The abstracted merchant is selling things that are made by people working. Increased supply should lower prices.

As the median income increases, it's not necessarily the cost of goods that would go up. It could be the volume. If I have an extra $5 bucks every week, I'd buy an extra beer, and the bar tender, trucker, brewer, farmer would profit that much more. I don't see any market force that would cause them to charge more because business is good. Now, I could see that if there's a bunch of poor slobs who suddenly get rich, that their tastes might change. Instead of living on mac'n'cheese and water, they'd buy steak and beer. The price MOST CERTAINLY goes up with that. But that's an entirely different effect than what you're describing here. If people wanted to live on one paycheck and eat mac'n'cheese, they could still do that. Maybe you could argue about efficiencies of scale and how a society is optimized towards a particular class, but that's not the same thing as merchants charging more because their clientele has more cash on hand.

I find your views of economics to be cynical and overly pessimistic. Your assumptions have introduced flaws into your argument.

But... yeah, I'd agree that women gaining rights and getting jobs has undermined the amount of effort we put into raising kids. I'd say it's time for fathers to help hold the baby.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you divided all the money in the country evenly amongst all the people, in a year or two you'd have rich people and poor people. That's human nature and nobody can change it.

I'd bet you that the set of people who ended up rich wasn't the same set that started out rich. Sherpa's for example, work harder than the rich people who climb Everest, regardless of their educational opportunities.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[ewibble]

Clear and proper English is a necessity to proper communication!

Proper is not really necessary here is an example:

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, olny taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pcleas. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by ilstef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[mcgrew]

Government should stay the fuck out of it. Parents should raise their children.

Agreed.

Maybe if we did not make it free to have kids by picking up the tab for them the less responsible people would have less of them.

You think irresponsible people are going to behave responsibly? That people will stop fucking no matter what, especially irresponsible people? Making someone's life hell doesn't teach them responsibility, good parenting does. And if your parents sucked at parenting, guess what? You will, too. Personally, I'm totally against making the lives of children who are already living in hell even worse.

I should write Amy's biography. Her parents were irresponsible and homeless most of their lives, and her life story is a horror story.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[pentalive]

You also make use of context hints. "raed" is taken as read because of the words that surround it.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[sjames]

In other words, fix the damned economy? You went into a lot more detail than I did, but you are offering a potential solution to do exactly what I said!

When I say fix the economy, I mean fix it so that it meets our social goals, not improve the 'leading economic indicators' or 'pump up the Dow'. After all, we do not exist to serve the economy, it is the construct and is supposed to serve ALL of us.

One potential answer would be a Basic Income paid for with a progressive tax. Unlike just fluffing a few indicators by setting an absurdly low prime interest rate, the basic income would actually set a floor value on how poor a citizen could be in this country. In return, we could actually do away with a huge swath of inefficient programs including welfare, food stamps, wic, the minimum wage, etc. All would be covered by the basic income. The current practice of spending $100 on administrative overhead in order to make sure someone doesn't cheat the system for $50 would go away (since eligibility would be drastically simplified, if you're a citizen, you get the basic income).

Another way of looking at the issue you covered is supply side. The supply of labor nearly doubled once the social pressure shifted from women get married and stay at home to women participate equally in the workplace. While that is admirable from the standpoint of social equality and equality, naturally, the 'price' of labor fell through the floor as a result. 'The experts' have been asleep at the switch for the last 30-40 years (or just didn't give a crap as long as the wealthy benefited in the short term). A sufficient basic income would help to contract the supply of labor and so act to support wages.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

When your Doctor is your government, someday it will be illegal to ignore medical advice. Obamacare! You VILL exzerciez und you VILL LIKE IT.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[pentalive]

sudo mod me up

You are not in the SUDOERS file. This will be reported.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[wierd_w]

I chose the 1950s saccharine theme for the comedic value.

The reason that Mrs. Smith takes the job is immaterial. That she takes the job, and her peers also take jobs, disturbs the location of thbe median income bracket, pushing it away from the low income bracket, and causing increased poverty.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[ewibble]

Agreed, there may be other tricks that I am not aware of (not completely random reordering?), but the point was that "proper" English is not required to communicate clearly.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you're just a raving looney now, aren't you? Seems your Asperger's isn't quite so borderline, eh?

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[AngelWind]

On a similar note what about school? I believe it is mandatory for you to send your little sproglet to school still in the states? Should we just leave that up to the parents entirely as well even though a child getting to 16 and being unable to read and write is pretty much guaranteed to be a grade A fuckup who can't earn a living and will therefore cost society a fortune in prison fees (prisons are expensive btw)?

In the US you don't have to send your kid to school, though state laws differ as to how to handle they want homeschooling handled. in Idaho, they don't care. If they can get a GED or diploma, wonderful. If not, guess the parent screwed up. Other states want you to submit a full year course and teaching outlines.

We've homeschooled my step-daughter many times, only because she has issues with picking up social cues and had a terrible time. We would homeschool her more if we could, but she fights everything, and seems to have this notion that the teacher is always right, even when proven wrong.

But when we homeschooled, she would start a grade behind, and when we had to send her back to public school (my wife's health generally has been an issue), she would be a grade ahead. If she didn't have an idiot of a dad and an even more idiot of a family on his side, she would probably be homeschooled all the time.

We found a school that works for us and her locally that helps with her social skills and learning social cues, and they don't move on from a lesson unless she's scoring a "C". She's gone from a 2.0 grade average to a 3.5 grade average. We get to see her grades online and what is going on, which helps since this school doesn't do homework (for 7th grade, 8th grade she'll have some), which makes her happy too. Class size is limited to 15 students per teacher, so more child-teacher interaction time. It's certainly a luxury that a lot of public school (which this one is) don't have these days/

Parents can do just as good a job or better being the teacher if they can put the time into it (and one parent makes enough money to support a spouse staying home). Unless you were my wife's parents, who took her and her brothers out of school to homeschool, only to actually just clean the house and not actually teach anything. My wife basically went to college with a 4th grade education and graduated, because luckily she was smart enough to read while she was out of school and learn on her own and with her brothers. Now she wants to go back to learn how to program to make apps for children.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[T Murphy]

You've ignored some major details in your argument.

If twice as many people are working, there is twice the supply, so if households have twice the wages (twice the demand), the net change in prices is ZERO. If going from one worker to two workers per household had a net zero effect on the economy, it would mean worker productivity was cut in half (but genrally productivity has gone up).

If prices go up, it means businesses are taking in more money (you seem to assume higher prices = economic black hole). To keep purchasing power the same, that money needs to go back to the employees in the form of raises. Price fixing shouldn't be needed as wages should account for inflation (although there may be lag between the two).

Now, I'll agree that the median household is worse off relative to today's society, compared the the median 1950s household in 1950's society. This is because wages have NOT kept up with inflation. But the money must go somewhere- based on the increasing wealth disparity it seems to me that money is going to the pockets of the wealthy.The wealthy have taken those inflation-driven price increases and given themselves an increasingly disproportionate share, so their wealth grows ahead of inflation while everyone else slowly sinks down. This isn't a matter of the market forcing the median household to remain the same despite two incomes (as I said that doesn't make sense as supply has gone up), it's that there are people increasingly leeching off the top, independent of the two-worker-household phenomenon.

Price fixing could help in the sense that the wealthy could no longer use inflation to hide the fact that they are taking wages away from their workers, but price fixing eliminates not just inflation, but movement in the relative prices of goods to one another, which I feel is too important of a role of the market to lose.

As for your argument about prices in different regions, you are way off on your example of home prices. Yes, the two houses may be the same, but the price difference is the land. A lot out in a small town in Oklahoma is not the same as a lot in a wealthy suburb. If some place is a desirable place to live, prices will go up because of that increased value, not because the wages are higher- the higher wages are just because those are the people who can best afford the better land. Of course, land values (and their effect on the prices of local goods) is complex and inter-dependent, so there is sure to be a factor of "because they can afford it", but it's wrong to attribute regional price differences solely to local wages, so that they wipe out any apparant increase in wealth.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[alexo]

Did you mean "thought control" or was that just some dark sarcasm?

Hey, leave the kid alone!

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[AK Marc]

I've made references to massively popular and famous people on slashdot that got lots of wooshes, so I added in a contemporary reference to help put it in perspective. He was possibly the hottest child psychologist ever, and essentially eventually married a groupie. I could have compared him to someone of today with similar fame, but there isn't anyone who's famous for being intellectual that has quite as much demand. I could have referenced Stephen Hawking, but I'm sure that would have gotten more complaints because, as you note, his ideas are starting to be depreciated. But, that's normal, as there is no right answer when it comes to psychology or most of the subsets, like development, so *everyone* is likely wrong. It's just a question of how wrong, and how can we use their work to become more right.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[ichimunki]

How, exactly, does the merchant determine that selling no products in the market is better than selling some? This sounds a lot like the merchant is going on a hunger strike because he is being fed hamburger instead of steak.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Cytotoxic]

It's funny because we're old. Remember when making a joke about Paul McCartney being in a band before Wings was funny? Now you'd get: "who's Paul McCartney?"

Still, Spock had a pretty good run for a "how-to" book published in the 1940's. I wonder how many similar instruction manuals from today will still be remembered in 2060? "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" is probably the best selling self-help book of the last decade. Any chance people will remember it in 50 years?

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[AK Marc]

Now a days, you talk about Dr. Spock and you get Star Trek references. When I googled him to verify his childless status, all the pictures of "Dr. Spock" were of "Mr./Lieutenant Spock".

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I think I can speak for all other rational human beings in demanding to see some evidence of those assertions.

Open a history book. You see the same thing when there were no screens, and people used books. And before the books, oral teachings.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

"22 hours a day in front of the TV"... the biggest problem here would be a 3-year old getting 2 hours sleep a night. Will stunt their mental and physical development more than anything else.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[MightyYar]

I was going to mention that to him/her, but they will find out shortly :)

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[PopeRatzo]

Drunk Lake Forrest teen in 2012 BMW? Put her fucking parent away. Lock her up til she is 21.

Sure, except (in response to your claim that it is "not rich vs poor") her family is too rich to have a daughter put in jail.

Fix the problems. Throw out the judges and the DAs if they are not doing their jobs.

Wait, didn't you just say that government is the "real enemy"? If they're the enemy, why do you want them to have jobs? If they're the "real enemy" why do you rely on them to do something about your life?

The "government is the enemy" argument is a very small circle. The people who rule you are laughing at your willingness to buy a ticket to that circuit.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[PopeRatzo]

The evil corporations, and I do believe there are evil corporations by the way, *get* to do evil stuff because of a totalitarian state

No, they were doing evil even in the sacred days of our Founding Fathers.

Not long after our Constitution was first ratified, in the days that our current tea party see as the days of "real freedom", Thomas Jefferson had this to say about corporations:

âoeI hope we shall crush⦠in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

And the ink was barely dry on the Constitution at that time.

In fact, so strongly did Jefferson and Madison fear the effect of corporate power on a democracy that they tried to include an 11th amendment in the Bill of Rights: an amendment that would place absolute limits on corporate growth and the influence corporations could have on government.

But even at that time, corporate influence had grown to such an extent that the best efforts of these two authors of the US Constitution were defeated.

Know your enemy, friend. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison certainly did.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[AK Marc]

Then my friends suck. Where's my beer? Bring me muh beer!

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[AK Marc]

The oldest is 5. He never had the terrible twos. I had a theory on that which I shared with more than one parent prior to my spawns. I avoided the terrible twos with the first. The youngest about 2 2/3, so close to 3. He doesn't look to be terribling.

The way to avoid it with the first was to treat him as an equal at age 2. The terrible twos are caused by the disconnect between understanding almost everything, and not being able to communicate. The frustration when you want to communicate but can't causes frustration, and frustration is the terrible in the twos. When you communicate with them as an adult from birth (never using baby talk, always using full sentences and large words (not trying to use large words, but talking naturally to them, leaving in large words), then they develop communications that match their ability to think, and don't have the disconnect between thoughts and expressing the thoughts.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[AK Marc]

As you are an adult they see a way they can take advantage of you to get around their own parents rules. Some people are like that. Kids are no different. The gp is taking a very risky method to parenting. One that works very well when they are young (as people are usually looking for acceptance and kids are no different just inexperienced). When they get older and you need them to listen, they will not. You dont have to listen to your friends advice after all... I have seen many parents make the same mistakes many times. They then end up with a teenager (a very critical point in life) who does dumb things because 'mom and dad are stupid and dont care what i do'. You need to show that you *very* much care what they do.

I watched a parent yell at his kid for squirming in a chair during a long wait in a bank. Not moving, not standing, not fidgting with clothing or such, but just re-adjusting in her chair every 10 seconds or so. He yelled at her, she was about 6. I wanted to go up to him and tell him "and that's why, when she's 16, she'll date the guy you like least." But given how he treated his kid in public, I was concerned he'd hit me or something like that.

But if he were her friend, then when she's a teen and only listens to friends, he'll still have some influence.

As for being too friendly, I probably am. My wife is too strict for arbitrary and sometimes capricious reasons. He found candy she left out. He asked me if he could have some. I said "that's mom, ask her" She was sleeping, and didn't answer when he asked. So he ate some. She got mad at him (and me). If she would clean up after herself or wake up on the weekends at the same time as everyone else, there wouldn't be a problem.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[AK Marc]

A parent doesn't have to enforce all the rules all the time. The friend that's approachable gets warned when the child is planning on breaking the rules and asks for permission to break them. When permission is given often enough, the child keeps asking, rather than doing what so many do and just doing it and try to hide it. Yes, that means I let a 5 year old play with fire sometimes. Fire is cool, and if I don't, he may try to do it sometime when I can't closely supervise. The 2 year old gets to open packages with a sharp knife. He hasn't cut himself yet, and likes doing things that adults do. In day care, he gets mad if they help him with food. He gets out the bowl, spoon, cereal and milk all himself. He combines them all himself, with just a little help with the milk to keep down spills. He's the only one in the under-3 room who can do that. And he does it daily. He does the same at home, other than the cereal is too high for him to reach.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[fruitbane]

What "same thing"? That there are certain things that are inherent to the human condition? Sure, but what we surround ourselves with does affect that baseline. I prefer scientific studies to "history books" when it comes to analyzing human behavior in the present.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[ShakaUVM]

A local coach ran over a kid while drunk driving. He's going to jail.

Sandusky was a national icon. He's going to jail.

Bernie Madoff got 150 years.

Fuck off with the "1% gets away with it all" nonsense.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Ash Vince]

In the US you don't have to send your kid to school, though state laws differ as to how to handle they want homeschooling handled. in Idaho, they don't care. If they can get a GED or diploma, wonderful. If not, guess the parent screwed up

Holy crap. I always wondered how you created rednecks, now I know :)

The thing is though that just strikes me as utterly bonkers since a kid who cant read in the world stands almost no chance. They just have an entire deck stacked against them from day one and unless they have some sort of miracle, they are pretty much fucked. This is especially true now that the manual labour, building stuff type jobs have gone to China or Taiwan.

I know you guys have this thing in the states where you fear government (seeing some of the governments you elect this is not surprising. Sorry, my crap humour) but sometimes government should get more involved in peoples lives. A society without government or law is basically anarchy.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[PopeRatzo]

Bernie Madoff got 150 years.

Bernie Madoff ripped off other members of the 1%. That's why he got jail time.

If he had only stuck to ripping off working stiffs, he'd be sitting down to a nice Sabbath dinner tonight at home.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[PopeRatzo]

Sandusky was a national icon. He's going to jail.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about Sandusky.

He was finally sent away after his millionaire pals covered for him for 20 years while he raped dozens of kids. They worked so hard to protect him that they sacrificed a University.

It was only when he was starting to bring too much stink to the other (millionaire) board members and Pennsylvania Republican fundraisers (yes, Sandusky was one) that they finally had to cut him loose.

If Sandusky would just have kept raping poor kids without getting caught, the Penn State bigwigs (who knew all about the child-raping) would have happily let him continue.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Experts have no accountability when they are wrong. Parents do. Parents get fined, go to jail, etc when they do wrong. I refuse to listen to an expert unless they are willing to make reconciliations if they are wrong. Will these experts make the same suggestion if the penalty is life in jail if someone refutes them? Will obama go to jail for ordering the assassination of american citizens? Will bush go to jail for for granting himself and the gov powers that violate the constitution? (powers which obama never rescinded, both of them are guilty of treason against the united states and should be hung like saddam). Clinton was corrupt as well, but just corrupt. We need another president like clinton, more concerned with interns than policy.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[calzones]

Your kingdom?

Sounds like a pretty good deal to me. I think I have a spare comma I could sell you. Can you tell me more about the size and location of your kingdom?

Or perhaps a better approach would be to just fine people their kingdom any time they neglect to use punctuation properly.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Whorhay]

I can see where your wife would be upset there. When dealing with kids you need to be very specific. You should have specified that he needed approval from his Mother, not just to ask her about it. Kids can be super literal and I know as a child I would have taken that to mean that I could eat the candy regardless of her answer so long as I asked first.

That said, I feel ya on the spouse that doesn't do very well at picking up after themselves and hibernates like a bear.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you admitting that you've learned nothing about parenting in 20 years? That you are only as wise as you were 20 years ago?

I would never, ever admit to being so stubbornly stupid as to refuse learning in order to prove a point that I was right and everyone else was wrong, 20 years ago, on a subject in which I had only theoretical knowledge. Can you imagine someone working at a software company for 20 years and then telling you that they haven't learned jack shit since they were an intern, and that they were right about everything programming while all the veterans were wrong and cogerly 20 years ago? You'd do an instant code review.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[AK Marc]

I'm not saying that I learned nothing. I am stating that what I knew 20 years ago that I thought was right then, was actually right then. I've learned more math since elementary school as well, but 2+2 still equals 4.

Re:First sentence is a doozy.

[Burz]

By dismissing your request for citation they are also implying that no one could find this subject genuinely interesting, which IMO says more about the person who dismissed you (i.e. it is they who don't particularly care except to serve up their usual cheap batch of anti-intellectual BS).

About time, really.

[phrackwulf]

The real consequence of those "Baby Einstein" tapes now becomes clear. I also don't see television as something inherently bad for kids. But too much of anything is often poisonous. Television takes up time that could better be spent running around playing tag or staring at lego blocks thinking about making neat things, or playing with my little pony, in some of, um our cases. Hopefully this starts to re-inject some sanity into the mix.

Re:About time, really.

[peragrin]

I have had the chance to watch two different sets of parents raise two different sets of kids.(friends vs family)

One set watched TV had mcdonalds occasionally, played video games.

The other set all of the above was either banned or discouraged( TV watching was discouraged).

Neither group was really religious(you can count the number of times both groups went to church on one hand)

The kids with minimal TV, while not necessarily smarter are generally calmer, and listen better to their parents.

the interaction of parent and adult at the young age at this point seems to be the trick(the oldest child is 7)
As far as learning, the kids without TV are able to deal with complex puzzles(for their age at least) quite easily.

of course 4 kids 2 from each family is hardly noteworthy for standard deviation.

Re:About time, really.

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple more data points:

My wife grew up without TV or video games until she was a teen. Now she's now a tenured English professor.

I grew up steeped in both television and video games. I'm now a Chief Information Officer.

Re:About time, really.

[buchner.johannes]

The American Academy of Pediatrics' issued a recommendation in 2001 that children under two should be discouraged from watching television at all: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/107/2/423.full

Research has shown primary negative health effects on violence and aggressive behavior7–12; sexuality7,13–15; academic performance16; body concept and self-image17–19; nutrition, dieting, and obesity17,20,21; and substance use and abuse patterns.7

Pediatricians should recommend the following guidelines for parents:

        Limit children's total media time (with entertainment media) to no more than 1 to 2 hours of quality programming per day.

        Remove television sets from children's bedrooms.

        Discourage television viewing for children younger than 2 years, and encourage more interactive activities that will promote proper brain development, such as talking, playing, singing, and reading together.
        [...]
        View television programs along with children, and discuss the content. [...]

        Encourage alternative entertainment for children, including reading, athletics, hobbies, and creative play.

Re:About time, really.

[k6mfw]

when I was a young child, we had only one tv set. It was in the living room and only received about two stations I think. It was mainly tuned to boring shows, the kind that parents like to watch. So I had to spend my time building things i.e. Erector Sets, which later I began tinkering around with electrical stuff including making the mistake of cutting a lamp cord while it was still plugged in ("bang!"). Grew up to become an engineer.

Re:About time, really.

[fm6]

The real consequence of those "Baby Einstein" tapes now becomes clear.

Huh? Is that sarcasm? Or what? You seem to be assuming that there's some ironical fact that obvious to everybody, but it ain't obvious to me

I also don't see television as something inherently bad for kids.

Well, TFA gives several reasons why developmental psychologists think it is. Care to share why you think they're wrong, or is this just more obvious stuff everybody's supposed to know?

But too much of anything is often poisonous. Television takes up time that could better be spent running around playing tag or...

OK, I'm sure we can all agree that too much of a good thing is a bad thing. That doesn't change the act that very little of a bad thing is a bad thing.

Re:About time, really.

[Guru80]

What's even more ridiculous than you finding away to bring your pony fetish into this is the fact that a study even had to be done to confirm this. Welcome to the wonderful world of getting paid to study the obvious.

Re:About time, really.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just grew up to be an adult steeped in both television and video games.

Re:About time, really.

[Anonymous Coward]

another data point.
I remember as a child, all the old people in the room watching football games during thanksgiving.
They are all dead now.
The football games are still televised.

Re:About time, really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Grew up to become an engineer.

It is conceivable that some parents do not want their children to grow up to be engineers, so I fail to see your point

Did you mean "grew up without any advertisement-caused brain damage, and could thus become a successful engineer"?

Re:About time, really.

[Anonymous Coward]

i have witnessed something similar, in myself as well as in my child but it seems to me to have more to do with what we watch. if we watch something that is fast-paced and down-right frantic (think of a kaleidoscope being spun at break-neck speeds set to 'flight of the bumblebees'), we come away from it like we're on speed. this 'frantic' pace of television and movies seems to be a growing trend. cartoons and kid's shows of the 80s were much calmer.

Re:About time, really.

[Belial6]

Your description betrays your bias. You listed TV, McDonalds, and Video Games. These combined with corporal punishment are the four horsemen of the child development apocalypse. You have been bombarded with the idea that these things are the root of all childhood ills so heavily, that you just assume that they are the reasons for children's problems.

My experience with kids listening across many dozens of families has lined up 100% with whether the parent is clear on their expectations, and consistent on making sure the child does what the parent tells them. I have seen plenty of kids that watch lots of TV, play plenty of video games and eat McDonalds regularly who are well behaved and generally calm. I have also seen plenty of kids that don't have a TV, don't play video games, and never eat fast food who are holy terrors. The behavior, good or bad has always lined up with the behavior of the parents.

With the ability to solve complex puzzles, I have seen the not surprising correlation with the complexity of the concepts and games they are exposed to. Whether playing video games, or not, the kids that were presented with complex puzzles got better at them. Those that were not presented with complex puzzles did not. We see the same thing with TV programming. Every show that a kid watches presents new information. When a child only sees one program looped over and over, they very quickly learn everything they are going to from that program. Once they have done that, they might as well be staring at a wall. Put a kid staring at wall for 8 hours a day for a few years, and you can bet that they will not be as good at solving complex puzzles as well as a kid that has spent that same amount of time solving a wide range of puzzles on their computer.

Re:About time, really.

[Belial6]

The American Academy of Pediatrics are inconsistent. Reading for entertainment IS entertainment media. Of course, reading isn't one of the four horsement of the child development apocalypse. (TV, Video Games, McDonald's, and corporal punishment)

Re:About time, really.

[Anonymous Coward]

the interaction of parent and adult at the young age at this point seems to be the trick(the oldest child is 7)

Really it comes down to some mix of parents, genes, economic status, and blind luck. I've watched my brother and his wife raise three children, now aged 8 to 18. The first one enjoyed the most time watching TV, the parents both worked jobs and TV was a babysitter when they were home because they were exhausted. The second watched less TV, and the mother at least had a normal 9-5 gig. The third watched a very limited amount of TV and by this point both the mother and father had a normal 9-5 gig and never used the TV as a babysitter.

The end result? All three children are equally smart, respectful, and nice people

Re:About time, really.

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason that happens is that unscrupulous people in power ignore the obvious because there are no studies proving it to be true.

Re:About time, really.

[cheekyjohnson]

And banning it or trying to limit it would not only be unenforceable, but it would violate people's freedoms.

But hey, as long as we're talking about banning things we don't like, how about we ban religion? Or if that's too much, how about limiting it?

Re:About time, really.

[Anonymous Coward]

1) "Real consequence", implying "in reality and contrary to what they are assumed to do", is a reference to the the article, or "that thing in the summary no one ever reads", which is about stuff like Baby Einstein being not so great for your baby afterall.

2) You referenced TFA, but didn't see how it explained 1). This concerns me. The sample of development psychologists that contributed to this paper is trivial, but I still don't think you and a couple of psychologists really need to gang up on a generalized opinion like not seeing TV as being inherently bad, which is technically true, or truer than the converse. No empirical testing will ever demonstrate that all TV is bad for every child. I can live with that idea and still not let a TV raise my kids, though.

3) Very little of a bad thing can be a good thing, too, which is why we get vaccines. Also, many of our experiences are not totally good, but that doesn't make them all bad. I mean, besides the total lack of information in your criticisms, implying that good and bad are non-mutually exclusive absolutes is just going too far. Maybe you'd even try to argue that if a bad thing ultimately leads to a good thing, then it really wasn't bad in the first place, but by then, you'd probably have realized what a silly guy you're being and stopped replying.

Re:About time, really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, why are you posting my personal history? Ha! You made a mistake! I didn't become an engineer, I became a physicist!

Re:About time, really.

[Electricity Likes Me]

Grew up to become an engineer.

It is conceivable that some parents do not want their children to grow up to be engineers, so I fail to see your point

Did you mean "grew up without any advertisement-caused brain damage, and could thus become a successful engineer"?

No parents should be deluding themselves to think they can somehow decide what their children will grow up to be. You give them a lot of stuff and see what they like, and struggle to teach them all the stuff they'll need.

Re:About time, really.

[AK Marc]

Huh? Is that sarcasm? Or what? You seem to be assuming that there's some ironical fact that obvious to everybody, but it ain't obvious to me

Sounds like you don't know what Baby Einstein is and didn't bother to look it up before commenting on it. People sell videos they recommend children watch, claiming that watching "TV" will improve their children. So the irony is that one group is claiming that watching more TV is good for you, and another claiming the opposite. That's the irony.

Well, TFA gives several reasons why developmental psychologists think it is. Care to share why you think they're wrong, or is this just more obvious stuff everybody's supposed to know?

They gave a long list of reasons they don't like it, but gave a total of zero reasons for why it is bad. They didn't want to commit to any specific things for someone to test and prove them wrong, not to mention that most of them apply to reading books, which isn't seen as bad. "negative effects on health kick in after about two hours of sitting still, with increased long-term risks of obesity and heart problems." applies as much to reading as watching TV.

Most of the rest of the comments were non committal "we think there might be a problem" statements.

That doesn't change the act that very little of a bad thing is a bad thing.

In most cases, though, that's not true. A small enough dose of most toxins will have no effect whatsoever. Or fat soluble vitamins. Lots of it will kill you, so they must be all bad, right? But none of it and you'll die.

Re:About time, really.

[Cytotoxic]

I don't know anything about this particular study, but I do know this: most of these studies are absolute crap. This one might be the rare exception, but I doubt it. And I'll commit my own logical fallacy and argue from authority on this one, having been in many a lab meeting and journal club in molecular genetics, biochemistry, transplant medicine, psychology and behavioral psychology. There is a completely different view of what constitutes data and evidence in the "hard" sciences than there is in psychology studies. Heck, epidemiology is a notoriously difficult science, but it is light-years ahead of psychology.

Re:About time, really.

[fm6]

Sounds like you don't know what Baby Einstein is and didn't bother to look it up before commenting on it.

Wrong. How one could possibly avoid knowing about this shit?

So the irony is that one group is claiming that watching more TV is good for you, and another claiming the opposite. That's the irony.

What? It's ironic because there's a difference of opinion? The argument you and I are having is ironic? The fact that everybody but me thinks that Jessica Alba can act is ironic? Sounds like you don't know what irony is and didn't bother to look it up before commenting on it.

They gave a long list of reasons they don't like it, but gave a total of zero reasons for why it is bad.

Your logic is not our earth logic. On this planet, people don't like things they consider bad, and do like things they consider good. How is it on your planet?

Re:About time, really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your bias is also clear. Because if you think McDonalds, excessive TV and video games are a necessary and positive influence on the development of children under 3 then you're fucking retarded.

Re:About time, really.

[TheRaven64]

Grew up to become an engineer

Odd, I always assumed that becoming an engineer was something we did to avoid growing up...

Re:About time, really.

[mcvos]

Whenever I read about the possibility of obesity, I wonder if I should let my son do those things. He's terribly skinny, and all attempts to fatten him up a bit have failed so far. Though I admit we've so far resisted the option of raising him on a diet of candy.

Re:About time, really.

[dywolf]

You make a lot of assumptions.

Re:About time, really.

[Havokmon]

We had a single TV as well. My mom worked nights, I was an only child in a broken house, so she slept during the day and I watched TV (PBX and Cartoons) all day.

I could read a newspaper - not perfectly of course - before I started kindergarten.

I've become very cynical as I've grown older, and being bombarded with the Wisconsin teacher's Union issues - I can't help but assume this is FUD produced in their favor.

I have 4 children and the oldest is a royal brat and it's due to what a previous poster referred to - inconsistent expectations and follow through in regards to raising the child. We were young and dumb and our parents helped - too much. As she got older, she knew she could manipulate people, and the school system fell for it. They're just as bad as grandparents. All talk, no action. The other 3 are fine, with TV, VideoGames, PC access (of course my network has more security and fine-grain controls than the school system does - sad), and fast food when appropriate.

For your children to behave, you must be consistent. Don't remove TV or videogames, but just like a diet, variety in entertainment is key.

Re:About time, really.

[mcgrew]

But hey, as long as we're talking about banning things we don't like, how about we ban religion?

Why don't we ban posting flamebait, asshole?

Re:About time, really.

[AK Marc]

What? It's ironic because there's a difference of opinion? The argument you and I are having is ironic? The fact that everybody but me thinks that Jessica Alba can act is ironic? Sounds like you don't know what irony is and didn't bother to look it up before commenting on it.

The irony is that two groups, both with the same stated goal (helping children's development) come to opposite conclusions. At least one is wrong, so someone has to be claiming to be operating in the best interests of the children while advocating a course that is not in the best interests of the children. That's the irony. An organization claiming to help children is advocating harming them. Or is that direct contradiction not ironic enough for you?

Your logic is not our earth logic. On this planet, people don't like things they consider bad, and do like things they consider good. How is it on your planet?

Yes, but I can declare pickles on hamburgers to be bad for you without giving any valid reasons.

If you were to eat 10,000,000 pickles in one hour, you would die, so 3 pickle slices on a hamburger is bad for you.

You either agree with that statement 100%, or you agree with my comments on the article and are fighting just because you don't want to feel like you "lost" an argument on the Internet. The reasons given in TFA were no better than my absurd analogy, but when you have PhD after your name, people are less likely to laugh in your face. And when they do, human nature is to slightly modify the delivery of the conclusion, than to reevaluate the conclusion.

Re:About time, really.

[fm6]

The irony is that two groups, both with the same stated goal (helping children's development) come to opposite conclusions.

You mean like Romney and Obama on the economy?

Yes, but I can declare pickles on hamburgers to be bad for you without giving any valid reasons.

Reasons were given on the TV issue. You've simply found it easier to ignore them. Instead you keep repeating "too much of anything is bad for you" which is perfectly true — and utterly irrelevant.

Re:About time, really.

[cheekyjohnson]

Sometimes there are calls to censor the web by default (an opt-out service) so that porn can be filtered. Much like in this scenario, attack religion instead of porn/tv would cause a massive outrage (and I think it should). For certain people, it's okay to attack the things they don't like, but when someone else does the same thing and it happens to be something that they do like, they are angry.

Re:About time, really.

[cheekyjohnson]

They don't necessarily have to be religious, either. But the same suggestion for religion would cause an outrage.

Re:About time, really.

[AK Marc]

You mean like Romney and Obama on the economy?

Their stated goals are opposite, so their views are as well. They are campaigning to win a contest. One must lose, so their goals are in conflict. So it isn't irony when their stated opinions on issues are in conflict as well. But I understand, you are deliberately misrepresenting the issues because you can't argue the points directly.

Reasons were given on the TV issue. You've simply found it easier to ignore them. Instead you keep repeating "too much of anything is bad for you" which is perfectly true — and utterly irrelevant.

Everything you've said was irrelevant, so I didn't want to break the pattern. TFA gave some opinions on why they think there is some correlation, but nobody gave a "reason" (as in a cause). They all shied away from any definitive statements that could be (trivially) proven wrong. They boiled down to "TV watching *may* be correlated with decreased human interaction" type arguments which then assume that increased parental interaction will change some of something they are complaining about. Some make mention of sedentary TV watching causes heart disease later in life (conclusion asserted without proof, and it isn't even a "reason" to not watch TV, as it isn't linked to TV directly, but is a good argument against reading, and long car trips, and so many other things).

But your "you ignore them" statement is a lie. When you lie in order to try to win an argument, it proves you know you are wrong. I'll take that as a concession of defeat. Anyone can look two posts up and see where I list some of the "reasons" given and address them as reasons, and that you, in the next post, cut out all that, then later claim I didn't address the reasons. You are the only liar here who didn't address the reasons. I did, and you lied about it. Have fun arguing with yourself, you lying prick.

Re:About time, really.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's so clear now. Electric shock clearly leads to increased intelligence

Re:About time, really.

[Anonymous Coward]

When you lie in order to try to win an argument, it proves you know you are wrong.

The validity of their conclusion has nothing to do with whether or not they lied to try to support their conclusion. Unless you meant something else...

Re:About time, really.

[AK Marc]

The validity of their conclusion has nothing to do with whether or not they lied to try to support their conclusion.

Yes it does. If the foundation was lies, then the conclusion is unsupported. If they resort to lies to support their conclusion, then they think there isn't other valid support, which further undermines their conclusion.

Re:About time, really.

[Belial6]

Strawman fail.

Re:About time, really.

[Belial6]

What are those assumptions?

Mitt Romney was right

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to fire Big Bird.

Re:Mitt Romney was right

[phrackwulf]

Yo, Yo... y'all don't step to my bloods Biggie B and Tinky Winky.. dawg! Me and Tinky be down, straight old school. You don't want my homies back out lookin for the GTA in the Sesame Hood. Where's the love?

Re:Mitt Romney was right

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like somebody's been usin' the "tubby 'tustard" a little too much recently.

Afraid The Man is gonna shut down your supply of Pink?

Re:Mitt Romney was right

[phrackwulf]

My boy Tinky got three shorties and ain't seen none of the weak, frontin baby girls down on Sesame got it on and burnt a brother, playa! Biggie B be steppin up with the mad love, got Tinky his second job workin body guard for Ice Cube on the weekends. You know we down.

Re:Mitt Romney was right

[wierd_w]

Shit nigga! Everyone know that fake rappa T-winky ain't no blood! Nigga cant decide if he wearin' red or blue! Sheet!

I hear he mean deala though. Nigga's got more crack in that bag than oprah got on her ass!

Re:Mitt Romney was right

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans like laws - there is allways an infinite supply

PASS MORE LAWS

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't have enough laws pertaining to how we parent children. PASS MORE NOW PLEASE!

I want a government official to come to my home and verify how much TV my little girl watches every day. It's important that this happens because I'm a moron and can't control myself. I also assume you are even dumber and perhaps the best thing to do would be to just take all the children away and have the government deal with them. They could return them once they're all grown up.

Re:PASS MORE LAWS

[Ziggitz]

Yeah cause god forbid we perform research and discover practices that can cause harm to our children that isn't obvious and then take measures to protect against it. But Government so fuck it, go have fun with you lead painted chew toys little Tommy.

Re:PASS MORE LAWS

[Anonymous Coward]

If you could do a level headed analysis it would show the real dilemma.
The government banned lead in paint and then gasoline because the damn corporations didn't care if you died to save a few cents.
That action seems justified in retrospect.
The extension to banning lead everywhere else, - including solder! shows what happens when regulators get a little revved up.

Because of course by your stupid shithead example, eating lead paint isn't obvious to some retards.

Re:PASS MORE LAWS

[chrismcb]

I'm a moron and can't control myself.

I know you are being sarcastic, but... well that statement is actually true for a lot of people. I'm not saying this is a good reason to pass parenting laws, but still...

Re:PASS MORE LAWS

[cheekyjohnson]

Safety is more important than anything. We must ban/limit something for everyone because it affects certain people in a way that we don't like!

Re:PASS MORE LAWS

[WillyWanker]

Seriously! I mean, hey, my kids love beer and cigarettes, how dare the government tell me how to raise 'em! And if I want to send my kids out to work to earn their keep what business is it of the government? NONE! Buggers are expensive to raise, at least they should chip in, amirite? And school? School is for little pussies. My kids learn from the school of hard knocks, like when I belt them for not bringing home enough money from their job or smoking too many of my ciggies. So yeah government, stay out of my kid's lives! I know what's best for 'em, yessiree I do. Next week that nice man down the block is gonna give me $500 to take pics of my little girl in her bathing suit while I'm at work. Hells yes! Nothing wrong with that! I'm the daddy and what I say goes. I don't need no Uncle Sam sticking his big nose into my business. BACK OFF SAM! I own these kids and they'll do as I say!

Re:PASS MORE LAWS

[Ziggitz]

Yeah because the only other possibility is that safety is absolutely worthless.

Re:PASS MORE LAWS

[cheekyjohnson]

It isn't, but people seem to be afraid of every nonexistent threat. Terrorists, communists, copyright infringement, television...

They seem so afraid, in fact, that they wish to punish everyone because whatever it is they're afraid of harms some people. What a good solution that is.

Can we just get rid of the TSA mentalities?

Re:PASS MORE LAWS

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha-ha... funny. Everyone laugh at the absurd parody!

Oh, except you guys in New York where you can't buy a 20 oz. soda.

Re:PASS MORE LAWS

[mcgrew]

So you're all for lead paint on children's toys, then?

Re:PASS MORE LAWS

[cheekyjohnson]

Except that this law would be an unenforceable waste of money that tries to combat a nonexistent threat. You might as well crack down on lemonade stands...

Regulating materials used in children's toys is far more simple than controlling how much television every kid watches. Not to mention that that would just punish everyone.

Re:PASS MORE LAWS

[mcgrew]

Don't get me wrong, I would be completely against the government regulating how much TV a kid watches, but you kind of went over the top with it.

Re:PASS MORE LAWS

[cheekyjohnson]

I don't think so. I'm just tired of these sweeping bans/limitations/penalties that certain people seem to want from the government. The fact that kids are the ones being limited this time around or that it's television being limited makes no difference to me.

Are You Kidding?

[flyneye]

C'mon, I took my first television set apart by 3. Sissies!
Keep them away from strong magnets, Tesla coils, acids and bases.
Some realistic adults should take control here, please.

Re:Are You Kidding?

[Em Adespoton]

C'mon, I took my first television set apart by 3. Sissies!
Keep them away from strong magnets, Tesla coils, acids and bases.
Some realistic adults should take control here, please.

OK: you took your first set apart by 3: I took my first set apart before I was 1.

How long was it before you were able to reassemble a functional TV set after taking it apart?

In more serious news: I don't think the TV itself is so much of an issue as the amount of time under-3's spend exposed to it, and the lack of doing whatever they would have otherwise been doing. My own sample size of 2 indicates that kids under 3 aren't really all that interested in TV by tiself, and prefer to socialize while it is on in the background. They also appear to readily absorb things from TV that the 3-and-above crowd often misses. So having a TV on shouldn't be an issue, whereas using the TV as a babysitter should be avoided at all costs.

Re:Are You Kidding?

[flyneye]

I was salvaging the flyback transformer to bring kitty back to life.

I substituted formative year socialization for watching t.v., it was less abusive. Abused kids should spend more time in front of the tube or out of the house and less trying to communicate with their parents. Now we have the internet, doesn't Fisher/Price have "My First Netbook" out for Christmas?
In the future everyone will watch t.v. for 15 minutes.....

Re:Are You Kidding?

[seven of five]

Keep them away from strong magnets, Tesla coils, acids and bases.

At four, I was doing NMR imaging on acids and bases, you insensitive clod!

Re:Are You Kidding?

[mcgrew]

C'mon, I took my first television set apart by 3

You're lucky to be alive. Even if it isn't plugged in you can be hit by 90,000 volts at several amps; those big can capacitors hold a lot of juice for a long time.

Obligatory onion article

[gmhowell]

I'm just gonna leave the obligatory Onion article here. (Note, at the time I began composing this, nobody else had posted a link, nor had the inevitable "I don't own/watch a tv" posts started"

Re:Obligatory onion article

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens when an obligatory Onion article and an obligatory XKCD comic collide?

Re:Obligatory onion article

[Anonymous Coward]

Dilbert happens.

I'm fine...

[Doctor_Jest]

I watched TV for years... mom would set me in front of the boob tube in my swing and I turned out jim dandy. The upside is I can remember tons and tons of commercial jingles, usually while sitting down ironically enough.

Seriously though, limits are important. Limits set by parents. The Nanny State is quite adamant about making sure they are involved in your private lives. Too many people simply surrender control to the almighty state. It's baffling.

Re:I'm fine...

[PeanutButterBreath]

Too many people simply surrender control to the almighty state. It's baffling.

Why is it baffling? These are the same people who can't drag themselves or their children away from the almighty TV.

Why should children and the society that they will inhabit suffer because their parents are too incompetent to set limits? Anti-government paranoia uber-alles?

Re:I'm fine...

[Longjmp]

I watched TV for years...

And now you ended up on slashdot, makes you think, doesn't it? ;-)

Re:I'm fine...

[Anonymous Coward]

Too many people simply surrender control to the almighty state. It's baffling.

You do realize that under a functional democratic government, the will of the state is approximately the same as the will of a majority of its people, right? So it's hardly baffling that people want to do what they think ought to be done anyway, and for the majority who support the state position, it happens to coincide with what the state wants. I suppose it might look like "surrender" to someone who doesn't understand how the state works. The minority is free to complain, protest, sway public opinion, and so on, but if they don't even understand how democratic states function, they're not going to get very far. Yes, the majority is often wrong, contradictory, self-destructive, and short-sighted, and that is often reflected in the state as well. The great victory of democracy is that the state is us, not them.

To be more specific, most people think that doctor's advice should be followed. Since the doctors are offering advice regarding minors who are too young to make that decision for themselves (under 3 years old), they think the state (the collective will of the people) should impose the value of following doctor's advice even on childcare workers who disagree with that advice. This is equivalent to other regulation around custodial behaviors, such as child beating, genital mutilation, and other areas where the majority/state decide that medical advice trumps parental/custodial rights. Parenting/custodianship, after all, is a much more paternal relationship than the state, because the child cannot change the makeup of their family or daycare in the way citizens can change the makeup of their governments.

If you are posting from a state which is a dictatorship or a sham republic, I apologize if I came off as a little condescending. You see, even in democracies, there are people who think the government is distinct from the people.

Re:I'm fine...

[russotto]

You do realize that under a functional democratic government, the will of the state is approximately the same as the will of a majority of its people, right?

If so, there's rarely been a functional democratic government.

The great victory of democracy is that the state is us, not them.

That is a lie they tell you to legitimize their power.

Re:I'm fine...

[epyT-R]

More like pro darwin. Why should my life choices be restricted to legislated white lists because someone else is stupid? The limitations on my existence at this point are mostly defined by pointless legislation and a general whitewashing/dumbing down of my choices..

Re:I'm fine...

[Z34107]

You do realize that under a functional democratic government, the will of the state is approximately the same as the will of a majority of its people, right?

That's better known as "mob rule," and is exactly why no first-world country is a democracy. You should question your "majority rules, might makes right" thesis, if only because what majorities of your countrymen can be found to believe.

Posting from what I'm sure you consider a "sham republic."

Re:I'm fine...

[phantomfive]

I always wonder about people who say they ended up fine. I mean, I ended up fine, but holy crap you could ask a murderous psychopath and he would tell you he ended up fine. Self-diagnosing really isn't indicative of anything....

Re:I'm fine...

[epyT-R]

Just because most people think something is true doesn't mean that it is. Those parents are welcome to follow the advice. Just because some don't, doesn't mean the state should enforce blanket laws that cannot ever possibly take into account individual situations (without a ton of bureaucratic overhead that costs everyone even more money). The state is not us. The state is a collection of people who, when at work, are now in a group with value-added powers. This combination of group mentality and power creates slavish worship of various ideologies which are then forced on the rest of us under the guise of 'safety' (or 'freedom' when they're feeling especially bold). They might be 'us' when they're home as individuals, but comparing the state to the latter is dead wrong.

I find the ivory tower vacuum huffers to be just as suspect as the uneducated citizen. Like their college classmates in the government, they also suffer from drinking too much koolaid.. I am VERY suspicious of any 'studies' on politically hot topics these days.

Re:I'm fine...

[Doctor_Jest]

You do realize that under a functional democratic government, the will of the state is approximately the same as the will of a majority of its people, right?

Government should never be used as a behavior modifier for something as nebulous as this study (or the violent video game crap... or the pot ban... or the ban on 32oz sodas in NYC). If it causes real harm, it can be handled the way we handle truly harmful things. Let the parents handle the recommendations and if they don't follow them (and something bad does happen), they can be held accountable (like giving alcohol to a 5 year old... etc), but "banning" something doesn't stop it from happening (War on Drugs anyone?), so why inflict more stifling restraint on people who don't have kids? Why punish the individual who does treat his/her child properly and with love, but may let the kid watch a smidge too much TV if the only thing that happened to said child is the parent violated a "ban"?

Banning the sale of "violent" video games hasn't stopped kids from playing them. Labeling music as "explicit" hasn't stopped kids from listening to it. So what does banning TV for kids under 3 hope to accomplish? And how would they enforce it? Would you be required by law to give up your TV when you welcome your new bundle of joy into the world? Or would they send the TV police out dressed as Barney and Big Bird and make sure you're not letting your kid watch too much TV or at all? Where does this absurdity end? Did Prohibition stop all consumption of alcohol? I fail to see how this "ban" on TV for kids under 3 is not going to work. It just takes more liberty from you... and whittles away your freedom that the government has no right to take in the first place.

The TV isn't inherently evil. It can be abused, but at the same time, banning it for a certain demographic gives the state ammo to say "too much TV makes adults overly flatulent" and blammo! Another ban for "the good of the community...." Yeah, I'd rather the government not have that power. I never consented to get told I can't buy a 32oz soda because Bloomberg's a fucking busybody.... And I don't need Nanny State hovering to make sure I don't watch too much of the idiot box... or my kids. That's my job.

Re:I'm fine...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you read the same OP as me? No video game crap, no pot ban, no soda ban... and no TV ban, not even for kids under 3. Nowhere in the text.

Yeah, the big bad government also makes it really hard for parents to avoid giving their kids vaccines (not impossible, but you have to really try hard), and make all kinds of rules to guide you into making the decisions of "your job" go the way "they" want you to. It's like they have some sort of vested interest in making sure kids grow up without needing further government expenses further down the line. They even say you can't kill them, what's up with that?

Seems like issuing guidelines so your kids' daycare can't just plop kids in front of the tube for several hours every day is a good thing. I'd even vote for it. I must really hate freedom. A world where governments issue guidelines is the very scary nightmare world I may very well end up with if I'm not careful. The clicking of the bureaucrats' keyboards sounds just like the march of jackbooted thugs if you listen just right.

Re:I'm fine...

[Anonymous Coward]

"You do realize that under a functional democratic government, the will of the state is approximately the same as the will of a majority of its people, right? "

2 Koch brothers is a majority?

Re:I'm fine...

[Darri]

The upside is I can remember tons and tons of commercial jingles

How is that an upside? I can't really think of a less important thing to remember than a commercial jingle.

Re:I'm fine...

[Darri]

Reviewing this I realize my humor-detector may be a bit off today, well played.

From TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

The study says that a lack of interaction is the root cause of the issue, and there is a pretty obvious rebuttal in TFA:

But the issue is controversial and his opinions and standing are questioned by Dorothy Bishop, professor of developmental neuropsychology at Oxford University who says that although this is an important topic, Sigman's paper is not "an impartial expert review of evidence for effects on health and child development". "Aric Sigman does not appear to have any academic or clinical position, or to have done any original research on this topic," she said. "His comments about impact of screen time on brain development and empathy seem speculative in my opinion, and the arguments that he makes could equally well be used to conclude that children should not read books."

Re:From TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Bingo. His objections are based on kids being sedentary. Which I completely agree with. I think exercise and movement is a key ingredient to intellectual development. (John Ratey's book Spark is an excellent resource on this topic.) Thus I get my kids out multiple times a day exercising, and they have screen time, or reading time, or draw during the other times.

Re:From TFA

[Fishchip]

Hells, our 2yo (despite having Treehouse on the television) often runs up with his shoes and coat, demanding to go outside. He's turning out to be a pickle ball master.

Probably adults too.

[bored]

Everyone has been saying that adults need to limit their exposure to tv as well, based on the idea that sitting around for extended periods of time can cause health problems.

Based on personal experience, I suspect that those studies showing extremely low levels of brain activity in people watching TV is also going to result in eventual proof that watching TV actually makes people dumber. Your brain needs "exercise" the same way as the rest of your body. So instead of having hobbies, or playing sports people just sit around and let the TV fill their eyes/ears. Of course this is going to be reflected in a "dumbing down" of society in general as those hours are taking up time that might have been spent on more stimulating activities.

Re:Probably adults too.

[The Good Reverend]

Your brain needs relaxation too - TV's no different than reading a book or any other mostly passive activity. The secret, of course, is moderation.

Re:Probably adults too.

[jd2112]

I submit the Kardashians and Honey Boo Boo as evidence to support your claim.

Re:Probably adults too.

[PeanutButterBreath]

Your brain needs relaxation too - TV's no different than reading a book or any other mostly passive activity.

Citation?

TV is the product of decades of study to find ways to keep you watching, indefinitely if possible. It is the junk food of entertainments -- highly engineered to push every available button that will keep you consuming, with zero regard for the impact of that consumption on the consumers health or well being.

How is it "relaxing" to be assailed by an endless stream of manipulative messages designed to stimulate all manner of consumption, often by promoting various anxieties?

Re:Probably adults too.

[The Good Reverend]

No, "TV" is a device that allows me to watch visual and audio stimuli - it's unrelated to the content, which is what you're describing. I choose what I put on my television, and I'm sorry if you've only been exposed to the kind of programming you've described.

Also, everything you've just discussed can be said for books (and many websites, for that matter). Are you giving up reading and internet surfing, too?

Re:Probably adults too.

[PeanutButterBreath]

No, "TV" is a device that allows me to watch visual and audio stimuli - it's unrelated to the content, which is what you're describing.

The content I am describing is the "audio and visual stimuli" that you are referring to. The point is that while people could stare at a blank screen or specialized patters of relaxing audio and visual stimuli, that is not what most people watch on TV.

Also, everything you've just discussed can be said for books (and many websites, for that matter). Are you giving up reading and internet surfing, too?

Give up books? Of course not, because a book is just a collection of pieces of paper bound together. A book is unrelated to the content printed within.

Re:Probably adults too.

[DaveAtFraud]

I was thinking that at least one zero got dropped from both the /. headline and the article. Judging from some of the responses defending the boob tube, I rest my case.

Cheers,
Dave

Re:Probably adults too.

[captjc]

Give up books? Of course not, because a book is just a collection of pieces of paper bound together. A book is unrelated to the content printed within.

A TV is just an LCD monitor with an RF Tuner.

Re:Probably adults too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now you're just being obtuse. You are trying to copy his arguement, and sound like you have a rebuttal when you are actually saying nothing here.

the awnser is...

[M0j0_j0j0]

As always the same rule applies, less laws, more education.

Re:the awnser is...

[Ryan101]

I think you mean "fewer".

Re:the awnser is...

[Anonymous Coward]

As always the same rule applies, less laws, more education.

Fewer laws. Incidentally, I agree with the "more education" part.

I hope this article is a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

A bureaucrat in every living room controlling how much television children should watch? That's a terrifying proposition. As if we don't have government trampling all over our economy and personal liberties already.

Re:I hope this article is a joke

[Em Adespoton]

Another study concluded that 3-year-olds make excellent bureaucrats -- If you have one in your household, expect recruiters to come knocking at your door to hire them -- they'll be retired by the time they're 33 with fat pensions. Of course, they'll probably have you in jail within a few weeks.

TV Makes You Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

TV makes you stupid. I've been saying that for years. I'm one of those people that grew up without a TV. I don't typically share this information with people (I don't like being "that guy"), but it seems relevant...

As a child, it irked me that I didn't have any context for understanding the TV shows that all my friends were watching. As a teenager, I found it difficult to fit in, since I didn't have TV to insert fashion trends and pop cultural phenomena into my consciousness.

As an adult, however, I consider my parents' choice to not have a TV in the household to be one of the best child-rearing decisions they made. Why? Hard to say, but to sum it up, I'm smarter and more motivated than my peers. Instead of anesthetizing myself on the couch with the mindless tripe you find on TV, I read books and study topics that are of interest to me. I actively seek out information about what is going on in the world, rather than having news/opinions (it's hard to separate the two, if you get such information from TV) spoon-fed to me. It amazes me that people piss away their lives watching garbage that is, as far as I can tell, designed solely to make you consume while simultaneously making you unhappy with your life.

If you have a TV near you, turn it on for a second and count the number of seconds in between scene changes (where what you are watching switches to a different camera, angle, perspective, etc.). In a lot of the media consumed by kids/teens today, that interval is often 0-5 seconds. Reflect, for a moment, on what that might do to one's capacity for attention and focus.

There is a huge disconnect between what is portrayed on television and actual reality. Since kids today are socialized primarily by the media, this ought to be cause for at least some level of concern. Whenever I see people on TV (especially the talking heads), my first thought is always "People don't look like that".

And don't get me started on advertising.

my opinions on this matter, summed up: people ought to be more discriminating when it comes to what they are willing to expose their consciousness to.

Re:TV Makes You Stupid

[k6mfw]

>As a teenager, I found it difficult to fit in, since I didn't have TV to insert fashion trends and pop cultural phenomena into my consciousness.

You sound like this guy I met from Ukraine. He said growing up he didn't fit in because he had no interest in drinking and partying, so he worked his way through school with goal of moving away which he now lives in Silicon Valley.

Re:TV Makes You Stupid

[robot5x]

maybe. But isn't the point that one needs balance?
I have no problem whatsoever with my kids sitting around watching garbage reality TV, BUT I will do my best to raise them to think critically and to analyse and think over what they're seeing. As well as watching a fair bit of TV, they also read a lot, and play outside a lot. None of these things are mutually exclusive, you know.

Re:TV Makes You Stupid

[rmdingler]

No sir. Not exercising your brain, and/or being born into an unfit womb, makes you stupid. Intelligence and the large brain responsible for it are a huge sacrifice in nature, as the two usually come with delayed maturation and a healthy serving of not fitting in. Television, comic books, and Isaac Asimov novels are not detrimental to cerebral development. Au contraire sir, any exercise is still exercise. Can I get a hell yeah. If one were to argue TV makes us pear-shaped, well, that's a horse of another color....

Re:TV Makes You Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

What a load of crap.

What you have there is anecdotal evidence and a huge ego.

There are plenty of smart people (and I would bet smarter then you), that grew up watching TV and have no problems.

Re:TV Makes You Stupid

[circletimessquare]

If you have a TV near you, turn it on for a second and count the number of seconds in between scene changes (where what you are watching switches to a different camera, angle, perspective, etc.). In a lot of the media consumed by kids/teens today, that interval is often 0-5 seconds. Reflect, for a moment, on what that might do to one's capacity for attention and focus.

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Apparently a childhood of not watching TV turns people into smug egomaniacs who believe rubbish because it makes them feel better about themselves.

That sentence, that I just wrote, is ridiculous nonsense.

It is ridiculous nonsense on equal par in terms of what you just wrote.

The only difference is I have a data point of 1 to support my rubbish assertion.

Re:TV Makes You Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, but dawg, gotta tell you somethin'. as someone who used to be an angry nerd thinking they were better than everybody else and not fitting in, and then later in college became a douchey frat bro who fits in...the latter is way better: money for nothing and chicks for free. no one gives a fuck how smart you are. you will die alone, likely in a nursing home, unable to share in the joy of watching robot chicken on TV Land with your cell mates. repent now. watch tv. get some social skills and live a little.

Re:TV Makes You Stupid

[chrismcb]

Didn't we just have a discussion the other day about causation and correlation?
You infer TV makes you stupid (I'm not sure how it MAKES you stupid, although I do admit it takes time away from other things) Yes TV is a distraction, and too much of it means you don't get enough other useful stuff in your life. But the can be said about almost anything. Some of the smartest people I know watch TV and some of the dumbest people I know watch TV.
The only thing I can tell from your barrage is that you grew up HATING TV, because you didn't have it. Now you are a smug elitist and you think you are better than everyone because you don't watch TV. I can guarantee there are people smarter and more motivated than you, and are probably more interesting. because you know what,... they watched TV.
Here is the thing I find interesting. You started off claiming you found it difficult to fit in. And then went on to elaborate how you are better than everyone else. But part of your problem is, you don't fit in. Part of that problem is you didn't do the same thing your 'peers' did. You aren't smarter because of TV, but your social life is stunted because of a lack of it.

Re:TV Makes You Stupid

[fferreres]

I have a TV and only use Netflix (streaming and DVD). My 3 years old kid loves Stephen Hawking's Into The Universe, Ocean Documentaries, a few cartoons that actually deal with important stuff (not to be afraid of dark, sharing, etc.). I watch 2 to 3 movies a week. But the iPad gets most of his attention. He loves SolarWalk, his favorite...you can explore the galaxy and solar system. He asks me a lot of questions. Loves to draw black holes, the sun, and the different planets. Yet, most of the time, he's at school, drawing, playing with water, "cooking".

What I think you describe has to do with the average content, which is....pretty average and will make anyone dumb. Even just watching normal TV will kill your productivity by the sheer amount of ads.

I think you can't Palme the TV. Or the tablet. Or the books. You need to blame people content choices. And about balance or moderation.

Re:TV Makes You Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

How can it be zero seconds between scene changes? And you claim you're smart... boy you're so dumb...

Re:TV Makes You Stupid

[argStyopa]

".... to sum it up, I'm smarter and more motivated than my peers. Instead of anesthetizing myself on the couch with the mindless tripe you find on TV, I read books and study topics that are of interest to me. I actively seek out information about what is going on in the world, rather than having news/opinions (it's hard to separate the two, if you get such information from TV) spoon-fed to me....."

You sound like the sort of asshole that didn't get even the basic socialization you'd have gotten watching tv, ie, that even if you ARE smarter than your peers you'd realize that making such comments just make you hateable bully-bait.

I watched a TON of TV as a kid. I would cheerfully discuss any topic at a detailed level with your supposedly-superior intellect, be it the predictive value of Italian and Spanish bond markets in regards the Euro:Dollar exchange rate, Byzantine Christianity and the rise of Islam in the post-Mohammed century, or selection-bias in regards to planetary surveys and the implications for the Drake equations.

There's a HUGE issue of causal confusion going on here.
If an idiot with little brain wants to watch lots of TV, the TV didn't ipso-facto *make* them stupid.

TV is a basic, legal, visually-delivered stimulus. Some of what it shows is fantastically interesting, but in a sense this just means its a stimulus market-segmented to appeal to more intellectual viewers. Other shows are better-targeted to stupid people.

Stop blaming THINGS for choices PEOPLE make. If people didn't have the TV to plant their kids in front of, they'd be ignoring them in other contexts.

Re:TV Makes You Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

I am very pro TV...I watch a lot. I am also pro intelligence.

You sir are someone who doesn't seem to 'get' it....I'm guessing a Heinlein fan...

Re:TV Makes You Stupid

[tbird81]

You seem like.. I'm guessing... a fucking dickhead...

Re:TV Makes You Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

I would cheerfully discuss any topic at a detailed level with your supposedly-superior intellect

Keep dreaming pleb.

Re:TV Makes You Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

My favorite comment of the day. Thank you, I enjoyed this.

Re:TV Makes You Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I only let my kids watch Kubrick films.

To enforce this ban

[fustakrakich]

All TVs, computers and screen games must be placed by a large picture window on the first floor and with no curtains, so officials can perform random checks for compliance, and call in SWAT on the violators

Enforcement

[cervesaebraciator]

What's the point of attempting to regulate behavior like this if it's utterly impossible to enforce? Or, what might even be worse, what's the point in trying to enforce a regulation when doing so--if it were possible--would cause more harm than not doing so? Let us imagine a likely scenario: lower income parents, tired by working three jobs, gives in and decides to use a television for a while to quiet an unruly toddler (for why the toddler is so unruly, see how much the parents work and ask where the child must be). This is against the law. If we regulate this in the same way as alcohol, parents who are a repeat offenders might well lose their children. Is the life of a broken family really an improvement over the previous condition?

Re:Enforcement

[mark-t]

It would be sort of "enforced" by banning the broadcasting of television programs which are specifically engineered to appeal to that demographic. Programs which currently target such audiences would have to be redesigned to be oriented more towards children who are perhaps just about to start school. While children under 3 might still be exposed to such programs, the lack of any content explicitly geared for infants and toddlers could nonetheless make some difference.

Some TV is fine

[GreatDrok]

Don't park your kid in front of a TV all day, but a little TV has to be fine. We would go insane if we didn't have some down time while the TV provided entertainment. The main thing we do is stick to DVDs rather than live TV to limit exposure to all those adverts.

Re:Some TV is fine

[Mitreya]

The main thing we do is stick to DVDs rather than live TV to limit exposure to all those adverts.

And how is that working out for you? Between the "Don't steal that DVD" and about 10-20 minutes of un-skippable previews and sometimes even commercials, I feel that I get at least a decent dose of ads from most DVDs.

And don't get me started on the increasingly common ads (not previews - ads!) in movie theaters.

I don't know where I can get commercial-free (and legal) content nowdays (netflix?).

Re:Some TV is fine

[Pulzar]

I don't know where I can get commercial-free (and legal) content nowdays (netflix?).

Yes. Tons of ad-free content for kids.

Amazon Instant Video works well, too.

Re:Some TV is fine

[tbird81]

DVDs?
Here's a secret:
http://thepiratebay.se/

Re:Some TV is fine

[tilante]

And how is that working out for you? Between the "Don't steal that DVD" and about 10-20 minutes of un-skippable previews and sometimes even commercials, I feel that I get at least a decent dose of ads from most DVDs.

Not the previous poster, but even where the previews and commercials aren't skippable on DVDs, they're often fast-forwardable. And where they aren't, I tend to simply leave the room and do things that need doing around the house (clothes or dish washing, generally), checking back every five minutes or so until I see that the menu is up.

No preview is 'unskippable' when you can simply leave the room until it's over.

Re:Some TV is fine

[Anonymous Coward]

The main thing we do is stick to DVDs rather than live TV to limit exposure to all those adverts.

And how is that working out for you? Between the "Don't steal that DVD" and about 10-20 minutes of un-skippable previews and sometimes even commercials, I feel that I get at least a decent dose of ads from most DVDs.

Since my family can't actually show up at any given time, I just stick the damn things in with the TV off. When everyone finally shows up 10 minutes later, we just start.

Re:Some TV is fine

[GreatDrok]

Er, handbrake and AppleTV. They're our discs, we just prefer to have them kept in the box and put them all on iTunes since we have two AppleTVs. This also saves wear and tear on the discs, especially kid's shows. And best of all, no adverts or trailers, just the program we want instantly.

Re:Some TV is fine

[GreatDrok]

I don't pirate - I just buy the discs (usually when they're on special) and rip them using Handbrake (unless they come with a digital copy already.)

And Facebook causes cancer?

[slew]

Apparently, this guy (psychologist Dr. Aric Sigman) apparently has lots of agendas...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1149207/How-using-Facebook-raise-risk-cancer.html

Not saying that TV is good for you, but sometimes you have to look at the source of this stuff and wonder how seriously to take it...

Re:And Facebook causes cancer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this not modded higher?

Re:And Facebook causes cancer?

[tbird81]

Why is this not modded higher?

Because it's already at 5.

Yeah Limits!

[U8MyData]

I think there should be limits on Doctors and government officials constantly drumming up studies on what is good for us. We know already and the vascillations of these studies is way more harmful to my mental health and well being than say TV ever would be. Get the hell out of my and others business.

Re:Yeah Limits!

[JMonty42]

There should be a study conducted on how all of these studies affect our mental health.

YIu might want to

[geekoid]

look up the guy who ran the study before giving any merit to this study based on an article, or even the conclusions of the study.

Take this with a boulder of salt

[l0ungeb0y]

Any study taken by the Police State formally known as Great Britain that strives to set a course for conduct within the household should be viewed as suspect. Immediately, I would think this is little more than a ploy to goad Parliament into passing a whole new set of overreaching laws to invade the privacy of citizens households to insure that "children are being brought up in a safe environment that encourages good social behavior". Hefty fines and jail times for letting your children watch TV before the gov't sanctioned age limit is not at all far fetched based on what I've seen from that fascist Nanny-State as of late.

Oh look...

[Anonymous Coward]

...more moronic laws from the UK.

My 3 year old.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Has his own iPad. Really, it was mine but he owns it. He learned to type and read on it. Mostly by learning to login to Netflix and other websites to play games, etc. You have to have a username to post a high score. This reminds me of the Catholic church talking about contraception. How many of the people who participated in the article, either supplying data or writing it, have kids under the age of 5. I would say that, aside from being sissies, each generation gets better, definitely nicer.
The information in the article comes from people who were taught to hide under a blanket in case of nuclear war. Watch out the Japs are coming, and they're bringing their fancy new Atari's and Manga. Otaku me right in the ass.

Dumbasses. People make me sad. Who even has the time to write this bullshit?

I would actually say, watch tv with your kids. Teach them to be inquisitive and discerning. Take them outside once in a while. Try being a parent. Superhero's are cool. Santa is cool. Lochness monster and bigfoot and power rangers.

Don't let your kid watch holocaust movies. They might grow up to hate Germans (I know I do.)

He Man woman haters rule!

We are all dumber for having read this.

Boy am I glad I called that guy.

Having said all that, am going to go teach my kid to smoke cigarettes and drink coffee. Better to be f*ed up and interesting than a dull-ass-wannabe-smart/interesting loser- who would write a lame ass article like this.

BTW Baby Einstein is bottom of the barrel for kid tv. Check out SuperWhy or some of the other learn the alphabet/numbers kids shows. I would say everything has some merit for a lesson, good or bad, the thing is you have to be there with your kid to teach him/her.the difference. I changed the way I raised my kid because of this article, and now he's an angel. No more killing baby pandas, for him, nope, thank you God/and pseudo-science.

Re:My 3 year old.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Bravo, sir. That was quite engrossing
A troll, of course, but it's ever so nice to see one done well.

Not science based

[Hatta]

This is one of the most artful academic smackdowns I've read:

But the issue is controversial and his opinions and standing are questioned by Dorothy Bishop, professor of developmental neuropsychology at Oxford University who says that although this is an important topic, Sigman's paper is not "an impartial expert review of evidence for effects on health and child development". "Aric Sigman does not appear to have any academic or clinical position, or to have done any original research on this topic," she said. "His comments about impact of screen time on brain development and empathy seem speculative in my opinion, and the arguments that he makes could equally well be used to conclude that children should not read books."

Read this as "Clinicians have no idea how to do meta-analysis. He's making this shit up".

Re:Not science based

[Kittenman]

This is one of the most artful academic smackdowns I've read:

But the issue is controversial and his opinions and standing are questioned by Dorothy Bishop, professor of developmental neuropsychology at Oxford University who says that although this is an important topic, Sigman's paper is not "an impartial expert review of evidence for effects on health and child development". "Aric Sigman does not appear to have any academic or clinical position, or to have done any original research on this topic," she said. "His comments about impact of screen time on brain development and empathy seem speculative in my opinion, and the arguments that he makes could equally well be used to conclude that children should not read books."

Read this as "Clinicians have no idea how to do meta-analysis. He's making this shit up".

Nicely put. And I mean really.

I'll give you my Fisher Price EZ clean remote...

[julian67]

...when you take it from my soft, warm, vomit stinking, slippery, snotty, infectious podgy hands.

waaaaah.

I am 45 and three quarters.

But TV is the best baby sitter!

[Lumpy]

I have good friends, that are completely insane, that had their first child 2 years ago at the age of 45. And the TV is on 24/7 to entertain the child. It's insane enough to have a kid at that old age, but they dont have the energy to actually raise the child, so the TV will do.

Re:But TV is the best baby sitter!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well when they pass away while the kid is still in secondary school, he can fall back on television instead of seeking out new human relationships.

Uh-oh for Big Bird!

[Anonymous Coward]

Big Bird considered harmful??

This just in.

[tpstigers]

An unqualified moron publishes paper full of hearsay and speculation.

It pays to read the article cited.

hell, I learned to read off the TV at 2-1/2

[swschrad]

but this was back when it was "radio with pictures" and they had text cards up with the bulletin points when they were reading ad scripts.

nowdays, it's babes making out with hamburgers and there is no direct correlation.

I totally agree... British TV is bloody awful

[Anonymous Coward]

I, however, grew up on AMERICAN TV and the best that New York and Hollywood had to offer in the late 50's. Sgt. Bilko, Toody & Muldoon, Groucho, Ernie Kovacs, Beany & Cecil, and countless others filled my time day after day, week after week, year after year. It made me what my generation is proud to be today: fat and vertically-challenged. What, me worry?

Nonsense!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense! My kids watch tons of TV, nearly all educational. They are far more advanced in speaking, alphabetting, counting, and imagining than their peers.

Big Bird and the morons

[jamesl]

It's been a tough week for Big Bird.

From the article ...
Sigman goes further, suggesting no screen time for the under-threes, rising gradually to a maximum of two hours for the over-16s.
I'm sorry Mrs Jones. I couldn't finish my history report because I spent my two hours of screen time on math and biology.

Re:Big Bird and the morons

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, massive umemployment, gas at $4 a gallon (double from 4 years ago), hundreds killed in Mexico from an ATF program gone bad and top White House officials covering it up, killing of an ambassador in Lybia and WH officials covering that up as well, $1.5 Trillion deficit each year, Wall Street being paid billions of taxpayer money instead of being put in jail, warrentless wiretapping increasing, and TSA getting all new equipment.

Yep, the worst possible administration ever and Big Bird is the best topic they can bring up. Can we just cancel the election and impech Obama today? He has made a laughing stock of the country and the Oval Office.

Re:Big Bird and the morons

[bbecker23]

Can we just cancel the election and impe[a]ch Obama today?

Impeach. I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Every Kid is Different

[bennomatic]

I appreciate the guidelines, but to some degree, the best guideline is: Don't be an idiot; pay attention to your kid, and if you see signs of a problem, be a parent and change what your kid is allowed to do.

I've got a 3.5 year-old, and in his first few months of infancy, we could totally watch TV while holding him, let him loll around on the floor and play while the TV was on, and he didn't even pay attention to it. He was much more interested in Mom and me, and even more so, his little musical toys.

But at about six months, my wife was watching the news while feeding him, and suddenly he turned away from the boob and looked at the TV like, "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE?!?!" And immediately, we knew that he couldn't watch TV.

We kept him away from all TV for about another year and a half, when the nanny who was helping out two mornings a week went down to one morning a week (and eventually none), and if the house was going to stay tidy, my wife needed a distraction. Since he was two, we introduced him to Netflix and Dora the Explorer.

On a normal day, he gets one episode of whatever his current favorite show is (currently Blues Clues). It's always educational, and the little guy is totally OK with it. Sometimes he gets bored, shuts down the laptop and announces he's done and goes right to his Legos. The only times he watches more than one a day are when he's sick with a cold and we're trying to keep him in bed.

The first time he ever watched a full-length movie (Cars 2) was, coincidentally, when he was 3. We all had a family cold, and I needed to get some additional sleep. He loves his toy cars, so I figured he'd love the movie, and I told him that since he's such a big boy, he could watch that. He loved it, and it's been a great tool to have, for example, on a recent road trip we did. He wouldn't have made it all the way to Tahoe without Cars 2. The funny thing is that in the last couple of weeks, he's been asking just to see specific scenes in the evenings. Five or 10 minutes, and he's done. He's got more self-control than I did any time before the age of 30.

But not all kids are like that. Some will always have a problem, some will never have a problem. Maybe we got lucky, maybe we actually did the right thing by removing exposure between 6- and 24 months. I don't know, since I can't do the experiment. But I feel pretty strongly that a good, engaged parent can take big steps towards mitigating any problems with screen time just by remaining engaged.

Believe me, "remaining engaged" is easier said than done at some points in a child's development--parenthood can be pretty demanding--but even a C-grade level of engagement is better than an A+ enforcement of a blanket rule. If you take that sort of stimulation away from a kid who can handle it, you might be missing great opportunities for learning: my kid's got an incredible vocabulary because of Dora, Diego, Dinosaur Train, Blues Clues and Cars 2; my wife and I can certainly take some credit, but there are things he says that we know we didn't teach him directly; there's got to be some value there.

Wait, DOCTORS and GOVERNMENT?!?

[Guru80]

Here we go again...while I agree that you should be a PARENT and not let you child sit in front of the damn tv all day, this is not the place for doctors to be giving government guidelines to pass into law, because that's what these studies are typically used as proof for...needing yet more laws to govern your very existence. The problem is parents being lazy son's of bitches that don't care to spend their extra time actually being parents and raising healthy and responsible children.

There already is a guideline that says you shouldn't put your infant in front of the tv as a full time babysitter, it's called common sense. Thing is, no amount of doctor recommended or government regulated amount of tv time is going to change the lazy bastards who shouldn't have had kids to begin with and only end up being one extra, unnecessary hassle for parent's it doesn't apply to. Just watch, I guarantee it.

But but but....

[roc97007]

...how will we babysit our kids?

Geeze, sorry Big Bird, looks like you're out of a job.

Banned? The Language of Big Government Extremism

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever happened to sane headlines and reasonable, evolutionary, non-violent, educational social change? Methinks those things never existed consciously, but now that the Government has convinced people of the supposed failure of supposed "Free Markets", a large swath of the population has become content to turn to the Dear Leader for marching orders written in unyielding, black and white decrees.

From the desk of the gov't official

[rmdingler]

Dear AC: We want not to come by your house to verify, but good luck is yours, you have been chosen as a Nielsen household.

Who'da thunk it?

[ApplePy]

TV rots kids' brains? Why are we still arguing this? It is, as AGW disciples say, "settled science." Whether it's the flashing or the short scenes or the pernicious advertising or the political propaganda, it doesn't matter. Television is not healthy for children, and I defy anyone to prove any net good to it.

A word on the "I grew up on TV and I'z okay" posts: you're not. You just don't know any better. You don't have the outside perspective to see the difference. Maybe you're "okay," but could you be a little smarter if you grew up reading instead? Probably. Because while you were learning your ABCs and counting to 10 with Big Bird, the other 7-year-old down the street in a TV-less household is learning long division and reading National Geographic.

Now, that may not be a direct correlation, because I suspect the parents who keep the idiot box away from their kids not only care more, but are probably better educated to begin with. Regardless, I have found no case in which TV-babysat children are ahead of their non-TV-babysat peers in any way.

But, libertarian that I am, you do whatever you want with your kids. We still need fry cooks and garbagemen.

Re:Who'da thunk it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Television is not healthy for children, and I defy anyone to prove any net good to it.

Television taught me to read. It taught me basic math. It taught me there are other countries in the world. It taught me there are black people and Asian people and Jewish people in the world when none lived near me. It taught me about weather and sports and business. It taught me history. It taught me to sing. It taught me what's funny. It taught me about other planets and robots and spaceships.

All this well before I was in school.

TFA Doesn't Account for WHAT they watch?

[retroworks]

Just "TV is bad, m'kay?"

My wife and I let our twins watch only tapes, no broadcast TV, until they were about 5. Musicals and foreign films and animated movies (Fantasia, Jungle Book, etc). Oh, and only in French... we went to Montreal and bought all the videos in French only. Both kids are now fluent in French/English and speak Spanish as a third language, now studying Latin. The point being, the article says it's the amount of TV and the age of the kid and seems to assume all TV is the same... Fiddler On the Roof, Clockwork Orange, Japanese Anime, Sesame Street, Fox News, content makes no difference? That's like saying all food is the same, and it doesn't matter what you eat only how old you are when you eat it. Maybe the study covers it and the Guardian reporter just forgot to ask, as it is, it's a stupid article. But put a government regulation in without any control group study and you are asking for problems.

Re:TFA Doesn't Account for WHAT they watch?

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting

Are either of you fluent in French, or is their understanding from the movies only?

If TV, then Religion.

[Seumas]

If TV has such a negative impact on children under four years old, perhaps we need to draw up legislation to address children being indoctrinated with religion. And, for that matter, the racism and hate in many households. Hell, forget all that shit. Just come take all children as soon as they're weened off the tit and let the government raise them. Grant immediate family bi-weekly visits.

totalitarian 1984 etc etc...

[Anonymous Coward]

[i]Doctors and government health officials should set limits, as they do for alcohol on the amount of time children spend watching screens[/i]

No, no, and a third NO! I have heard that TV is bad for children under 3 but the government shouldn't take the job of a parent and they should especially not start mandating these kind of laws. I can see how it's possible to assume if a parent shows the show to their kid but that is just another totalitarian-esq law that would be all bad.

No, being stupid makes you stupid

[Nidi62]

TV makes you stupid. I've been saying that for years. I'm one of those people that grew up without a TV. I don't typically share this information with people (I don't like being "that guy"), but it seems relevant...

I grew up watching TV, even today if I am home, the TV is on, even if I'm not paying attention.

As an adult, however, I consider my parents' choice to not have a TV in the household to be one of the best child-rearing decisions they made. Why? Hard to say, but to sum it up, I'm smarter and more motivated than my peers. Instead of anesthetizing myself on the couch with the mindless tripe you find on TV, I read books and study topics that are of interest to me.

By the time I was in 3rd grade, I was getting in trouble reading books in class. In the 4th grade I was reading adult, science themed books such as Michael Crichton, and could follow along with the plot and science. My elementary school has about a 5-6 book box set on the Vietnam War; I read that 3-4 times. By 4th grade I was in the advanced program, which continued on through middle school and I enrolled in a Magnet high school. I had 24 college credits by the time I graduated high school. I was also a multi-sport athlete through most of high school, and played football in college.

I actively seek out information about what is going on in the world, rather than having news/opinions (it's hard to separate the two, if you get such information from TV) spoon-fed to me.

I have a Master's Degree in International relations, and can carry on conversations on a variety of topics, both current events such as the Euro crisis, Libya, and Syria and talk about the factors that caused them; recent/past issues such as the 25 year civil war in Sri Lanka, the politics and proxy wars of the Cold War (on all continents), etc; and science/technology related issues. I have my own set of political beliefs that do not reflect those of any mainstream media outlet.

Looks like watching TV really doesn't have as much of a negative effect as you claim. It's not the TV or lack of TV that causes these characteristics, it's simply what the individual is interested in and what motivates them.

Go back to the 1780s please.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like the 2nd amendment to be reworded!

Re:gay niggers

[Alien Being]

Case in point. OP watched teletubbies.

I'd argue that kids shouldn't read novels...

[Sanians]

I'd argue that kids shouldn't read novels... At least to the degree that they shouldn't watch television. Both are merely forms of entertainment, and in the modern day of Facebook and the internet in general, the idea that some kid is going to grow up without learning how to read is laughable. (Though it is worth noting that I wouldn't argue that kids shouldn't watch television, as everyone needs some entertainment now and then. Rather, we should make sure that our kids have better things to do so they don't feel the need to use television to avoid inescapable boredom. Given the choice between setting things on fire with a chemistry set, or yet another sitcom, what kid would choose television? I know a good month of my youth was spent mixing aluminum foil and hydrochloric acid in sealed plastic bottles. While I probably didn't learn a lot from that, I certainly learned more from it than I would have learned watching television, and I'd certainly have learned even more were it not that my "chemistry set" consisted of some toilet bowl cleaner I found under the bathroom sink.)

Unfortunately our education system is designed as if, back in the 1800's, some people were like "we need to make people smarter" and then, not really knowing how to do that, they just made a list of what qualities smart people had, and set out to make kids resemble smart people.

Thus, there's a huge emphasis on reading. Why did intelligent people in the 1800's read? Was it because reading made you smart, or because only smart people knew how to read and there was nothing the fuck else to do back in the 1800's? So the smart people read, and the dumb people watched the grass grow during the day and made moonshine at night. Does that mean that reading novels will make our kids smart? ...or are we confusing correlation with causation?

Another thing that really gets me is spelling. Several hours a week for ten years of my life were spent learning all of the various random ways in which we use letters to form words, all of which could have been used for something that might have actually benefited me, like a class about how to avoid being taken advantage of in the free market. Again, smart people know how to spell, but it doesn't mean that forcing kids to learn how to spell is going to make them smart. I'm sure we've all seen the famous internet posting about spelling reform where, as it progresses, it implements the suggested changes in its own text. I've spent enough time running a Minecraft server that the unusual ways in which kids choose to spell words doesn't even phase me anymore, and so last time I saw it, it didn't give me any trouble until it started implementing changes which made no phonetic sense at all, like replacing all W's with V's. The only reason phonetic spelling is hard to read is because we're not used to seeing it and thus every phonetically spelled word is a new word we're unfamiliar with. Stop teaching spelling and in ten years everyone will wonder why we ever wasted so much time teaching it rather than making our kids better at math and science.

Re:I'd argue that kids shouldn't read novels...

[ifiwereasculptor]

I'd argue that kids shouldn't read novels... At least to the degree that they shouldn't watch television. Both are merely forms of entertainment

That's the problem right there. They really shouldn't be. I'm all for prohibiting children - and adults, for that matter - from keeping up with the Kardashians and reading Twilight, but there are nice things out there, too. There are lots of science or sciency shows on cable, at least.

Regarding your analysis about book habits, I don't remember who said that it's not reading, it's what you read. I'd add that it's not just what you read, but how you read it. Forcing children to read "good" books also hasn't worked, since they're being forced and aren't paying that much attention. A tiny subset of children actually enjoy splendid books such as The Catcher in the Rye or Lord of the Flies, while the rest of them are simply vaccinated against reading more complex works because they feel dull. What we do in schools is commit literary rape, not foster enthusiasm for reading. Good works won't really be appreciated by children or most teens, anyway, since they're not mature enough and they don't have the emotional baggage needed for the written words to resonate with them.

As for spelling, while I agree, I believe the same thing could be said about math. We should focus on the broader areas, like scientific thinking and critical analysis. Once kids learn to use those, specific skillsets like spelling and math will be learned when and if they are needed.

Re:I'd argue that kids shouldn't read novels...

[Sanians]

As for spelling, while I agree, I believe the same thing could be said about math.

Any time we teach kids something that they end up forgetting by the next year, we're just wasting everyone's time.

Of what was presented to me in math class, most of it was either something I already knew because it was something I was already using it, or it was something I didn't know but I could easily imagine a use for, and so it all stuck with me. However, I also remember one day we were going over a homework problem involving calculating the height of a flag pole using some geometry when someone asked "what are we ever going to use this for?" I can't imagine that kid could solve the same problem today. All of the math that kid supposedly "learned" was likely forgotten shortly after getting out of high school.

The simple fact is that our brains absorb information much more easily when it's perceived as useful. Useful information is simply more interesting and so we think about it more. Given that our progress as a species is only possible because of specialization, we'd likely do a whole lot better if we gave up this obsession with creating "well rounded individuals" and instead figured out what interests kids early on and let them become specialists immediately. Then, if math turns out to be useful in their specialty (Honestly, where isn't it useful?), then they'll learn the math, and it'll be easier to learn because they'll see the usefulness of it immediately and so it will be far more interesting to them.

Parents aren't the only ones who gets the kids

[i286NiNJA]

The rest of society gets the kids they raise too. Many parents would be better parents but they really just don't know what to do. My ex's kids used to get out of bed 10x a night and it'd been going on for years, I just did a simple google search that we needed to provide a lot of structure at bedtime with stories, snacks, teeth brushing and then things calmed down considerably. Adding structure to other things seemed to help provide discipline for routine things like homework as well. The difference was night and day. The kids liked the results and were generally happier getting attention at night instead of the hassles we'd gone through before, my ex was pretty happy and of course i was happy to be getting my sleep back.

Nobody told her this she would have done this a long time ago but she just didn't know.

Anyhow I have digressed a bit when people raise lousy kids we get them as co-workers, bosses, neighbors, girlfriends.... etc. It's bad for society.

N...rs are OK with me...

[gagol]

LOL, but getting back to topic in a serious manner... I do not have kids but...

I kicked TV out of my life about 10 years ago... and I could not be happier. I still download my top 3 shows and the occasionnal movie, but without the ads. It makes a world difference (no ads). I think the ads are the worst.

Respecfully, gagol, 12+ beers and counting...

Re:N...rs are OK with me...

[grep_rocks]

Most TV is such shit that I would't recommend that anybody watch it - let alone children under 3 - really, we have turned one of the most powerful mediums in the world into a lowest common denomiator cesspool designed to manipulate people into buying shit - just think of all the great stories that have been written, or how well informed people could be about the world and yet we get "survivor" & Snooki or our pathetic he said she said sensationalistic news coverage - our problems are so fucking huge and the bullshit has been layered so high that I really don't see how we can recover.

8 years without a TV

[manoweb]

Not only small kids but all humans are better off without a TV. I do not own one since 2004 and I would NEVER go back. My wife (back by girlfriend) at the beginning was skeptical and then realized how much better it was compared to when she was in her shared apartment. My kids are growing without a TV and don't even show the need for one. The problem is grandma when she wants to show teletubbies or other utter crap like that. Shame on the people that make those programs. Instead, we watch cartoons on the internet from time to time, good old stuff, not the modern silly cartoons. Heidi, Fist of the North Star.

We've known this since the 70s

[rsilvergun]

there were debates in America in front of Congress. Spoiler alert: The advertisers won. There's just too much money to be made making kinds into good little consumers. BTW, this is why the Repubs are fighting hard to kill PBS. It has nothing to do with pork. Think of all that ad revenue. All those impressionable little eyeballs...

I think the problem is

[rsilvergun]

that human beings at that age are learning to interact with the world, and TV if fundamentally non interactive. You're obviously putting a LOT of effort into raising your children, which is good for them. But is it possible that they're succeeding despite Television, and that it's your hard work that's making them a success?

Re:I think the problem is

[retroworks]

Agree if your point is that Correlation =! causation. Parents who don't put in effort will tend to use TV as a babysitter, which does not mean that parents who use TV do not put in effort.

I know you're trolling

[rsilvergun]

but I'll bite. Are you going to sterilize these people? For the record, I would. e.g. child birth should require a license. There was an old sit com where a character made the point that you need a license to Drive, shoot guns, heck even fish. But they'll let any idiot have a kid.

To put it a bit more bluntly, I've noticed that anti-gov't libertarian types are quick to judge the weaknesses and failings of others but when it comes to stopping people from being crushed by those weaknesses in the first place strangely silent. The only right they seem to support is the right to be miserable. Schadenfreude maybe?

Re:I know you're trolling

[Guru80]

I'm all for your sterilization plan. If you ran for president on that platform I'd be the first in line to vote and send a list of candidates that need to be moved to the front of the list. I was being over the top for one reason, it's a waste of time to bother with these regulations or guidelines...those that would follow them already do, those that require the boob-tube to distract their kids so they don't have to be parents won't listen to them anyway.

Funny...there's an exception there.

[zullnero]

My parents started me on Sesame Street and Electric company at around 2 1/2. They started buying me the workbooks at around 4 and rewarded me when I completed them. Both of my parents had to work, and babysitters don't often get paid to tutor 3-4 year olds.

I was reading and writing at a second grade level as a result by kindergarten. That feeling like you've got a easy handle on things carries over for several grade levels and builds a lot of confidence. As a result, learning more and more doesn't really become a big deal as it does to some kids. I am tremendously thankful to my parents and to all the taxpayers and supporters of those sorts of programs. I don't know if I'd be making just about upper-middle class wages now if I had been raised on a steady stream of advertisements and garbage television.

I wouldn't let a kid under 5 watch the commonplace rot-your-brain staged reality shows, ever, nor most of the American cartoons you get on Saturday mornings. That would have the exact opposite effect that PBS had on me as a kid. Obviously that stuff is no good.

Re:Funny...there's an exception there.

[turp182]

Word World and Sesame Street is all my kids get to watch other than an occasional Disney/Pixar movie. And no more than 2 hours a day (1 Street with breakfast, 2 World Worlds in the afternoon/evening).

Only 2.75 years old (twins), they are talking well and can read about 20 words. I also drill them on words (which they enjoy) using sets of letters or a drawing board.

Word World is very effective, over and over on the show they spell things and sound out letters and words. The Street does a bit of the same but has fun stories and more social interaction examples (diversity).

95% of children's TV is pure crap, never to enter my children's retinas.

And if one of them gets pushy about watching more, it's a timeout. Takes care of that right quick.

Oh, I learned to read from the Street as well. I fondly remember the silhouettes of people's facing sounding out words as they came together. Awesome.

Why watch at all?

[Tangential]

I can't imagine any case where someone's brain is improved by watching lots of video (TV, movies, video games or internet.)

Reading; playing in the fresh air, board games, etc.. are all better than sitting passively and absorbing another's unqualified opinions.

Kids watching TV? Or kids on TV?

[cashman73]

With shows like Toddlers & Tiaras and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, I think kids should be as far away from TV as possible, whether they are in front of or behind the camera. Add to that the recurring theme that most "child stars" seem to end up later in life with major drug and/or alcohol problems,. . .

TV rots your brain

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to the library and read a book
oh wait the Nazi's burned them all.

O well.

Re:TV rots your brain

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to the library and read a book
oh wait the Nazi's burned them all.

O well.

Perhaps we can all join Facebook and "LIKE" or DISLIKE this comment.

After all Socialism causes the government to provide toilet paper in rations. And we all want rationing of our toilet paper.

Because we'd all like to sand down the hemorroids. just a bit.

oddly the captcha for this post was "generals"

Same experience here

[Anonymous Coward]

One friends daughter allowed to watch TV, one friends daughter not. The one raised without TV in her early years is more social, interacts better with people, speaks 3 languages, has an eagerness to learn. The one raised with TV at an early age is lazy, anti-social.

This report just confirms what I already know.

Re:Same experience here

[Fishchip]

Never mind the fact that two siblings can grow up in the same house, the same environment, the same rules, and also end up as two completely dissimilar people. Or does my experience count for less than yours because you watched your friends' daughters (from two different families even?) and I'm using myself and my brother as my example case?

You can pick whatever examples you like from whatever sources and still be able to prove or disprove this report, depending on who you use.

Re:Same experience here

[Anonymous Coward]

If results can vary so much, to me that means what's good "on average" is moot and you need to customize per child.

Re:Same experience here

[mcgrew]

Indeed, I have a drinking buddy with two sons. The oldest is responsible, holds a job, pays his bills. The youngest, according to my buddy, is a shiftless bum who will do whatever he can to get out of work.

Timers

[Animats]

About 10 years ago, I came across, in a surplus store, a little box designed to limit TV viewing. It was a simple motor-driven timer in a box with a power cord. The user set the maximum number of viewing hours per day, plugged the TV's power cord into it, and closed the lid. The lid permanently latched, and could be only be opened by destroying the device.

It didn't sell well,which is why I found a case of them in a surplus store.

Sure, why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be willing to accept a little government nosiness in how I parent my kids if it ensured that all the idiots around me got just as much direction.

Personally, I haven't seen much evidence that having functioning sex organs is all the qualification one needs to be allowed to shape another human being's future, so I don't think that the role of a parent is nearly as sacred and inviolable as some people seem to think. We don't let people drive or own a gun without minimal testing for competence. Why do we let people parent without the same?

I'd say ban TV until the age of 5 or 6.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say ban TV until the age of 5 or 6. Before such age are kids utmost naive....

Watching "screens"... GAMES ARE GOOD FOR KIDS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Another old fart who thinks a computer is something like a TV, that you passively consume...

They are NOT the same.

A computer is something *good* for your kids. Games are *good* for kids. The whole point of the existence of games and play in nature, is to practice for reality. It is the mother of all education, sports, entertainment and art!
So make sure the games actually *are* good games (fun, motivating, inspiring, touching, relevant for reality, and FUN [so important, it has to be mentioned twice]), and you're doing fine!

TV is not the only bratspoiler

[Herve5]

We kicked TV out before having kids. They now have left us, and still both of them (3) don't have TVs.
Which doesn't prevent them to spend the very same amount of time they'd waste on TV, playing on internet.
So OK, 'internet' there is too wide a notion, they don't spend all their time on roleplay, and indeed they got good success in their studies.
But compusive screenwatch is there, still...

Re:TV is not the only bratspoiler

[racermd]

I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum. My wife and I have TVs in just about every room of our home. She and I watch a lot of TV - it's on in the background as well as being available for specific shows we watch. We also have a lot of other things going on in our lives and TV is just one of the things that provides us with an alternate window to the outside world or a temporary escape from our real lives.

However, our toddler (under 3) doesn't fixate and doesn't exhibit any ADD behavior, either. For the most part, he ignores it. When he DOES pay attention to the TV, the content is usually some sort of musical content, like the music-only channels from our provider or certain talk show theme songs (he rather likes the Conan opening). We've had the kid-specific channels tuned for a while in the background but he doesn't seem to be too interested in those unless or until there's a song involved.

I guess what I'm saying is that it very much depends on the child and parent(s). Every child is different and responds to stimuli differently. Broad generalizations like the one suggested in the original article are dangerous and irresponsible. Good parents pay attention to their child(ren) and provide guidance for them appropriately regardless of what some "expert" says. Parents are really the only ones that can really say they're experts with regards to their child(ren).

Re:gay niggers

[Joce640k]

Cue lawsuit from "Baby Einstein"...

re: ADS & T.V.

[MRe_nl]

ADS
"People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply youâ(TM)re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.

You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.

Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don't owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs".

- Banksy http://www.banksy.co.uk/

& T.V. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgOWTM5R2DA

So then

[gelfling]

Why is al Guardian so rigorously in favor of little kids in Gaza who MAKE little TV shows extolling the great virtues of mass murdering Israelis?

Read the actual study

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the hell the link goes to an article at the Guardian is beyond me.

Anyway, reading the studies indicates that this is something you really shouldn't worry about unless your kid is watching more than an hour or so of TV a day.

Where "kids under 3 should be banned from watching TV" came from I have no idea. Actually, I do. It's a headline contrived to make you read the article.

Really?

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

I know one friend that severely limits "screen time" for their infant and the infant has been slow to pick up speaking skills and only kind of babbles at the age of 3. On the other hand I have a friend whose child has watched children TV since before the age of one and will talk your ear off, and you can actually understand her, at the age of 3.

I am tired of the idea that TV is a bad influence on children and that arrogant smug hipsters need to find studies that support the idea that TV is bad. Using TV like a babysitter where a child is sat in front of for 8+ hours a day is not good parenting, period. However using TV as a resource of visual and auditory stimulus as the infant's brain develops along with other good parenting practices like reading books and engaging children in conversation and other activities suggests that TV can be part of an effective learning enrichment campaign.

The reality is there are good parents and bad parents. Children watching TV in a home of bad parents are going to develop bad viewing habits and become lazy and addicted to TV and video games and develop poorly and get fat. Children watching TV in a home of good parents will develop quickly and do well in school and life in general.

I am tired of bad parents finding and using excuses for their reasons why their children suck. I am also tired of books and magazines that create smug bad parents that feel they child should grow up in a protective bubble devoid intellectual stimulus because they feel TV and other forms of entertainment are beneath them. There should be more studies on the effects of ignorant and lazy parents that have no real interest in raising their kids and instead turn to vices to keep them occupied while these "parents" selfishly go about their life as if children are an inconvenience to them.

Wrong way around ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it would be much more beneficial to ban TV for over-thre-year-olds. That could do a lot for improving society.

Another BS group that hates technology.

[Anonymous Coward]

Case is point; I always had my first daughter around computers, electronics, and TV. From a few months old and on. She's now 13 and just completed a summer program to go to college for free. She's "13"!

My current GF, that I have another child with, Was raised religious, was not allowed to watch TV as a child, was not allowed to user computers, and her parents were pretty much hippies. Now don't get me wrong for what I'm about to type here, I love her very much, but.... She's in her 30's, has very little computer experience, is EXTREMELY close minded to almost anything, and is impossible to correct when she's wrong, ie, she's always right. She can't get a job in the computer industry because it's above her comprehension level, so she's unemployed. (I really feel bad after typing that, but it's the truth)

Yeah, this group can go *#*@ itself! I'm going to raise my new daughter the same way I raised my eldest daughter. Lots of TV, Lots of computers/electronics, lots of computer aided tutoring, and no religion!

Re:Another BS group that hates technology.

[Anonymous Coward]

wow, alot of typos, heh I should slow down when I type.

"as they do for alcohol"

[s0nicfreak]

"Doctors and government health officials should set limits, as they do for alcohol"

I completely agree, since the actual limit they currently put on there in most countries and most states in the US is; children can not purchase alcohol, but it's up to their parents to decide when and how much they drink.

Re:"as they do for alcohol"

[axl917]

...it's up to their parents to decide when and how much they drink.

I think the OP should take his family to a restaurant, buy a beer, hand it to one of the kids to drink, and report the results here.

Re:gay niggers

[MozeeToby]

Actually the Baby Einstein movies were pulled from the shelves voluntarily by Disney after research showed they did more harm than good. They even offered a refund for any videos bought in 3 years before they were pulled. Maybe you can argue that they knew about it before then based on the preliminary research, but in the end they did the right thing.

govmts should stay the F out

[Anonymous Coward]

as a general comment, agree completely.

Until the same folks that raised their kids in front of the tube and video games now want services for their anti social dumbed down kids.

This is no different argument than limiting fattening foods: should the gov stay out ? absolutely agree. Just I don't want to pay - and I do - for the healthcare for their obese kids when they get diabetes when they're 30.

Re:govmts should stay the F out

[Dishevel]

The problem is that people think that it is the governments responsibility to pay.
Once they get us to start paying for healthcare that means that later laws will tell us what we can eat.

stop blaming activities or objects

[Vince6791]

I know a lot of friends who came to this country in the 80's at a very young age and learned the basics of English language just by watching television or listening to the radio, same with me. In the 1980's, kids were allowed to be outside unsupervised playing with other kids next door making friendships, now, everybody is paranoid leaving their kids outside playing because the big bad pedo is coming. Maybe if the government punished the pedo's more than the weed head we would have a safer environment for the children. Who watches television these days anyway? it's full of infomercials, sports, and retarded comedy shows at night. No more cartoons after school like in the 1980's.

People just like to blame fun activities(watching tv, playing video games, being outside, reading comics, etc..) for a child not able to function in school efficiently, it could be depression causing it, parent's abusing the child, neglect, etc... Stop blaming guns and entertainment for people who commit crime or not great in school.

MPAA will fix this

[HungryMonkey]

Does this mean that the studios should be liable for all of the damage caused by tv shows and movies intended for children under 3? I mean sure, the parents could have prevented it, but they wouldn't have to if they weren't produced in the first place! And this line of logic is why the MPAA will never allow this to become a law, so it's pointless to debate how this would ever be regulated, or why anyone would think that the government should instruct us on how to raise our kids.

Wow... Am I beginning to understand Slashdot?

[phrackwulf]

It's like watching a tiny snowflake slowly aggregate into a rumbling, tumbling wall of icy, nerd disregard, stupid disagreement, general weirdness and low grade hostility until this sort of mass of opinion and low grade information howls down the mountain slopes of the Web and obliterates all common sense, reason and basic courtesy?

Thank you Slashdot, for making me laugh about love... again.

I can't believe my little two paragraph comment started all this? I think I need to see a Priest now? Maybe take a GI shower? No one should have this kind of stupid, poorly directed power.

What about banning abusive content???

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider: Much content is usually insulting and subliminally corrosive to the human mind. And it is intended to be that way to keep J Q Public stupified -- thanks to Big Biz!

Re: ADS & T.V.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have watched that but apparently, there are people who owe:

":\
Unfortunately, this UMG-music-content is not available in Germany because GEMA has not granted the respective music publishing rights.
Sorry about that."

Why get a TV in the first place.

[RockDoctor]

Subject says it all. You're not born with a TV ; at some point you choose to get a TV. You choose to have drivel poured into your eyes, interspersed with insulting advertising. You choose to have politicians lie to you about how much less they are liars then the other politicians.

Once you make that choice, your brain will be fucked, for good. Getting "off" TV is hard - harder than getting off tobacco or alcohol - so why get on the drug in the first place.

Plan 'B' : when the kid says "Can I have a TV?" you say "Sure, the store is over there ; there's a ladder, which you can use to put up an aerial or satellite dish. If you want paid-for TV, I'll sign any paperwork needed for you to buy the service. Are you sure that this is how you want to spend your allowance?"

That raises a question - what's the minimum age for buying (say) a satellite service which may include porn? I'd assume 18, but I'm not certain. I'll try to remember to ask next time I see a TV service salesman.