Quack!

The American Academy of Pediatrics is so worried about technology, culture and kids that it wants to ban TV for small children, restrict access for all kids and start recording media histories of all the young. Even pedes are muddling technology, truth and medicine against a horrifying backdrop of bullets flying all over the country.

If America's kids aren't going to be the safest and most moral in the world, they are fast becoming the most harassed and regulated. And wait till the pedes get around to the Net.

Last week it was the nation's pediatricians' turn to show us how to muddle medicine, technology and truth.

No institution is above exploiting kids these days, it seems, even the ones supposedly responsible for caring for them.

Along with posting copies of the Ten Commandments in public schools and harassing teenagers at movie ticket booths and video stores, the world's richest and looniest country has taken another giant step towards "protecting" children from the technology-driven culture it creates and then peddles all over the world.

Journalism and politics have been the most enthusiastic practitioners of this art in recent years. Now the American Academy of Pediatrics has joined the clergy, V-chip manufacturers, blocking software makers, educators and theater owners in the booming movement to protect kids from cultural technologies like movies, TV and the Net.

Given all the people fussing over their well-being, American kids ought to be the safest and most secure on the planet. They aren't. That this nearly insane debate takes place against a backdrop of horrifying video of bullet-riddled children and innocent adults in cities all over America highlights the surreal nature of this discussion. "What a strange country America is," said a commentator for the BBC last Tuesday night. "People are regularly shot down like animals and they just keep making, then banning movies and TV shows and dirty pictures."

The BBC got it right, even if the American press rarely does. If there's a link among these episodic outbursts of violence, it isn't media, but the juxtaposition of emotionally disturbed teenagers and middle-aged men -- almost invariably white -- and lethal weapons.

The sad truth is that American kids aren't becoming safer, healthier or more moral as a result of all this "concern." They are simply becoming the most hassled and over-regulated.

Announcing that television viewing can affect the mental, social and physical health of young people, the Academy has, for the first time, unveiled a plan that will allow physicians and parents to manage children's media habits.

"As pediatricians, we are taking all the research concerns into account and trying to raise the bar a bit, as suggestions for optimal parenting," declared Dr. Marjorie Hogan, the lead author of the Academy's report. (The report appears in the August issue of Pediatrics, published on Monday, but is not available for free on the Web, of course.)

The report doesn't actually raise the bar, it simply lowers the boom on kids' freedom. The Academy has no plans for its members to ask parents how much time they spend with their small kids, whether they watch movies and trawl websites with them, or abandon them for hours to sophisticated new media.

Nor does the report suggest the future consequences - social, educational and economic - for children cut off from new media technologies. The report makes few useful distinctions between newborns and teenagers about to head off for college or the workplace - all patients would be subject to this latest in a growing list of mindless restrictions and petty harassment sparked by the rise of techno-driven popular culture.

And make no mistake about it: if pediatricians are asking parents to ban and restrict TV, the Net -- which links users to much more diverse kinds of information -- can't be far behind. This is, after all, how a Communications Decency Act is spawned.

The pediatric academy suggests that children under two shouldn't watch any television, older children shouldn't have television sets in their bedrooms, and - most astonishing - that pediatricians should have parents fill out a "media history", along with a medical history, at office visits. Thus in addition to being blocked from "dangerous" movies like "American Pie," teenagers would be denied the dangerous practice of watching TV alone in their rooms, forced instead into familial cable-surfing. The Academy doesn't offer suggestions for what ought to happen when Mom and Dad want to watch CNN when Kimberly and Justin want to see what's up on "Dawson's Creek."

Although the report didn't address the issue, these "media histories" could become a permanent part of the individuals' medical files, available to insurance companies, school doctors and psychologists, government agencies, employers, the military, or anyone else who might have any reason for checking into a person's past. Along with drug busts and drunk driving convictions, kids might one day have to explain to potential bosses or government investigators why they watched "South Park" when they were six, downloaded pirated MP3s or saw that postponed version of "Buffy" on the Web.

Mainstream media reports have long linked pop culture to violence. Perhaps it was inevitable that kiddie docs would climb onto the bandwagon. Nobody wants to be seen as missing the kids-and-morality campaign.

"Violence in movies and television has been linked to aggressive behavior in young people in studies by the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the National Institute of Mental Health," reported the New York Times in its print and online editions.

Such statements have become an integral part of journalistic reporting on violence and the young, a major reason so many Americans link cultural technologies like TV, movies and the Net to horrors like the Columbine massacre.

But pronouncements like these are profoundly misleading.

For one thing, violence among children of all ages has been dropping for years and is now at its lowest levels in half a century, according to statistics released by the FBI just last month (and reported in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, CNN, and elsewhere). Violence among the young isn't a growing, but a declining, medical problem. (Abuse of children by members of their own families, on the other hand, appears to be rising).

Also on the increase is the number of underclass children with no access to computers or the Net, kids who may therefore be forced into low-paying dead end jobs when they grow up.

As one who has waded through many of these studies, - I've written a book and too many stories to count on this subject - I've seen that they don't, in fact, conclude that movies and television cause youth violence.

Some have found links between such bad parenting practices as allowing excessive watching of violent TV and "aggressive behavior" in children; that is, a small child left alone for many hours with violent TV imagery will behave more aggressively towards peers in some situations than a child who isn't subjected to vivid imagery for so long. These same studies almost invariably show that small children who are supervised and well-parented rarely have problems with violence or aggressive behavior, regardless of what they watch.

Hardly any of these studies take us much past common sense. And none suggest that TV or movies are responsible for violence, and few even define "aggression" clearly. Most offer no specific instances of violent acts can be traced to TV; those that do include only a tiny handful. The idea that a well-parented, well-adjusted kid should be prohibited from having his or her own TV on the basis of these reports is ludicrous.

Besides, there are also scores of reputable studies - including one by psychologists at Brown University - which find that TV, movies and the Net have no impact on violence or sexuality in the young.

In the days following the pediatric academy's report on kids and TV, a number of respected neuroscientists completely dismissed the idea that television should be discouraged because, as the pediatricians suggested, "research on early brain development shows that babies and toddlers have a critical need for direct interactions with parents and other significant caregivers (e.g. child care providers) for healthy brain growth and the development of appropriate social, emotional, and cognitive skills."

Dr. Charles Nelson, a professor of child psychology, neuroscience and pediatrics at the University of Minnesota said there was no such data.

Dr. Steven Petersen, a neurology professor at Washington University Medical School of St. Louis told reporter Gina Kolata of the New York Times that not only was there no brain research to support the Academy's statement , but there was also no logical reason to ban television for the very young. Why, he wondered, no TV as opposed to one or two hours?

"Couldn't your child watch a little bit of TV and also get lots of interactions with caregivers?" Dr. Petersen asked. The pediatric Academy's position, he said, "is like saying that tons and tons of junk food is bad and so therefore kids should never have a hamburger."

Dr. Hogan, the lead author of the pediatric report, responded to a barrage of criticism from other physicians and researchers by conceding that there were no studies of young children that supported its recommendations. "We extrapolated," she said: that is, the pediatricians used other research to infer that children's brains are harmed when they spend their time gazing at television screens instead of interacting with humans.

And on the basis of this "extrapolation," responsible parents are supposed not only to ban TV for toddlers but to restrict older kids as well.

It's perfectly sensible enough for parents to encourage moderation in all things technological, especially when they're dealing with the very young. Hours of unsupervised TV a day is obviously unhealthy, as is 40 hours of Web trawling a week by eight-year-olds. Parents who don't know that have problems already. No small child - as in kids younger than eight or nine - should be left alone with any form of new media. All kids should be taught how to use new media technologies in a reasonable, safe and healthy way - and too few are.

But the unthinking institutional embrace of the idea that it's media that pose the primary dangers to children in the United States is a creepy but ascendant idea in American society. "Extrapolated" reports like the Academy's legitimize the notion that if we simply ban, filter or block access to new media technologies, then nobody has to bother looking at how children are raised, or at the structures, value systems or effectiveness of American schools - not to mention such bitterly divisive - and expensive - issues as public funding for day care or health insurance.

This noxious distraction, which keeps real problems from being addressed, is much more harmful to children than any media technology. Pediatricians aren't improving children's lives, only pandering to baseless fears about them.

As always, journalism is eager to buy into the idea. For the past half century, from rock and roll to hip hop, and from teen horror movies to cable programming, a central ideology of American journalism is that too much information is dangerous to children.

Kolata's reconsideration of the Academy's report, buried inside the Times' Week in Review section four days after the paper put the report itself on the front page, was a rare and not-very-prominent exception. So it's no surprise that many Americans believe that culture kills.

This cycle drives politicians to exploit the issue and pass Communications Decency Acts. It inspires Hollywood studios to adopt ludicrously arbitrary and useless ratings systems. It emboldens chains like Wal-Mart and Blockbuster to ban "unwholesome" movies and CDs.

The idea that pediatricians may soon be recording whether your kid watches "Rug Rats" would be a hoot if its implications weren't so outrageous.

Children who have no political or other representation are thus subjected to wider restrictions and censorship than would ever be considered for adults (no politician proposed banning TV in the wake of the Atlanta office-building shootings ).

Pediatricians, like journalists, are supposed to provide clarity and rationality in discussions like these. By declaring media a health hazard, pediatricians cross the boundary between medicine and politics. They distort the boundaries of privacy, rational social policy and common sense.

As the news demonstrates regularly, they aren't protecting kids but exploiting technology, buying into voodoo moralizing that, in America, passes for confronting the real issues facing children.

Comments

Here is the problem�

[Anonymous Coward]

I was watching MSNBC this morning and there was a story about the kids in CO going back to school today. Believe it or not, the following happened:

Announcer: "We have heard the teachers and factuality may stand in a line around the kids to shield them from the media and show support"

Minutes later the camera zooms in on kids.

Re:Here is the problem�

[jd]

When I see things like that, I wonder if the Americans would care to import one of Britain's more interesting inventions, where villains were hung, drawn and quartered.

I doubt it'll happen, though. The press would claim "First Amendment" rights, over and above the safety or well-being of the kids.

(Safety? Yes, safety. If a camera can zoom in on a kid, so can anything else. Including a rifle held by anyone in the area of that school with a grudge against either the athletes or the Trenchcoat Mafia, after what happened.)

You can't protect kids against everything. Even if you could, they'd never learn to survive on their own. On the other hand, there's no reason to add stupid dangers to the list, whether it's to boost ratings, look good, be more "right" than everyone else, or because the responsible person doesn't feel like acting responsibly.

As a physician, I'm embarrased by the AAP report

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, it's the American Academy of Pediatrics. The problem I have is that the recommendations are not based on data. I doubt anyone would dispute that extreme degrees of media exposure are bad for development. However, it is the height of irresponsibility to infer that limited exposure to television is a least a little harmful. Certainly, the AAP has no business making such sweeping recommendations in the absence of data. As the father of a one-year-old daughter, I have become familiar with a lot of children's television and video, and I am very impressed at the quality of a lot of it (mostly the PBS stuff). The television is on for about 10% of the day, and watching "Baby Mozart" certainly doesn't stop her from having a lot of human interaction and good developmental play the other 90%. There are clearly some very conscientious people designing programming for children under two, and they have received a very unfair slap in the face from an organization that should be on their side.

"I've written a book and too many stories"

[Chris Johnson]

"I've written a book and too many stories to count on this subject"

s/to count / /

yeesh.

Re:jon katz

[Trepidity]

Well, if you weren't an Anonymous Coward, you could choose to filter out Jon Katz stories.

Since you are, i guess that's your problem.

Re:Moderators - Can't "suppress"

[Eccles]

Given the language in those posts that were moderated down, I can only say, "Thank you." If you can't argue a point without a liberal sprinkling of expletives, you aren't worth listening to. Ditto if you can't figure out how to use Slashdot to hide all Jon Katz articles from your sight forever.

Help! My kids are being oppressed!

[Rob Parkhill]

Exhibit A: A stick
Exhibit B: A dead horse

Mr. Katz, is it not true that you have been beating exhibit B with exhibit A for far too long?

Re:They might have a point, you know.

[jd]

IMHO, the problem is with using the TV as a baby-sitter, as much as with violence, prawnography, etc.

Kids watching kid's programs, with someone, is (IMHO) perfectly fine, and probably very good for the kid.

Kids watching those same programs, on their own, with no supervision, because mum went to the store for a bottle of booze, are probably not going to get anything like as much out of it.

Kids watching mindless violence and witless sex are probably going to end up as politicians, or worse. A few unfortunates may even become ultra-conservative religious extremists.

Re:Hmmmm. . . .

[jd]

Any "right to self-harm" is fair enough, IF the person is given the data involved. The tobacco industry has been accused (on repeated occasions) of deliberately withholding and falsifying data, relating to the toxic nature of tobacco smoke.

IMHO, any "right to self-harm" stops, right there. If Joe Average knows that smoking is harmful, then fine. They have no case. What they did, they did of their own free will and free choice.

But, if Joe Average is -deliberately- deprived of that data, and is presented with Doctors recommeding smoking for "health reasons" (as happened in the 60's), then free choice has nothing to do with it. If you're presented with deliberately attractive illusions and falsehoods, and deprived of essential data, yes, it's still your choice, but there's no way that that "self-harm" should be protected.

Let's say you went to the doctor, with a cold, and he gave you a bottle of pills which he said would cure it. Now, let's say that the pills were a very slow-acting lethal poison, and were also very very addictive, with almost no known treatment. You're still opting to take them, albet completely oblivious to their real nature. But I bet you that if you found out that was happening to you, you wouldn't just lie back and die, lining the pharmacutical industry's pockets in the process.

So, what's the difference? Same experts, same advice, same deprivation of information in both scenarios. If none, what holds true for one holds true for the other.

I don't believe the First Amendment actually does protect "medically harmful media", where genuine harm can be shown. That's the crux. The First Amendment doesn't completely protect hate groups, calls to incite violence, subliminal advertising, slander/libel where real harm is done, etc. Nor, IMHO, should it.

Yes, "free speech" should be free, but without some boundaries, freedom is meaningless. Too many or too rigid, and freedom doesn't exist. (Personally, I think Terry Pratchett puts it better in "Feet of Clay" than I could hope to.)

Re:Sorry to say it...

[jd]

If a kid acts in a manner which is potentially harmful to others, -even if it's outside school hours-, the school would have to be tottering on the brink of insanity to ignore it.

(eg: If a kid gains a reputation for blowing up straw figures of people, or burning down buildings, outside of school hours, would you be keen on seeing them within a hundred miles of your kid's school during hours?)

Drugs are no "safer". Many are addictive, more than a few are lethal over time, some do very disturbing things to a person's sense of reality (such as make them paranoid and/or schitzoid), contaminants can kill as surely as a .45, relatively little is known about their effects on the brains or body of a still-growing child and even less is known about the effect of secondary smoke.

I'm amazed the kid who bought the drugs got away with so little, especially as I bet they cost rather more than he got in pocket money. Expulsion, though, probably won't affect the seller, though. IMHO, suspension and compulsary NA would have made more sense.

Re:Sorry to say it...

[jd]

Well, you can't have 21 candles on your birthday cake. (Well, I supposed you -can-, but it'd look pretty stupid.)

Re:Freedom

[jd]

You might see society eventually do the other things you mentioned, but parents -giving way-???

I mean, get real here!

Re:Here's Looking at You, Jon...

[jd]

I am not a number, I am a free-range egg!

Actually, only one episode was about TV. The rest was about mindlessly following "the rules", or blindly believing anything without first thinking.

Those who blindly believe politicians, the religion of their choice, the media, advertisers, OR the US Constitution, as all-knowing, all-wise sources of knowledge would do well to watch it.

And Never, Ever subject a child to The General. Speedlearn is Not Good.

This is STUPID!!!

[jd]

Look, everyone, in case you hadn't noticed, the article was about TWO YEAR OLDS!!!

When was the last time TWO YEAR OLD KIDS had absolute freedom of choice? Hmmm? You quite willing to let them cross the busy road on their own, or play with the chemicals in the garage, by the car?

Face it, parents with even an ounce of sense are already making a great many choices for kids of that age, because kids of that age have neither the rational capacity, OR the experience, to make such choices for themselves.

There is NOTHING WRONG with placing limits on a TWO YEAR OLD. They probably would have a much higher liklihood of survival if you did so more often.

That is NOT the same as controlling a child mercilessly, at all times, "defending" them against every possible encounter with their world. If you did that, they'd REMAIN emotionally and mentally TWO YEARS OLD. Kids HAVE to experience the world, to grow, but kids HAVE to have checks on that experience to prevent them accidently stumbling into situations for which they are not equipt to handle.

Personally, I'd say that Jon Katz' views are verging on the positively reckless. Kids need some degree of safety. They NEED to know that it's safe to explore, to learn, to grow. Without that safety, you'll get scared adult children who are not equipt, emotionally or mentally, to deal with anything. Most of those will become leaders and media moguls.

Re:Sorry to say it...

[jd]

If the crime had been cigarettes or alchohol, my feelings would be exactly the same. A short period of suspension (as punishment), followed by a period of enforced group therapy in the relevant 12-step program.

Nothing more severe than that is needed. Major punishment is more likely to produce hostility than understanding. If the object of school is to teach, then it is counter to the very purpose the school is there to produce ignorance and animosity.

No punishment at all, whether it's for drugs, cigarettes or alchohol, teaches kids that those they are supposed to be able to look up to aren't worth the effort. If crimes aren't dealt with, in some way, they cease to be crimes.

But punishment alone does nothing. What do you learn from it? Nothing! That's why it MUST be coupled with something from which the kid CAN learn alternatives.

Should the punishments be different, whether it's drugs, tobacco or alchohol? I don't see why. As you say, they all have very similar effects on health and all are crimes.

Alchohol is a major mood-altering substance (it's a depressent) and also personality-altering, to some degree. Tobacco, I'm not sure, but I suspect it's at least mood-altering. They're both very addictive. That's NOT safe for a kid to be playing with, more so for those they're around.

If a kid wants to take risks on their own, with no consequences to anyone else, that's their business, and their problem to pick up the pieces. But tobacco, alchohol and drugs don't just affect you "instantaneously" and then go away. They have long-term affects. But how many kids are going to be honestly aware of that? Even if they're told, it's just words, and usually from "bossy", over-pretentious adults who are probably closet alchoholics & chain-smokers anyway.

Nor are kids going to bother with problems they see as "someone else's". If it's not immediately relevant, why should they care? That's why I think it makes sense for those to whom these ARE immediate issues to learn from those who suffered the consequences, but why I think any kind of prevention through teaching is a waste of time.

Hmmm....

[Millennium]

I honestly think these idiots mean well. I do. And I think there might be a kind of link between media violence and real-life violence. But this is not the way to fix it.

Look back to the 50's and 60's. Many of the TV shows were westerns. In most of those, at least one person was shot and killed in every episode; that is violence on a scale if not a level of realism that you rarely see in today's television; it was certainly far more common then. Yet somehow, you didn't have all of these shootings and such. Yes, there were one or two isolated incidents, but it was never like it is now.

What's the difference, then? TV has, more or less, become less violent, yet violence is on the rise. In fact, take a look at the numbers; some of the least violent communities are out in the midwest, communities where kids have access to guns pretty easily and many hunt as a hobby (geez, how much more violent of a hobby can you get?) But even though they hunt, they don't lose control in schools. Hell, for a more extreme example, there's a high school in Montana I know of where kids used to bring pocketknives to school every day and were encouraged to bring chainsaws to the football games (their mascot is a logger).

Why? I think it's because of something which used to be taught in schools and homes which by and large isn't anymore. No, it's not religion. No, it's not morals.

It's respect.

Simply put, kids aren't taught to respect people very much anymore. That's why we now see ultra-exclusive cliques as far back as middle and in some cases even elementary school. It's why the teasing of geeks has gone from the relatively good-natured horsing around of the past (which really wasn't for the most part any different from what people did to their own friends; it was simply taken a different way) to the vicious, sometimes even violent, ostracism of today. And in most cosmopolitan environments, the idea of respect is gone. There's a pervasive "everyone for himself" attitude, which is causing the previous generation's title of "the 'Me' generation" to start to transfer out to ours.

Why is it still present in rural areas? I don't know. It's certainly no thanks to the religious right, the biggest bunch of hypocrites I've ever seen. Perhaps religion has a bit to do with it, but the idea of respecting all people doesn't contradict with any religion I know of, and I've studied many. Teaching respect doesn't conflict with religious freedom, and it needs to go back nto the schools. And not as the pretentious crap of uniforms or posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms (though if you cut out the four religion-specific ones then posting the remaining six wouldn't be that bad of an idea) or holding huge assemblies about it. It's something whic has to start in kindergarten or even preschool, and constantly applied until each and every child has a heartfelt belief that one should respect all people, if only for no other reason than that it is the right thing to do. Because if a child believes in respecting people, no amount of violence the kid sees is going to change that belief (unless there are other underlying psychological problems which will make themselves evident to anyone who looks long before the kid gets violent).

Still, I admit I wouldn't mind seeing Teletubbies or Barney banned. Perhaps we should also ban Microsoft software while we're at it (unreliability leads to frustration which leads to violent behavior)?

Hmmm....

[Millennium]

I honestly think these idiots mean well. I do. And I think there might be a linki between media violence and real-life violence. But this is not the way to fix it.

Look back to the 50's and 60's. Many of the TV shows were westerns. In most of those, at least one person was shot and killed in every episode; that is violence on a scale if not a level of realism) that you rarely see in today's television; it was certainly far more commmon then. Yet somehow, you didn't have all of these shootings and such. Yes, there were one or two isolated incidents, but it was never like it is now.

What's the difference, then? TV has, more or less, become less violent, yet violence is on the rise. In fact, take a look at the numbers; some of the least violent communities are out in the midwest, communities where kids have access to guns pretty easily and many hunt as a hobby (geez, how much more violent of a hobby can you get?) But even though they hunt, they don't lose control in schools. Hell, for a more extreme example, there's a high school in Montana I know of where kids used to bring pocketknives to school every day and were encouraged to bring chainsaws to the football games (their mascot is a logger).

Why? I think it's because of something which used to be taught in schools and homes which by and large isn't anymore. No, it's not religion. No, it's not morals.

It's respect.

Simply put, kids aren't taught to respect people very much anymore. That's why we now see ultra-exclusive cliques as far back as middle and in some cases even elementary school. It's why the teasing of geeks has gone from the relatively good-natured horsing around of the past (which really wasn't for the most part any different from what people did to their own friends; it was simply taken a different way) to the vicious, sometimes even violent, ostracism of today. And in most cosmopolitan environments, the idea of respect is gone. There's a pervasive "everyone for himself" attitude, which is causing the previous generation's title of "the 'Me' generation" to start to transfer out to ours.

Why is it still present in rural areas? I don't know. It's certainly no thanks to the religious right, the biggest bunch of hypocrites I've ever seen. Perhaps religion has a bit to do with it, but the idea of respecting all people doesn't contradict with any religion I know of, and I've studied many. Teaching respect doesn't conflict with religious freedom, and it needs to go back nto the schools. And not as the pretentious crap of uniforms or posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms (though if you cut out the four religion-specific ones then posting the remaining six wouldn't be that bad of an idea) or holding huge assemblies about it. It's something whic has to start in kindergarten or even preschool, and constantly applied until each and every child has a heartfelt belief that one should respect all people, if only for no other reason than that it is the right thing to do.

Still, I admit I wouldn't mind seeing Teletubbies or Barney banned. Perhaps we should also ban Microsoft software while we're at it (unreliability leads to frustration which leads to violent behavior)?

They might have a point, you know.

[Jeremiah]

I hate to say it, but kids are impressionable. When I came to school and stopped watching as much TV, I stopped talking like the TV talks. It's not hard to tell when someone has absorbed the TV-mind.

When I have kids, I'm not going to stop them from accessing media they find interesting...but I'd rather they didn't memorize all of the catchy jingles along the way.

Re:They might have a point, you know.

[Solemn Bob]

"I hate to say it, but kids are impressionable. When I came to school and stopped watching as much TV, I stopped talking like the TV talks. It's not hard to tell when someone has absorbed the TV-mind."

It ain't just kids...I decided I would have to give up _Beavis & Butthead_ when I realized that mine and my roommate's available supply of adjectives had dwindled to "cool" and "sucks". And this was my sophomore year of college...

(Don't get me wrong. _B&B_ was, at its best, hilarious. It's just ... well, garbage in, garbage out, after all.)

This article is taking a subtly different stance than the one about movies: Then, the parent was actively approving her kids watching _South Park_. Here, Katz is saying that a kid not allowed to have his own TV is being repressed, even though that sort of thing tends to discourage active parenting.

Okay. Maybe it's not so subtle. I'm siding with active parenting on this one.

Re:They might have a point, you know.

[JimH]

Two year olds shouldn't be watching TV.

This has nothing to do with freedom of anything,
this has to do with the obvious fact that two
year olds shouldn't be watching TV.

(In case it *isn't* obvious to you, I'll cite one
reason: kids shouldn't be raised by Hasbro.)

Re:They might have a point, you know.

[Woundweavr]

Did you watch Sesame St? What about Mr. Roger's Neighborhood?

Capt. Kangaroo?

Howdy Dowdy?

These shows are perfectly fine for children. Sesame St helps children learn! Yes kids shouldn't be raised by Hasbro, watching TV doesn't mean sitting them in front of it all day.

Moderate television viewing is good for a kid. Watching Muppet Babbies won't scar your kid, but it will entertain them and often programs like The Magic School Bus help them learn.

(It *isn't* obvious to me why children shouldn't watch TV, as long as the TV doesn't become the parent.)

Re:They might have a point, you know.

[Brent R.]

Summary: Life is too exciting to watch a lot of TV. Content is one thing - its important - but sheer volume of TV watching is another very important issue. I have kids (2 boys, ages 7 and 5). They watch TV on average 1/2hr. per day - except Friday nights, when we all sit down with pizza, pop and a video that Dad, Mom and the boys select together. They use the computer, but rarely at this point - about once every 6 to 8 weeks. As much as I love technology, I love a healthy, well-rounded mind more. We read with our kids about 5 to 7 books a day. We go out and explore the world around us a bit each day. My wife and I try to take advantage of "teachable moments" when we are out doing life (we stop to look at things, for instance). After all that, we just don't have time for much TV. And the truth is, TV has nothing of any real value to offer about 90% of the time. We have found that our kids are definately not worse off by watching a lot less than the average child (6 hrs. per day, almost 32 hrs. per week when you include video and computer time). My sons have no issues with hyper-activity. When they play, they don't try to kick each other to death, or maim each other with toy weapons. Instead, they imagine themselves being humpback whales, eagles or explorers of the Antarctic or Neptune (yes, they know all the planets and a few stars). They have fun learning basic geography. They know that Michigan is shaped like a mitten, and where we live relative to that mitten, as well as where the grandparents live, etc. They also know some things about Europe, Africa, China, India - they have "pen pal" in India. They know little or nothing about Star Wars, PocaMan, Power Rangers and other pop culture, except what they pick up from their friends, which is enough. Adults often comment on their vocabulary, their manners, their ability to concentrate on a task or game (my 7 year old loves chess - he darn near beat me the other day!) And they get along with each other well. And other parents have often commented on how happy my sons are. I don't say any of this to boast about my kids (well, ok, ok, I did a little....). Its just that, once my wife and I made the effort to clarify or family "mission" if you will, and took a close look at what we felt we wanted to provide for our children, things like TV just fell to the way-side for the most part. TV simply became unimportant to us. And again, we certainly aren't suffering for it. In short, we just don't have enough time to watch TV, no matter what the content. There are too many really great things going on in the real world! My wife and I decided long ago that the world is way to exciting to allow ourselve to get sucked up in the immediacy of a sound bite driven, action crazed US centric culture - which is driven in large part by what you see on TV.

Press that hot-topic button!

[Watts Martin]

Sigh.

I don't think it's bad to have a "features columnist" for Slashdot, and one who writes about the intersection between society and technology is a good choice. People of the True Engineering Mindset often ignore that intersection, and that can lead to the "all problems will be solved by technology" mindset which ignores the fact that the problems technology creates often aren't technological problems.

But--okay. Maybe it's just me. What I've seen since Jon was writing for Slashdot, though, has roughly followed this path:

• Various articles with varying degrees of insight.
• Complaints from readers.
• More strident articles, whose insights became pithier and, well, less insightful.
• More complaints from readers.
• "Voices from the Hellmouth."
• Hundreds of "Yeah! Right ons!" from readers and national media attention.
• Dropping of nearly all other technology issues and all pretense of analysis to constantly sound the alarm of "young people's rights."

I don't like to accuse Jon of being an opportunist, but it's difficult not to start drawing that conclusion. Sounding shrill alarms about movie theatres actually stopping people who are under 17 from attending R-rated movies is honestly a little dubious; you may not like the rating system, but it's not exactly new. And it's not even a government agency--the power of the MPAA is a creation of market forces. (Nobody forces studios to have movies rated, and nobody forces theatres that play unrated movies to police the age of attendees. You just won't make any money if you're limited to showing at the few theatres that play unrated movies.)

But now we're going beyond that, and sounding the alarm about the new great force for fascism in the country: pediatricians. Yes. You thought Dr. Spock was well-intentioned, but no, he was Mussolini with a lollipop!

Come on. Recommending that parents not put TVs in the bedrooms of their preteens and not show any children under the age of two television shows is an assault on free speech?

Really?

Jon, I understand the desire to be popular, but couldn't we get back to the pithy insights about technology sometime?

The Downside to Success [long, semi-off topic]

[cpt kangarooski]

Katz makes some interesting observations, although he doesn't really seem to be offering more than a vauge solution.

He's pretty clearly against censorship, but I think that some of the details of this bear a little more looking into. The way I see it (and to his credit, Katz does touch on this), there are basically two forms of censorship. A general form, and a specific form.

The general form simply censors objectionable material from everybody. The CDA, while claiming to have been specific censorship (since that's less objectionable in this day and age), was actually general censorship. The Hays office (the persecuor to the MPAA) censored movies for everyone. Various governments and religions have done the same, all throughout history.

General censorship doesn't work so well here and now, though, mostly because of various benefits acquired by the people who'd like not to be censored, or have things which interest them censored. Of late, the courts have ruled that while some material may not be appropriate for some, or even most people, no one is forcing that material down everyone's throat. If you have to make an effort to get this month's copy of Ass Freaks, then there's no particular reason to prevent it from being kept out of the hands of those people that want it, and who can (presumably) handle it. (Don't start thinking dirty just yet)

The sucessful cases of general censorship tend to occur at a fine level, I think, rather than a broad one. I'd blame that on peer pressure. A small bunch of moral zealots can usually get large indifferent groups of people to follow them, by implying that to do otherwise would be immoral. There's a good example here. ;) 'Course, a Supreme Court justice really couldn't care less about what someone in East Fooville thinks about him, so a more objective, and I'd say rational mindset tends to prevail.

Specific censorship, which Katz gets oh so riled up about, is more along the lines of censoring material from some specific group who just can't handle it. This could be an ethnic minority, it could be based on gender, or religion, or income, and lately is based on age. The age basis is more difficult to fight because there really are good reasons for minors to minors in a lot of cases. This isn't necessarily fair, but let's assume that we're all okay with that for now.

Anyway, what's happening is that our pals the moral zealots (it may be a different bunch of moral zealots, but for purposes of this argument moral zealotry is a black box) cannot prevent American Pie (for example) from reaching a broad audience. Nor can people who wish that it wasn't associated with Don McLean, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper. What can be done is to prevent it from reaching a specific audience. Minors are an easy target as they don't have complete freedom and it's easy to claim that you're doing things 'to protect the children.'

This is a pretty weak excuse of course, and should carry as little weight as the also oft-abused 'in God's name.' Both could be accurate and fair, but so many people claim to do so many contradictory things for the same reasons that it's difficult not to find them distasteful now.

This could all be okay, potentially. But it's not, because censorship is usually a lousy practice. In most cases it's just a grab for power by some group. Should it succeed, further censorings will be more likely to be accepted. Failure is generally ignored, making it a very easy game if you're patient. Worse yet, by censoring things based on the agenda of one or more groups of zealots, they can manipulate how people think in order to propigate their particular meme.

To limit the number of voices, the individual freedoms and the number of ideas in a society has much the same effect as standing on a garden hose. It cripples society as a whole, even if the one segment of it that's standing on the hose attains a higher position than it had before. Although I run the risk of Godwin's law being invoked, Germany had a really thriving culture for some time. WW1 and the penalties imposed upon Germany had deleterious effects, and of course Nazi Germany had a pretty wretched culture, even before WW2.

However wrongheaded the zealots usually are though, they may have stumbled upon an interesting idea. What if there is a problem with morals in today's society?

In the case of America, a lot of the specific censorship aimed at minors can be traced back to the failure of the prohibition effort in '33 and the rise of the baby boomers (as a generation x'er it's almost too easy for me to blame everything on my parents, but that's not my goal here). The former was a resounding defeat to the general censorship movement - even though in this case it was a prohibition against a tangible good and not on information. The latter was like seeing a hunted animal stand in front of a brick wall and hold up a sign that said 'Shoot here'; a generation known for rebelliousness made an easy target.

But a significant part of this wave of censorship, which I think we're still in*, is that there are some valid causes behind it. That's not to endorse censorship, but merely to say that the reasons that are being invoked to censor people may be symptoms of an actual problem, and that it's not _entirely_ an exertion of power.
* Although now it's often conducted by people who didn't like being censored themselves, yet can act hypocritically without blinking.**
** So I'm not perfect.

So the question comes up, are we less moral now than we used to be? Honestly, I think that we are, or at least, that it's changed from being an unspoken thing to something that's at the forefront of our society. Certainly things have, and continue to change a lot. Perhaps this churn is being mistaken for an overall lapse in morals.

My personal hypothesis is that around, and for quite a while after WW2, America was at the top of the heap as far as the world goes. However, in that fairly complacent environment, sprung up the rebellious baby boomer generation, who presented themselves as an easy target, as already pointed out. More importantly though, what we had was a situation in which the people who would, just as a side-effect of the passage of time, end up running things and raising their successors actively pushing away from the zenith of their society. And a good number of the people at that zenith were helping, by attempting to cause a sort of counter-reformation. So if we hit a peak for society as a whole during the reign of our (assuming /. readers are approx. my age) grandparents, we're dropping now.

Now, this doesn't mean that we'll all end up like rejects from some Gibson novel in twenty years. But if you're familiar with the confucian concept of the mandate of heaven, we are probably in the process of losing it in a general sense, even though we're doing great in some specific areas (e.g. computing). This is okay in a general sense, since there is something of a cycle in which various cultures are really on top of things for a while, with each successor usually improving upon the last like something out of Asimov.

We took over from the British. They took over from, I'd say, France (and to an extent, China, which was having dynastic problems anyway, which is pretty crappy timing). France, from Italy. Italy from the Arab world. Arabs from the Eastern Roman Empire. The Eastern Roman Empire from the cohesive Roman Empire, from the Hellenistic Greeks, from Egyptians & Mesopotamians, at which point things get a bit murky. Am I too focused on western civilization? Probably, but feel free to add data to this idea, or tear it down entirely if you've got something better. This is still quite a chain, and we're not done being the king of the hill for some time, I'd say.

Unfortunately, this is not so hot for those of us who do have a good sense of morals and all the other junk that I've been lumping in with it which combine to make a really badass culture. Our solutions are limited.

Give up, let each succeeding generation be worse off and give someone else a chance to be the best culture around. We ourselves will still have a good time of it, since it takes a while for the decay process to work, and as a part of it much of our culture will get assimilated into others, so there's no great loss.

There's the option of attempting to revitalize our culture, but I don't think that this has worked in the past, nor do I think it's especially healthy. It would represent a longing for a culture that's died naturally instead of trying to just go the hell forward with whatever you've got (the Japanese did have a good run at this in many ways from the Meiji restoration through WW2, although they still had plenty of problems that screwed them later on).

For long-term planners, there's the pilgrimesque option of migrating in order to hitch up with a rising culture (consider it first round VC) or starting your own. Insofar as the puritans (not the same group of people, as pilgrims, btw) go, this was really unsuccessful as seen from their point of view. Their descendants were did not adhere to the morality they grew up in, probably because it was sterile, as well as a hard act to follow. They, along with a wide assortment of other immigrants to the new world (convicts, traders, etc.) managed to put something really badass together, but it took over a hundred years just to get the basics down, and another hundred and fifty or so to begin aiming for the top of the hill. So this approach may work well as a seed for a totally different, successful culture, but it is unlikely to work on it's own. (based on a very small sample group ;)

I'm afraid that I can't see any especially good way to get out of this and still have a functioning, good society which outlives the people that want a functioning, good society (good morally, not good as in okay; a lot of this presupposes that a moral, yet flexible society will automagically do well as opposed to a moral, rigid one or an immoral one of any kind). Certainly it would involve a major shift in the way that people think and act.

Getting back to this specific article (what a hike that is), I think that yes, it's very important for parents to personally raise their kids. TV is not only a poor substitute for parenting, but the culture distributed across TV is pretty poor as well. Myself, I watch some of the better cartoons (Simpsons, Reboot, Family Guy) and sometimes the Weather Channel. But banning TV is probably not a good solution.

What I'd like to see (and this probably is unrealistic, but I'm no expert on the subject) is for businesses et al to arrange either for their workers to work half days, or for a shorter part of the week so that two parents working 20 hours can support a family OR to pay one parent enough to support his family (in exchange for a full work week) so that the other parent can stay at home. Unfortunately, many businesses are short sighted and ignore the effects that they have on society. Ultimately we get treated as the 'commons' (as in the tragedy of) and everyone, even businesses, suffer.

Hrrrm.

[Signal 11]

The "moral majority" is at it again, so it would seem. Now, ask yourself how they're going to keep track of this. I can tell you right now there's only one way that's even moderately reliable - honesty. If the parents want to sacrifice their kids' privacy, they're welcome to do it. I can tell you right now how most parents will react to this. "Not my child!"

so what's left? Peer pressure (so and so didn't disclose xyzzy so they must be hiding something!), voluntarily disclosing the information, legislation requiring you to disclose it.

No doubt, the latter of the three will be tried in congress under some "Children's we-want-to-save-the-world Act of 2000", because we know what's best for you - even if you disagree! And it sounds good politically to "save the children" by profiling them and monitoring them. And when school shootings from depressed and distraught kids reach record numbers, we'll put more metal detectors, and armed security guards.. and .. and...

Obviously, if you're a child rights' activist, you need to stop this right now. But for the rest of us, take comfort in the fact that this style of legislation will kill itself. After they get done finger-pointing, of course.

I am reminded of a quote - "To judge a country, look at how they treat their children."

--

What is this man thinking?

[edhall]

I think Katz should be sentenced to watching so-called children's television every day for a month-- and I don't mean the stuff on PBS. The intensity of mass marketing in what is otherwise a creative wasteland is truly awesome, and crushingly mind-numbing: non-stop, aimless excitment filled with every product tie-in imaginable.

Pediatricians are saying that this stuff isn't healthy, and I for one agree with 'em. Parents have the right--and a duty--to set limits for their kids. It's no more outrageous to suggest they limit kid's watching of television than to suggest they limit kid's consumption of candy.

-Ed

Here's Looking at You, Jon...

[buzz lightyear]

It was a few years ago that Patrick McGoohan created his series at Portmerion, Wales called "The Prisoner". It was an allegory of the invasive, mindnumbing influence of television.

For whatever reason the American Pediatric association have for suggesting young children do not watch T.V. (or for that matter, get involved with computers) I am sure they will be ineffective with most of the great unwashed in our great country.

Jon's outrage is neither necessary, nor thought out enough. It will probably curry some favor with the punk digerati that lurk in Slashdot and the immature who haven't the life experience to make a reasoned judgement.

Toddlers and young children need a real world with which to interact in order to create meaning. That means they work better with paints, clay and real life experience than interacting with a flat screen or worse...passively allowing someone else's interpretation of reality to impose upon their consciousness.

Meaning, and then wisdom, is created by repeated interaction with a real world, not with some conceptual fascimile. Modelling is conceptual and is a sophisticated process, games even more so as they are models which manipulate emotion.

So...throw out you TV...please...and ignore poor Jon...at least on this one...

Who does he think he is? Number two?

Here's looking at you, Jon.

I am not a number!

Quack!

[Rahga]

My favorite /. headline to date. :)

Beyond that article, it needs noting that violence and hatred are nothing new. History repeats itself people, let's not fool ourselves here. It's pretty amazing that we only get a random school shooting, few and far between, when you consider that a little over 50 years ago the mass genocide of an entire group of people, the Holocaust, was rather acceptable to many people (until the Germans wanted more......). We can't expect change overnight, and hatred can't be stomped out in one day. Hatred is passed on to Children through those most filled with hate. I'd hate to take a poll to see how many college age childen are possessed by hatred for the veitnamese because of experiences their fathers went through.
Change takes time, but the problem we are seeing are people with too much time on their hands trying to spoon-feed children to develop as some type of morally-righteous robot. Children need freedom to learn, to explore. Sure, innoccence may be lost, but it is necessary for them to interpret messages for themselves and for the PARENTS to guide them trough.

Re:When will people learn?

[dirty]

Exactly, if you think little johnny is spending too much time infront of the TV, grab a ball and glove and offer to have a catch with him. And while you are having said catch, you might even, *gasp* talk to your child. He'll then get comfortable talking to you about things, so when he sees two people having sex on tv he'll ask you, instead of that kid down the block who knows everything. Oh and here's another great idea, if your kid gets in trouble, sit him down, explain why what he did was wrong, and that it upsets you when he does it. Don't ground him for it, he'll only get better at avoiding being caught, where if you instill some morals in your child, he just won't do it. Just a thought from someone who was (legally) a kid not that long ago.

TV is unhealthy

[baby fishface]

...because kids should be doing four things:

1. Going to school
2. Running around outside like mad
3. Doing homework

and if there's any time left:

4. Seeing the rest of the family

If there's time in the evening let them read a book. That's what Mom and Dad do at night, right?

And if kids (between 4 and 18) aren't ready to drop from exhaustion by 9 PM, then they haven't followed steps 1-4.

Save the TV for when you have the flu. Live life a little.

Firmly on both sides

[evilpenguin]

I shouted Katz' praises on his earlier posts about the media hysteria over "killer geeks." I still think society at large is paying far too little attention to youth, and that attention does not mean the application of mind control, but active and interested involvement in the lives of children.

That said, I think this is an overreaction to an unfortunate publication.

The American Academy of Pediatrics is just issuing recommendations to Pediatricians. This is not some sort of censorship. I don't think there's anything here over which to get one's knickers in a twist.

My problem with it is that the conclusion that TV be limited is not based on any research. It is little more than a "feeling." A feeling I happen to agree with. I think TV sucks out your brains and leaves you an addled idiot, addicted to constant but bland stimulation, easy laughs obtained without wit, and a constant desire to fill that vague human angst with an endless stream of brightly packaged products.

I think television is Soma.

Sometimes I think that Katz forgets that children are not little adults; that children do need the guidance of parents; that parents should be censors. My own parents never ever told me there was anything I couldn't read. That way I had no fear to walk into the home with any book I chose. When they saw me with something that troubled them, they would express their concerns and ask to talk to me after I read the book. We would discuss the book and what was in it. We would talk about violence, cruelty, tratment of women, minorities, what was good and what was bad. From this, I became very aware of my parent's morals, and I knew their reasons for them. This did not result in me being a little parrot of my parents, because I was also thinking for myself. I was deciding what out of these books and what they believed I would take into myself and make a part of my code for living.

TV was a slightly different story. We simply did not watch much of it until we were about 10 years old. Then we watched a lot (my dad was a classic TV junkie -- he'd watch anything). I found, however, that I had little time for most of the junk. Now, I'm not some ivory tower who eschews "The Simpsons" because I have to get back to my copy of "Le Rechereche du Temps Perdus." I am now a bit of a TV junkie myself, but I formed an aesthetic and moral sense early, and I decide what goes through the glass teat (nod to Harlan Ellison) into my brain.

So, the pedes wrote a good thing as bad science. I think that's a shame and they shouldn't have done it, but I think any parent who doesn't know what his or her child is watching is a lousy parent.

Sorry to say it...

[lythander]

but here in the USA, no one under 21 reall has any rights, except to vote at 18. The Constitution says so. Period. Child labor and similar vices are outlawed, but that's it. No one ever said (correctly) that a child has a right to free speech, or to watch TV, or to be free from oppression.

Sorry, kids.


[Actually giving 18 year-olds the vote was a brilliant political move. People got mad because you could be drafted and killed for your country 3 years before you could vote about the issue, so it was decided to give these people a vote in the matter. And 18-21 year-olds vote in such abyssmally small numbers to have had almost no effect whatsoever on politics in this country at all.]

Attn: Moderators

[Minstrel78]

Should moderators really be encouraging posts like this by moderating them up? Let's try to be polite people. This sort of story is important to me and to many other slashdot readers. You have the ability to not push the "Read More" link. If you are tired of reading Katz's articlas, exercise that ability.

Have a nice day.

Re:Its the COMMERCIALS that are most damaging

[Wah]

Moderate this up. If anything on TV is designed to affect and change the psyche it would have to be the commercials. Before you flame quickly try to remember all the jingles you know. Did you *try* to learn them or were they forced into your subconcious. Who tells you that you aren't cool with a zipper vest? Who tells you how to act to be popular? Who f*cks with your head on a daily basis to get your money?

The trick (the one that most young kids don't know) is to realize what they are trying to do and step above it. Kids figure it our eventually (they are sentient after all), but do a lot better with a coupla' helpful hints from parents or older siblings. Don't count on this being taught in school. I was never formally introduced to it until I was paying $20,000/yr to learn how to do it.

Re:Freedom

[remande]

Last I checked, America was a free country.

Gee, can I live in your America?

Don't confuse the Constitution with reality. This won't be a free country until the Powers That Be have the Constitution rammed down their collective throats and they submit to it.

"Igon, Tell him about the Twinkie."

[remande]

There are a lot of media twinkies in this country, if not the world. You know what I mean; entertainment with little or no redeeming value. Mental junk food. Good examples seem to be a lot of action flicks, a good number of fiction TV, and just about any software Id makes.

We have made a lot of hubbub in this country about the problems caused by these media twinkies. Whenever a teenager goes off the deep end (often with a hail of bullets), somebody can point the cause back to these media twinkies. The witch hunts then recycle.

This is not the problem.

There is a place for junk food. There is a place for mental junk food. Used properly, they are mostly (if not entirely) harmless. Used improperly, they sicken minds and bodies.

That place is simple. Junk food is an amusing diversion away from a sane, steady diet. Try to use it as a steady diet, and the results are predictable.

Imagine if somebody found a teenager who lived on nothing but 20-30 Twinkies a day, became obese, and developed diabetes. Imagine the news stories. Where would the blame be thrown? Possibly at the teenager, probably at the parents, maybe at the school. Where would blame likely not be thrown? At the guys who make Twinkies. It is obvious that Twinkies are not to be used to replace three squares a day. If somebody tried to blame the Twinkie people, the response would be a coast to coast "Duh!".

But we do the exact same thing with media twinkies. Time after time, we see kids who are growing up on action flicks, television, and Id games. So people blame the movies, the shows, and the games.

Clue phone: these are the media twinkies. In moderation, they make a steady diet of healthy idea exchange more interesting. In bulk, they do nothing but make your mind sick.

Shall we blame the media? Hollywood, TV, and Id? Only when they try to fool us and pass their stuff off as healthy media. If they sell their wares as distractions, they are being as responsible as an ice cream stand.

Unfortunately, while parents have the clue regarding food (three squares a day), they often don't get or don't want a clue on media. They let their kids grow up on this stuff. And then they wonder why the kids are insane.

Let me reiterate. Playing Quake does not turn you into a homicidal maniac. Playing Quake for five hours a day may well do so.

A huge part of parenting, perhaps the biggest part, is keeping one's children well-fed in the head. Children learn like adults wish they could. It's a survival trait, one of the few we humans have. Let them learn guns, and they learn guns. Teach them right from wrong, and they learn right from wrong. Let them learn guns then, and still reinforce right and wrong, and the kids can handle it properly.

There is a big push among some people to solve the problems of juvinile delinquency and school shootings (IMHO, two seperate problems) by keeping kids away from these media twinkies. That should be done--by the parents. But that's only half the problem.

Eliminate the media twinkies, and a lot of kids have nothing left. That is the evil. It is better to eat the junk food, for body or mind, than to simply not eat--but not by much. The only sane alternative is healthy food--three squares a day.

This is called parenting. And this is why nothing the government does will solve this problem. Until we make it unacceptable to feed our kids steady diets of media twinkies, we will continue raising generations of media twinkies--with predictable results.

Re:History and morals.

[cje]

Without church, of any kind, the afterlife is non existant or not worth striving for. Its just play now, who cares about later.

This is an awfully frightening statement. You seem to be suggesting that the only thing that keeps religious people from going on (for example) violent rampages is because they're afraid of what will happen to them in the afterlife if they do! In other words, they don't refrain from going on the violent rampage because they know what it will do to the victims and their families, because of the suffering that it will cause -- no, they refrain from it because of their belief that God has a metaphorical shotgun pressed against their head.

Don't you find this a little bit scary?

When fear is the primary motivation for living a good life, something is horribly, horribly wrong. We should be past all that by now. People should want to be good to each other by choice, because it's how they would like to be treated. When I hold the door at the grocery store open for an elderly woman, it's not because I think it's what God wants me to do .. it's because I think it's what the elderly woman wants me to do. :-) The Golden Rule is the foundation of all personal morals, regardless of whether your morals are rooted in religion or not. Religion does not have a monopoly on the morals market. It is the fundamental principle of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" that needs to be hammered into the minds of our kids.

The "only religious people have any motivation for being good to people" argument is complete bunk.

Chill out

[DaveBarr]

These people are not a bunch of Luddites. The American Council of pediatrics doesn't want to ban TV from kids. The simple truth they are professing is that before the age of 2, it is far more important that children have HUMAN CONTACT than spend time in front of the television. Developmentally, these are critical times! If a child does not have enough human contact in these early years they will have developmental problems which CANNOT be solved in later years. What has Slashdot turned into? Is Technology the New Nation? Is anything "anti-Technology" now suddenly anti-American? Has all reason gone the way of technologicalistic dogma? --Dave

What about the parents?

[dlc]

I can't help but feel that this is an extension of the typical American refusal to take responsibility for their actions. The media is not to blame--if anyone is to blame, it is the parents. A child that has been taught the difference between what is appropriate and what is not appropriate--or at least given the proper intellectual tools to make the distinction--should not have these problems.

In the last three months since the birth of my nephew, and as the birth of my own son comes nearer, I have realized something very important--children come out knowing nothing. They learn exactly what you teach them. Yes, children are extremely impressionable. Heck, most adults are very impressionable. But if you teach them early on how to make responsible judgements and to take responsibility for their actions, they can be taught the difference between fantasy (what they see on television) and reality (how they should treat people, what is appropriate).

Of course a two year old cannot make informed decisions about what to watch on television--but then again, a two year old should not be making the important decisions about her life on her own, now should she?

It is about time that people stop complaining about the Evil Internet and Terrible Televison and start teaching their children to make responsible choices. More censorship is not the answer--less censorship is the answer. Informed decisions can only be made when the decider has all the available information. If you think pornography is wrong, teach your children why you think that, don't blindly deny access to it. If you have strong political beliefs, explain them to your children, and make them understand, rather than just ranting and raving (Dad, are you listening?). Children are young, but they are people, and can be reasoned with--if you've taught them how.

Sorry about the semi-rant--I've been having this discussion with friends and family for a few months.

There is no such thing as a dirty word. Nor is there a word so powerful, that it's going to send the listener to the lake of fire upon hearing it. -- Frank Zappa

Kill your television!

[1010011010]

I don't care if it's "for the kids" or not... it's a good idea! without TV, people will have to do something unusual --- like READ and maybe even THINK. Who needs "Stone" Phiilips regurgitating government and corporate press releases at us? Or telling us how to put batteries on our smoke detectors? It's not like the mainstream press actually casts a critical eye at anything these days. The mainstream press we have may as well be government-controlled! They don't need the First Amendment, because they never confront any government anywhere with anything. But they do, arrogantly, consider themselves the Fourth Branch of Government. P.J. O'Rourke characterized the three branches of government as "Money, Television and Bullshit." Well, the press is all three of those.

There was once a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon of the pair reading Karl Marx. Calvin remarks, "says here that religion is the opiate of the masses. Wonder what that means?" ... in the next frame was a television saying, "you haven't seen nothing yet!"

Kill your television!

When will people learn?

[Rabbins]

If you tell your chioldren to not do something... that will turn into something they will despise you for, and do anyways. Especially with something as common as watching TV. We are not talking about "don't do drugs" for christ's sake.

As a kid, I enjoyed TV as much as anyone, but my parents got me involved in numerous outside activities that I had a lot more to do than sit around and watch TV. But if I was told that I could not watch it, and I saw other people enjoying TV wherever I went... you bet that I would be over at a friend's house whose parents were more leniant, and lying to may parents about what I was doing.

Egads, how long have we known that positive reinforcement is the way to handle these type of things? Given choices and opportunities, your children will come to realize TV is merely an empty way to pass time when you have nothing else to do... Take it away, and it becomes something they think about constantly.

Re:When will people learn?

[Rabbins]

Well yes, but you can convey your feelings without forcing your children away from something commonly had by almost everyone.

I knew kids growing up that were not allowed to watch TV. I thought the majority of them (well, 2 out of 3) were pretty fucked up and caused a lot of trouble in school. I would argue that a majority of their problems came from over-domineering parents. If you are not allowed some freedom at home, you have to exercise it when you are away from your parents... just to vent. And if this is happening at school, it perpetuates itself in not getting an education.

All I was saying, was to let your children know how you feel by offering and encouraging other ways of spending their time... and not simply barring them from what can be considered a meaningless medium. If given ample positive opportunities, children will do the right thing... without you forcing them to your will.

Freedom

[techmage]

Last I checked, America was a free country. Freedom means responisbility. If parents are not are too busy to care for their own children then that is their problem. As a pernet, I monitor my childrens' activites. That is my job, my right, my resposibility. If they do something wrong, then I, as a parent answer for it until they turn 18.

We as a society should stop whining and start doing. Life is terminal - deal with it.

Re:Trying to keep kids innocent...

[Datafage]

I fail to see the purpose in keeping children innocent as long as possible. Humans as a species are not innocent. As long as we have id and ego innocence will not be part of us. I knew about sex so long ago I can't even remember not knowing it, nor where I learned it. NO ONE should be innocent, but of course, neither should they be immoral. However, it is necessary to consider: what will happen when your perfect innocent girl gets to high school and some jock gets a date with her, and she can't understand that letting him sleep with her is bad, since the first she heard of it came from him, and he will of course say there's nothing wrong with it? Innocence is dangerous over the age of 4.

-----------------------

Trying to keep kids innocent...

[mcarbone]

This whole deal Katz writes about is just the next in a long series of steps that American society is taking to keep our children innocent as long as they can. Frankly, I don't understand it very well. Granted, not every child has two parents who can spend time with them and raise them well, but that doesn't mean regulations have to do the job. And what does mantaining their innocence longer achieve anyway? Blissful ignorant happiness until they are 9 years old where they learn on the school bus everything Andrew Dice Clay ever mentioned? 'Cause that's what happens. They learn it from other kids on the playground and have a much immature attitude about adult matters because they never learned it from their parents. In fact, their parents are ashamed to talk about these matters with them! What does that say to the child? So society says more regulations on TV, movies, video games - what's next? Regulating friends so you Jason from next door doesn't tell you what the Missionary Position is? Yes, I'm frustated (and I don't have kids) and I do understand how violent TV and movies can harm younger kids if they approach it the wrong way. But the solution is not censorship - not even to children!


-----------------