Two pieces, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal the past two weeks have inspired our family to limit screen time for our under two-year-old as much as humanly possible.
What are screens doing to our kid’s development and how is it hampering their ability to connect with the “real world?”
Screen Addiction Is Taking a Toll on Children in the New York Times:
Before age 2, children should not be exposed to any electronic media, the pediatrics academy maintains, because “a child’s brain develops rapidly during these first years, and young children learn best by interacting with people, not screens.” Older children and teenagers should spend no more than one or two hours a day with entertainment media, preferably with high-quality content, and spend more free time playing outdoors, reading, doing hobbies and “using their imaginations in free play,” the academy recommends.
Heavy use of electronic media can have significant negative effects on children’s behavior, health and school performance. Those who watch a lot of simulated violence, common in many popular video games, can become immune to it, more inclined to act violently themselves and less likely to behave empathetically, said Dimitri A. Christakis of the Seattle Children’s Research Institute.
The Great Gift of Reading Out Loud in the Wall Street Journal:
Alas, this assumption is no longer so easy to make. In an epoch in which screens of one sort or another have become ubiquitous, it is more vital than ever to read aloud often, and at length, for as long as children will stay to listen. Without sustained adult effort, many kids won’t bother going through the gateway at all. I know a voracious young reader who stopped consuming novels for pleasure for almost four years after she gained access to a laptop. In our family, the attempted usurpation by electronic entertainment has struck each child progressively at an earlier age—not because I’m a feckless mother, I hope, but because that is the way the culture is going. If the drift to YouTube and Instagram and Hulu has happened in our household, a book-obsessed place that is stuffed with gloriously varied volumes thanks to my day job as this paper’s children’s book critic, how must it be elsewhere?
Comment below: Do you limit your kid’s screen time? Do you read aloud in your home?
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