[donatj]

My wife stays home with our kids. My daughter ends up watching a fair bit of television while my wife does chores and the like.

We're entirely curating what she's watching and I'm just not that concerned. If anything, she's learning things that I would not thought to teach her at her age. About 6 months ago she had an assessment through the school district for early education and at 2 years of age was able to identify about half the letters of the the alphabet.

My wife and I watching this happen were genuinely surprised because neither of us had even considered trying to teach the alphabet to a 2-year old. We did not teach her this, educational content taught her this.

I don't really worry. I watched TV basically my entire childhood growing up in the '80s, in the height of stranger danger where I largely was not allowed to go outside. It was a lot worse than this. I watched game shows, Hogans Heroes, Night Court. She's watching Ms. Rachel, Meekah, and Sesame Street.

I think the kids will be all right as long as you're involved. We're not hand our kid a tablet and saying "Go nuts". We're watching TV in the living room as a family.

[b0rtb0rt]

IMO tablets/touchscreens are specifically what’s bad

my kids watch lots of movies/tv shows on the family tv and play console games, usually they get bored after an hour or 2 and then do something creative or play with toys, they’re all excelling in school

the few times they have had access to tablets it is like crack to them, they will just not put it down

whenever i take them out shopping or to a restaurant we are the only family that doesn’t have all the kids with headphones and tablets . i’ve seen some disturbing shit, kids on a nature walk with tablets and headphones, kids watching tiktok on their phones while on the lazy river at the waterpark. somehow i am able to take 3 kids to the supermarket by myself without screens but then i see parents with 1 kid still needing to babysit them with a tablet

[toasty228]

> I watched game shows, Hogans Heroes, Night Court. She's watching Ms. Rachel, Meekah, and Sesame Street.

At 2 years old?

There are babies under a year who watch youtube brainrot shat out by obscure indian animation farms multiple hours a day, I'm not sure it has the same impact as watching Stargate when you're eight. My niece is 9 months, she never watched anything on a phone yet as soon as someone in her line of sight gets a phone out she's mesmerized, it's scary to witness

[donatj]

> At 2

Yes, I absolutely did.

I was home with my dad, gated into the living room while he did things around the house. There is only so much to do.

[kakacik]

You have no idea what potential of you was lost there, and we don't even know what your life looks like so can't judge any of that. But stating 'I spent most of my childhood in front of TV so all is fine' is... I guess you don't have strong affinity towards nature, adventure, sports, wildish traveling for example?

You do you (and your kids), but as a parent of small kids myself we do TV max maybe 30 mins weekly on average, older cartoons (age 4 and 6). There is little gained and a lot lost in screens, but you need to be aware of things being lost in the first place lol. Screens form addictions, active screens even moreso - why do this to your own children? Why not just let them roam the streets all day then, they will gather much more experience that way. Don't tell me it can be harmful to them - screens are too yet seemingly very few care.

Its much harder spending quality with them of course - this is the main reason why most parents slack off. Actively engaging with them, leading them by example, coming up with novel ways to play with them, that's not how our generation was raised up. Its not easy for me, for some reason easier for my wife, but we are trying our best. If anything in life is wroth pursuing will all vigor, this is it and not some empty white collar careers or even worse money status (this comes from senior dev in a bank and a doctor couple).

In my view, there are only few paths towards happy balanced adult individual that knows what they want in life and go for it, and this is the most sure way even though there are never any guarantees.

[lotsofpulp]

>But stating 'I spent most of my childhood in front of TV so all is fine' is... I guess you don't have strong affinity towards nature, adventure, sports, wildish traveling for example?

There is no reason to assume this.

>Screens form addictions, active screens even moreso - why do this to your own children? Why not just let them roam the streets all day then, they will gather much more experience that way. Don't tell me it can be harmful to them - screens are too yet seemingly very few care.

The article and conversation is about babies. Maybe the context an be stretched to toddlers, even age 5 or 6. Letting a baby or toddler roam the streets alone (in the USA with huge vehicles and distracted drivers all around) is far more harmful than letting them watch curated content on screens.

This isn't a village in a developing country with a whole group of kids with varying ages that look after each other. It's a developed country, with barely any other kids outside, from various "cultures", and legal liability, and risk of severe bodily harm from unsupervised outside time.

>this comes from senior dev in a bank and a doctor couple)

Perhaps you have more flexibility / less stress in your life than 95% of other couples?

[lotsofpulp]

I would expect everyone to be mesmerized by amazing technology they have not gotten used to yet.

[bombcar]

Babies are designed to pay attention to what you pay attention to, and want to do the same.

It may be more 'harmful' for babies to see parents paying attention to screens than it is for them to watch the screen themselves.

(They also become very good at telling if you're really "looking" at the phone or just pretending to look at something.)

[mothballed]

Maybe the plus side is if screens become their encoded reality from a young age, staring at a screen for work because that's the only thing you can do that pays well enough to support a family won't be nearly as depressing and just feel normal.

[SirFatty]

"Babies are designed..."

sure they are.

[II2II]

> We're entirely curating what she's watching and I'm just not that concerned.

That is likely the key element, along with being the reason why the guidance suggests no screen time before the age of 2.

Some parents know what their child needs, some parents don't know how to navigate the mess of children's content, some parents would use it to justify using the screen as a babysitter. It is nearly impossible to offer generic advice, so it tends to be on the safe-side.

It is also worth noting that you are using one metric here, assessments based upon academic achievement. There are other things to consider, such as social and physical development. Perhaps your family is also taking that into account, but again they have to consider how everyone would interpret generic guidance.

[sarchertech]

No the no screen time before 2 has nothing to do with content. Read my reply to the GP comment.

[schnitzelstoat]

Yeah, I use Ms Rachel with my son when I need to cut his nails or if I am alone with him and I need to take a shower or something.

He goes to swimming classes and he learned to clap in the "If You're Happy and you know it" song even though the song is different in his classes, I was confused as to how he learned that you usually clap in the song but I presume he learned it from Ms Rachel.

It's useful English language exposure for him too as we live in a non-English speaking country and my partner doesn't speak English either so without TV I am his only exposure to English.

I wouldn't let him watch it for 8 hours, but I presume that's the typical newspaper sensationalising.

[bombcar]

It's amusing to watch kids pick up Australian slang from Bluey.

[palmotea]

> I don't really worry. I watched TV basically my entire childhood growing up in the '80s, in the height of stranger danger where I largely was not allowed to go outside. It was a lot worse than this. I watched game shows, Hogans Heroes, Night Court. She's watching Ms. Rachel, Meekah, and Sesame Street.

For a long time our kid was only allowed to watch Mr. Rogers. That show is very gentle and slow paced (also: people, not brightly colored flashing cartoons), which I read somewhere is great for young kids.

Also, since I watched it as a kid, I kinda know what I'm getting. I don't really have the time to search for and vet TV shows. And I do not trust anything made for streaming economies, after reading about Cocomelon (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/arts/television/cocomelon...) and seeing the stupid unimaginative wasteland that is Blippi (https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2020/08/the-dead-world-o...):

> In fact, the more I watch Blippi (and boy, have I watched Blippi), the more horrified I am by how thin and dull the Blippiverse is. Blippi does not seem to read books. He does not play make-believe, except to pretend he is doing the thing that the toy or playground object has been built for him to do with it. “Science” means dropping a piece of fruit in the pool and seeing if it floats. The interesting thing about an elephant is that it’s heavy. What about music? Art? History? Theater? The natural world? The wonders of outer space? Mr. Rogers had episodes about grandparents, about not wasting things, about being brave at the emergency room. On any given week he might introduce you to Yo-Yo Ma or Eric Carle of Very Hungry Caterpillar fame. Sesame Street met all the people in your neighborhood and talked about what they do and why it matters, rather than focusing on the trucks they drive.

I really wish someone had put in the effort to digitize the whole run of 321 Contact (all I've been able to find is a smattering of nth-generation re-encodes on YouTube).

[sarchertech]

My 2.5 year old and my 4 year old both get their fair share of TV.

But there’s a reason the AAP recommends no screen time before 2.

There’s a lot of data that show that babies and toddlers don’t learn language skills from TV for some reason. And it inhibits learning because instead of doing what they’d normally do which is watch and listen to adults and older kids speaking they are glued to the screen.

[lotsofpulp]

I have always been suspect of AAP recommendations due to their stance on male genital mutilation. Their risk tolerances are clearly subject to political whims, although I guess I can't expect any better from a human organization.

>And it inhibits learning because instead of doing what they’d normally do which is watch and listen to adults and older kids speaking they are glued to the screen.

For example, is the AAP incorporating the fact that many babies today have greatly reduced access to another adult or older kids to watch and listen to? What if (some) "screen time" is better than the minimum from a tired mom and dad for them?

[sarchertech]

I’m not going to get into debate on the ethicality of infant circumcision, but there are zero counties that have outlawed it, so there isn’t a jurisdiction on earth that considers it genital mutilation.

As far as their risk tolerances go, ignoring ethical considerations their stance is that the medical benefits slightly outweigh the risks. The view of most European medical associations is that the risks slightly outweigh the benefits.

Neither position is very far from the other in terms of risk analysis.

> For example, is the AAP incorporating the fact that many babies today have greatly reduced access to another adult or older kids to watch and listen to? What if (some) "screen time" is better than the minimum from a tired mom and dad for them?

Do you have kids? Babies require constant adult supervision, so there should never be a time when they don’t have access to an adult.

TV under 2 is detrimental to language development. Is it possible that a parking a baby in front of a TV all day is better than parking a baby in front of a gray wall with no stimuli or interaction and letting them scream? Sure. But no one has that data, or ever will. And no medical agency anywhere in the world is going to issue advice like that.

Smoking is probably protective against Parkinson’s disease but no one is going to add a disclaimer to their PSAs to tell you that. That’s not how public health agencies work.

[lotsofpulp]

> so there isn’t a jurisdiction on earth that considers it genital mutilation.

It is a political fight not worth losing, hence no jurisdiction considers it genital mutilation. But the simplest evidence is that if it didn’t already exist, and someone were to propose it, they would be excommunicated from any community for suggesting unnecessary surgery on a baby.

> Do you have kids? Babies require constant adult supervision, so there should never be a time when they don’t have access to an adult.

Yes, I do.

> Is it possible that a parking a baby in front of a TV all day is better than parking a baby in front of a gray wall with no stimuli or interaction and letting them scream? Sure. But no one has that data, or ever will. And no medical agency anywhere in the world is going to issue advice like that.

These are irrelevant scenarios. The AAP says zero screen time. It seems like an arbitrarily restrictive suggestion when almost all kids grow up with more than zero screen time for many decades now. And almost all parents will let their kid under 2 have some screen time, so it leads to an assumption that the other AAP recommendations can be overly strict also.

[sarchertech]

> But the simplest evidence is that if it didn’t already exist, and someone were to propose it, they would be excommunicated from any community for suggesting unnecessary surgery on a baby.

But it does already exist. If ear piercing didn’t exist, people would think you were insane for having someone shove a wire through your kid’s ear. We do all kinds of weird things to our kids that aliens from another planet would fine insane without any cultural context.

Edit: turns out the AAP recently updated their policy

>Infants under 18 months learn best from real-world interactions. Heavy solo screen use can affect their developing language and social skills, for example. Outcomes depend on how many hours a day little ones spend on digital media and how adults use screens to calm or entertain them. But misuse of digital media can cause:

[lotsofpulp]

I feel the same about ear piercing.

That AAP guideline makes more sense to me.