Nine out of ten 2-year old kids are addicted to the idiot box

Nine out of ten children aged 2 years and below regularly watch television that includes DVD and video viewing, a new report has revealed.

Washington, May 8 : Nine out of ten children aged 2 years and below regularly watch television that includes DVD and video viewing, a new report has revealed.

The report also said that approximately 40 percent of three-month old children view the idiot box.

Frederick J. Zimmerman, Ph.D., of the University of Washington, Seattle, and colleagues, conducted a telephone survey that analyzed four television and DVD content categories: children's educational, children's non-educational, baby DVDs/videos and grown-up television (such as talk shows or sports programming).

"Approximately half of the viewing was of shows that parents reported to be in the children's educational category. The remaining half was approximately equally split among children's non-educational content, baby DVDs/videos and grown-up television," the authors note.

"The public health implications of early television and video viewing are potentially large. There are both theoretical and empirical reasons to believe that the effects of media exposure on children's development are more likely to be adverse before the age of about 30 months than afterward," they added.

As regarding to the reasons given by parents for allowing television and DVD/video viewing, 29 percent believe that television is educational or good for their child's brain, 23 percent believe that it is enjoyable or relaxing for their child and 21 percent believe it gives them time to get things done while the child is entertained. Parents watched with their children more than half the time.

Researchers also reported that compared with children without siblings, children with two or more siblings were less likely to view grown-up television and watched about 18 minutes less per day in all content types.

"These results suggest that it may not only be the amount or content type that children view, but also the role of siblings in helping to process this content that may affect whether television viewing helps or hinders development," the authors conclude.

In addition, these results suggested that the prevalent notion that parents turn to television only as an electronic babysitter is a misconception. Parents are in need for truly educational content for children younger than 2 years, according to the researchers.

The report is published in the May issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

ANI