When my 14 year old brother and sister were first brought home after being adopted from Russia, our neighbors threw a party for their return. Everyone brought things like toys, puzzles, and diapers, and some people came with Baby Einstein videos, claiming that they used them on their kids, and it really quickened their early learning development. My mom, however, wasn’t so quick to believe that the videos actually did anything, so she decided to do some research. She wasn’t too happy with what she found, so needless to say, the videos didn’t last in our house for too much longer.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) conducted a study in 1999, which produced results showing that a child age 2 or younger should not be allowed any screen time. That includes TV shows, movies, games on screens, etc. The recommendation from the study added, “Although certain television programs may be promoted to this age group, research on early brain development shows that babies and toddlers have a critical need for direct interactions with parents…for healthy brain growth and the development of appropriate social, emotional and cognitive skills” (Guernsey). This wasn’t the only study conducted to show the negative side effects of plopping your baby in front of the TV and turning on the videos.
A study at the University of Washington, led by Frederick Zimmerman and Dr. Dimitri Christakis showed that “with every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs…infants learned six to eight fewer new vocabulary words than babies who never watched the videos.” Christakis then said that the babies who watched the videos “Scored about 10% lower on language skills than infants who had not” (Park). These videos are not helping the child’s language development, but actually doing the opposite by delaying it. Not only this, but additional research showed that Baby Einstein videos could even cause a baby to develop asbergers, autism, or ADHD.
A different study from the AAP showed that showing you baby videos such as Baby Einstein may lead to ADHD. The reason for this is that “watching TV,” according to Christakis, “rewires an infant’s brain” (Lotus). It overstimulates the brain, since the speed of television is much faster in comparison to real life. This causes the child to become easily irritated and cause them to have extremely short attention spans. The damage usually becomes apparent around the age of 7 when the child has trouble focusing in school. The autism comes out of the social interaction part of it. If a child is simply staring at a screen, and doesn’t get face to face interaction with people, the child doesn’t develop appropriate social skills, causing problems later in life.
Based off the research, I think it’s time my brother and sister start thanking our parents for not allowing those videos to ever make it onto our television screen. Just remember, never judge a book by it’s cover, nor trust movie by its title, even if it does have the name of a theoretical physicist on it.
I found your blog post very interesting and it was something I always wondered about. At the end of the day it comes down to even though we have better technology to provide our children with, does not mean it is better. I do agree that face time with a baby is the most beneficial, but didn’t realize that the Baby Einstein and other types of videos can actually harm a baby’s development. Children are at their most crucial stage when they are babies, and to think that a parent is trying to help their child by showing these seemingly harmless videos can actually hurt their children is awful. I wonder if anything can be legally done to promote that baby Einstein videos don’t actually help children learn.
Nowadays, early childhood education becomes more and more significant in people’s life. Schools and Parents gives babies a lot to watch and learn before they can even talk or understand anything. And a lot of pregnant moms gives their babies who are not born yet videos to watch and something like that. I always think it’s not helpful at all. Because it’s just psychological hint in some perspective. Therefore, this article attracts me. And it’s surprising to see that a child age 2 or younger should not be allowed any screen time, and according to the research, “with every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs…infants learned six to eight fewer new vocabulary words than babies who never watched the videos.”