I saw this item from the Los Angeles Times. Am I the only one who is disturbed?
Infants and toddlers are spending twice as much time with screen media as they are with books, according to a national study by Common Sense Media.
Forty percent of 2- to 4-year-olds and 52 percent of 5- to 8-year-olds are using smartphones, video iPods, iPads or similar devices, the study found.
Among the study’s other key findings:
• Forty-two percent of children younger than 8 have a television in their bedroom.
• In a typical day, 11 percent of kids up to age 8 use a smartphone, video iPod, iPad or similar device to play games, watch videos or use apps. Those who do such activities spend an average of 43 minutes a day doing so.
4 comments:
Back when books were first made affordable and children were taught to read, how many parents were disturbed that thir children wer wasting time on a trashy novel instead of working?
Technology changes and those children are keeping up with the times. It will never go back to the way it was so we must strive for acceptance and understanding of the way it is.
I think you have an excellent point, Laurie! These are the tools of their future and I did not mean to sound like I was ripping on technology. I have several of the mentioned devices myself.
What was so unsettling was the sentence about little kids having TVs in their bedrooms.
*edited to add:*
... which has always bugged me.
It is a good sign that the average time spent with this stuff is 43 minutes -- attention spans of kids being what they are. ha!
I entirely agree about tv in the bedroom! Our house has two, and buying the second seemed quite the extravagance! One is for my husband and I, the other shared by my two sons. We bought it when they were 11 and 9. It was a bit sad because we didn't seem to hang out together as much, but then again, I really didn't enjoy the same programs as them, so we instituted other family e things, and we always ate together, so that helped.
They are 17 and 15 now, and we still eat together, so that worked out.
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