Ban under-threes from watching television, says study | Society | The Guardian.
It’s been a long time since I found time to blog, but I am compelled after 3 articles have jumped out at me. This is the first – an article espousing the idea of letting your under-three watch TV. I personally agree, and have done my very best to live a screen-free existence with my little one (who has just turned 3 btw). That has meant he has only a brief idea of the joys of technology, however even though I have tried to limit his exposure he LOVES playing on anyone’s phone and can’t help but be drawn to devices whenever an unsuspecting friend gets theirs out of their pocket! He has also watched an animated film or 2 but seldom enough that he doesn’t bug me about watching one when he is bored, for the moment!
I was interested in one of the comments which tries to say the research doesn’t include the recent phenomenon of apps disguised as fun games but really educational programmes, and therefore he was planning on letting his 12month old free use of his iphone. I was particularly interested in this as I can’t imagine anything more sad than a tiny little person with her head stuck to an iphone. I don’t think he has even considered the tantrums he will have on his hands when she is expected to hand back this “toy”. And here ispeak from experience. Whenever my eldest has been exposed to a device of any kind, getting it back from him can almost always cause a huge tantrum. When I am offered strangers phones on trains to help distract my son in the middle of a “mood swing” I turn them down as it is just prolonging the inevitable, when the kind stranger has to leave the train and wants his/her phone back!
And this is the problem, we think we can quick fix everything – including our child’s introduction to this amazing world we live in full of this amazing technology….all the time forgetting that on an evolutionary level we still have stone age brains and we need to learn how to do things through experience… and real life is not conveyed through a device.
I got my first phone when I was 19. It was a great thing. I have some idea of what life was like without being at the mercy of my phone. I would like to allow my child that same freedom. I don’t think that is unreasonable.
babyhood 