In my last post, I mentioned a listserv message that had me incensed. The gist of it was to ask what other libraries were doing with their Baby Einstein DVDs since the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released their study that showed that children under two shouldn’t watch videos.
I’m not sure what makes me cringe more—that the person thinks that the AAP actually conducted research on the topic, or that they think such research happened recently. If you’re thinking of discarding all DVDs aimed at a certain population, maybe you should take a glance at the research, and not just rely on media confusion and listserv subscribers…?!
The AAP hasn’t conducted research
The AAP published their position statement about children’s media in 1999, and it states that children under two shouldn’t watch TV:
“Pediatricians should urge parents to avoid television viewing for children under the age of 2 years. 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 and other significant care givers (eg, child care providers) for healthy brain growth and the development of appropriate social, emotional, and cognitive skills. Therefore, exposing such young children to television programs should be discouraged.”
AAP Policy Committee on Public Education. (1999). Media education. Pediatrics 104(2), 341-343.
http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/pediatrics;104/2/341
The AAP makes no claim that videos are actually harmful. What they say is that time spent watching TV takes away from time playing and interacting with people—things that a multitude of research studies have proven to be integral to healthy development. It’s self-evident. Time spent doing one thing equals less time available to do something else. You obviously don’t need to conduct any research to back up that statement.
And yet one might find this abstinence policy a little extreme. As mentioned in the previous post, parents can make TV time into an interactive experience; but even when it’s used as a momentary diversion, is that really such a bad thing? Is it imperative that we interact with babies every hour of every day?
Ethical quandary
I’m sure there is research on that topic—whether we should incessantly prattle at babies, or if we should give them downtime. With all the time, motivation, and database access in the world, I could find an answer for you. However, even with all of those things, I could not tell you whether videos are actually harmful to babies, because the AAP has precluded such research with their policy statement. By saying that no child under two should be exposed to television, they render any controlled study on the topic unethical.
Where does that leave scientists who want to research the subject? Pretty much restricted to parent surveys. It’s not as though a survey study can’t make its way into a peer-reviewed journal—it happens—but its validity will always be considered somewhat suspect. Who wouldn’t be tempted to tell a white lie or two to avoid sounding like a horrible parent? Just me? Doubt it.
What the CCFC says
The Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood (CCFC) has a “fact” sheet on their website entitled Baby Scam, which derides the makers of videos for children, particularly Baby Einstein. My favorite part is the cigarette pack style warning: “THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS RECOMMENDS NO SCREEN TIME FOR CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF TWO.” Doesn’t it make you want to panic, like letting your kids watch these videos is on par with handing them a pack of smokes, or maybe a bottle filled with scalding hot coffee or household cleaners? Or just about anything you read on Really Bad Parenting Advice?
And yet, if you read through it (and especially if you check their citations), you realize that the most mud they can sling is to say that research on the subject is inconclusive. How frightening.
But…they have footnotes!
Let’s comb through some of the claims the CCFC makes in Baby Scam, shall we? They definitely zeroed in on the parts that served their purpose. Me, I’m more of a “What did they conclude?” kind of girl.
Baby Scam says, “Television viewing is negatively associated with regular sleep patterns for babies.” The study they cite says:
“Our data are cross-sectional, which precludes us from making causal inferences. However [ . . . ] it is plausible that television viewing leads to disordered sleep in this young population.” (emphasis mine)
Thompson, D. A. and Christakis, D. (2005). The association between television viewing and irregular sleep schedules among children less than 3 years of age. Pediatrics 116(4), 851-856.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/116/4/851
N.B. Read page 855 for several other “limitations to this study that deserve comment.”
Baby Scam says, “For babies 8 to 16 months, every hour spent watching baby videos is associated with slower language development—they know six to eight words less on a standardized vocabulary test than babies who don’t watch.” The study says:
“Further research is required to determine the reasons for an association between early viewing of baby DVDs/videos and poor language development.”
Zimmerman, Frederick J., Christakis, Dimitri A., and Meltzoff, Andrew N. (2007). Associations between media viewing and language development in children under age 2 years (abstract). The Journal of Pediatrics 151(4), 364-368.
I could go on, but I think you’ve got enough data to sense a pattern. I won’t contend that there are associations between watching videos and [insert bad thing], but we don’t know how many other factors may be contributing to [bad thing]. I guess it’s not necessary to demonstrate that one causes the other before picking up a pitchfork.
Further reading
In 2005, Kaiser Family Foundation published The Effects of Electronic Media on Children Ages Zero to Six: A History of Research, a comprehensive literature review spanning five decades. Not to spoil the ending, but their “conclusion” about media effects on children under two was that more research is needed—no surprise there. For an overview of more recent research, see Baby Einstein Controversy: What Parents Need to Know on Paula Slade’s Children’s Entertainment Examiner blog.
Top image credit: “baby einstein” by Flickr user Kimblah, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 license.
Bottom image credit: “The magic of television” by Flickr user Ian Turk, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 license.
[ Posted in » Family + Parenting Channel ]
An excellent book on the research that has and has not been done surrounding the world of baby videos is Lisa Guernsey’s In the Minds of Babes. I highly recommend it – she has your same common sense approach to the topic.
I’m not a fan of the baby videos myself, but that’s primarily because I thought they had such terrible production values. I remember trying to follow the no TV until age 2 guideline until my daughter was 18 months old and I had my hands on a pilot of show looking for distribution, Yo Gabba Gabba. I loved it so much that we started watching it.
Thanks for letting me know about the book; I just added it to an order for our parenting collection, and will be interested to read it. I agree about the production values—terrible, and with none of the charm of a B (or C) movie.
Wow, that’s a weighty post. I generally agree. My kids have never seen Baby Einstein (we hate Disney – but enjoy Mary Poppins and ESPN, ugh), but did see videos (like Readeez, Maggie and the Ferocious Beast) before the age of 2. The Bear, now a week away from 6-years-old shows zero signs of a vocab problem. Quite the opposite actually. I think that having kids watch Baby Einstein so early in life may be indicative of a parenting style that includes a too-often, too-early reliance on TV, thus the poor vocab skills later on. Maybe Baby Einstein is like pot in being a gateway drug. I think adults that watch too much TV dumber and less aware than others, so the same probably is true of developing kids…whether it’s BE videos they’re watching or something else all day, every day.
I have the same hunch as you about broader factors like parenting style being involved, though it would be hard to define for research purposes.
From personal experience, I know that they can be habit-forming. When my not-yet-spouse and I ventured into parenting, it was under…how to say…not very carefully planned circumstances? Money was an issue, so I relied on my mom for childcare, and my control over daytime TV viewing habits was limited. The good news is that, after weathering the withdrawal symptoms, the habit has been broken.
As for language development, I hate to be the type of parent who brags about early “academic” achievement (I believe that the playing field tends to level out over a long enough timeline) but both girls do quite well verbally. It’s all the books! Books are the antidote!
You seem to be struggling w/ the definition of association. Not once does the CCFC fact sheet claim causation. Not sure how much you know about research design, but designing a baby video study that showed causation would be virtually impossible.
I’m curious if you’ll apply your same skepticism to Baby Einstein’s educational claims. Is it OK with you that BE claimed “Through exposure to phonemes in seven languages, Baby Einstein contributes to increased brain capacity” w/o a shred of evidence?
I can tell that you didn’t watch very much “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood” when you were young as you’re not very neighborly – nor have you found the point of this essay.
Ms. Graves is neither defending nor lambasting the “BE” series, she appears to be commenting on the bad habit of some consumers of information to zoom in on a minute point without fully understanding the big picture.
The point is to pay attention, and to refrain from jumping on every good parent/bad parent bandwagon that comes tootling its horn down your street.
Best of luck.
Word of advice: Attempted condescension does not help one make a point.
I appreciate your comment, because you drew my attention to errors I made in the paragraph before “further reading.” I misstated my case, and have made some clarifications. I’d love to hear what you think.
I know next to nothing about research design, but I don’t think finding one or more causes for the hypothesized outcomes is beyond the realm of possibility. I’m not sure how control would be established, but I’m picturing a large-scale longitudinal study that tracks all known factors that are thought to possibly contribute to…whatever the hypothesis is. Language development, sleep patterns, whatever. The key factor, I would guess, would be scope. A parental telephone interview focused entirely on TV viewing habits wouldn’t cut it.
If you had read my previous post, you would know that I’m not looking at the educational content, or lack thereof, of Baby Einstein DVDs. My concern is that people are perceiving them as harmful when such evidence just isn’t there. I am intrigued by the quote you dropped, though. Do you have a citation? I can’t do much with it out of context.
Thanks for stopping by.
I sorry if you were offended by my condescension. I figured based on the tone of your post — “pitchforks” “footnotes!” – that snark was welcome here.
I hadn’t read your last post, but I have now. And I see that you’ve swallowed the Disney/BE line that they never claimed their videos would make your baby smart.
But the entire BE brand was, in fact, built on that claim. The quote I cited – and many more gems (“Baby Mozart, the second in a series of educational videos aimed at facilitating the brain development of infants and toddlers) – can be found here: http://bit.ly/4njklt. Keep in mind that back in 1998, brain development was all the rage and BE deliberately tried to cash in on that. (For an excellent account of this, see Susan Gregory Thomas’s Buy, Baby Buy.) And that this marketing is effective. The same fact sheet you cite notes that “The most common reason parents give for putting their babies and toddlers in front of screens is that they are beneficial to their child’s brain development.”
You say your concern is “people are perceiving them as harmful when the evidence just isn’t there.” But why aren’t you concerned that people think they are educational when the evidence isn’t there. And Baby Einstein lied and claimed they were.
Here’s an exercise I encourage you to do. Take the claims in the “Baby Scam” fact sheet and give them a grade on how well they are supported by evidence. Then do the same with the educational claims cited in the press release I linked to above.
I don’t agree with your assessment that I “swallowed the Disney/BE line,” because that implies I care enough about the company to have researched their position. That’s the “sort of” from the post titles. I’m not in bed with this company, and I’m not condemning nor defending their business or marketing practices.
The research I did as a new parent, in 2003, was to take a look at the AAP’s policy statement. I care much more about what a trusted medical association says than some corporation with dollar signs for eyes. I noticed their position wasn’t based on any strong research, though it does make perfect sense. I tried to keep my daughter away from the screen, but there came a point that, for personal reasons, that became nearly impossible. I decided, imperfect parent that I am, to take the risk.
Ours was still a household that was still filled with interaction, play, books, love, and safety. Both daughters have turned out just fine. If you’ll pardon the proud parent bias, better than fine. I feel strongly that it was my right as a parent to make the decisions I made, that it was my responsibility to balance the benefits and consequences, that I was willing and capable to compensate for screen time.
The press releases you’ve pointed me to are all from 2003 and earlier—before my daughter was born—so I didn’t have any prior background on the issue. The only “line” I’ve ever heard is the one I referenced in the previous post, the blah-blah-blah company info that played at the end of each video.
I’m going to maintain my point that it would only take one viewing for a discerning parent to know that this is not genius-making material. Any parent who wants to raise a genius ought to be smart enough to know better. I totally agree that BE shouldn’t be making false claims, but is this war really over what they were saying 7 to 10 years ago?
Maybe we’d all be happier if they started doing business as Baby Distraction Factory. Then parents like me could all feel really guilty when we buy them anyway. Rationalization would go right out the window!
Dear everyone: There is (at least) one thing I hate about Baby Einstein DVDs: the auto-replay feature. I think it could destroy civilization as we know it. (Overstatement, sure, but it’s a genuine concern of mine!)