Nothing new

From AP. Just another instance of people with too much time on their hands.

One-third of the nation's youngest children - babies through age 6 - live in homes where the television is on almost all the time, says a study that highlights the immense disconnect between what pediatricians advise and what parents allow.

TV in the bedroom is not even that rare for the littlest tots anymore. Almost one child in five under 2 has a set, even though the American Academy of Pediatrics advises against any TV watching at that age.

Eight in 10 children younger than 6 watch TV, play video games or use the computer on a typical day. They average about two hours of screen time, compared with 48 minutes when they are being read to, the Kaiser Family Foundation concludes in a study released Wednesday.

The number of youngsters glued to the screen has not changed much since the foundation's first report on the topic in 2003.

So why is AP reporting this? Oh they have a history of reporting trivia. Click here, here, and here for examples.

The report by the California-based foundation, which analyzes health care issues, comes at a time of great debate about the impact of TV and other multimedia on youngsters. Just last week, specialists called together by the National Institutes of Health urged more research on how electronic media affect children at different ages.

The debate has been going on since I was a teenager.

In addition to the focus groups, the Kaiser report is based on results of a national, random telephone survey last fall of 1,051 parents of children 6 months to 6 years. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

---

A look at how children under age 6 use TV and other electronic media:

_In a typical day, 83 percent watch either TV, computer or video games, for about two hours a day.

_TV use is by far the most common, watched by 75 percent of those youngsters. One-third watch videos or DVDs, 16 percent use the computer and 11 percent play videos.

_Media use increases with age: 61 percent of babies 1 year or younger watch TV, while 90 percent of 4- to 6-year-olds have daily "screen time."

_32 percent live in homes where the TV is on all or most of the time.

_Asked about effects on learning, 38 percent of parents said TV mostly helps and 69 percent said computers mostly help.

_15 percent of parents say their pediatrician has never discussed their child's media use with them.

_A third of parents reported their child had a TV in their bedroom: 19 percent of children 1 year or younger; 29 percent of 2- to 3-year-olds, and 43 percent of 4- to 6-year-olds. Just 5 percent have a computer in the bedroom.

What all this means is they are pushing a report based on a sample of very few people(1 in 1,000 children in America or thereabouts) and it says nothing I didn't know already.

So why is this news?

Open Post- TMH's Bacon Bits, Outside the Beltway,