NEW YORK, Aug 04 (Reuters Health) -- Children under age 2 should not be exposed to television, according to new recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). And parents should avoid using electronic media such as television, computers and video games as "babysitters," and also create areas for children that are free of all electronic media.
The guidelines are based on research that suggests that close interaction with parents or other caregivers is necessary for early brain development. Previously, the AAP recommended that children of all ages limit television viewing to 1 to 2 hours a day, according to Dr. Miriam Bar-on, chair of the AAP's committee on public education.
"I think it's a parents responsibility to help children choose wisely, to limit their TV and co-view and explain what they're watching," said Bar-on in an interview with Reuters Health. "And at less than 2, parents should be reading to kids, letting them listen to music, play with toys and do puzzles."
The average child or adolescent in the US spends more than 21 hours per week watching television, not including time spent using a computer or playing video games. Extended television viewing has been linked to an increased risk of obesity and decreased school achievement, as well as an increased risk of aggressive behavior in some children and adolescents who are exposed to media violence.
Witnessing acts of aggression on television "desensitizes them to violence, and makes them believe that the world is a 'meaner and scarier' place than it is," according to a report published in the August 2nd issue of the journal Pediatrics.
The new recommendations extend to all types of electronic screen viewing, including "surfing the Internet, playing computer games, watching videos, playing video games," said Bar-on, who is also an associate professor of pediatrics at the Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans.
However, not all forms of electronic media are necessarily the same. For example, most parents would not let a very young child use a computer without supervision, Bar-on noted.
"There's going to be supervision with the child on a computer, and the computer programs are actually fairly sophisticated," she said. "The software has been designed to become interactive -- television hasn't reached that level of sophistication yet. That doesn't mean it won't in 10 years, but at this point in time it's not."
Parents should talk with a pediatrician about their child's electronic viewing time, just as they would any other health issue, according to the New Orleans physician.
"I just think it is real important that parents and pediatricians work together to deal with this subject," she said. "Parents need to teach their kids critical viewing skills -- they'll be much more comfortable if their kids know how to interpret what it is that they are watching, although I still encourage co-viewing and supervised watching."
SOURCE: Pediatrics 1999;104:341-343.
