Week 1 Comments

The Richert reading and the AAP reading both note that children under 2-2.5 years have difficulty learning from screen media. The AAP even specifically recommends that children under 2 not spend time with screen media. I know that Baby Einstein ran into trouble because of its claims that it helped young children, but there are other shows targeted to very young viewers, like Teletubbies and Boohbah. Maybe these shows don’t make claims about their influence, but does the evidence suggest that these shows have no positive impact at all, or at least not any of the sort they might imply? Richert only mentions Teletubbies as something that had a negative impact on older (30mo+) viewers (p. 88). Does the show have any significant educational value?