Singapore study links heavy infant screen time to teen anxiety
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
> Among children whose parents read to them frequently at age three, the link between infant screen time and altered brain development was significantly weakened.
It sounds a bit like the problem might not be so much "heavy screen time" as "heavy screen time, plus no alternative stimulation". Not defending heavy screen time at all, just thought it was an interesting tidbit.
I could see some sort of real world grounding helping reduce anxiety
Gee, it's almost like it's not about the screen itself at all.
Why does the study say screen time when the effects are, ostensibly, not about the screen? Again, a conclusion/agenda in search of evidence necessarily makes biased assumptions. THIS study (as with others) mischaracterizes itself. Seems like a questionable study from the outset. This is a poor approach to analysis.
So what?
I've seen people giving their babies bottles of grape soda to suckle on the subway.
The chances that any of those kids end up the president of Harvard is zero.
I don't think toddlers should be at most restaurants. I have a toddler and a 7 month old. I'm not even saying that for the sake of the other patrons. There's really nothing fun whatsoever about being at restaurant with your toddler. We don't even have bad outcomes, but you're sort of trapped in your seat, it's messy, it's expensive, and you're constantly keeping your toddler in line.
Restaurant food is really not so good as to overcome those issues.
For example, in Texas there are loads of TexMex restaurants and Hispanic cultures actually embrace children as part of the environment vs Western European cultures (which I was raised in) which don’t so much.
As I said: horses for courses.
Yes, I am. And my spouse and I managed to raise two kids under the age of two without giving them an iPad. Yeah, it meant we didn't go to restaurants as much and that the house wasn't as clean as it was before. It's all trade offs.
I'm not saying this to say I'm a better parent than you are, but you don't __need__ an iPad or to plop them in front of a tv. Claims otherwise are just excuse making.
Both my kids really struggled at night for years, and I sypmpathize with the lack of sleep.
No, you throw them a cheap Android tablet. iPads are expensive. /s
(yes, I have 3 kids, I am speaking from experience)
(I'm fine with butter, but syrup is 100% off limits. Use berries.)
I'm not sure about your kid but if my kid sees something new, they will stop at absolutely nothing until they find out what it is. This is why it's good, for example, if a child is curious about something like guns to show them what it is in a supervised way rather than have them get a crowbar and break into your safe and find out the hard way and hurt themselves.
Yes, to work at home you need a home office and childcare.
Interesting, I grew up in a house like that, and didn't see much of my dad for many years because of it. Something I didn't do with my own daughter, I always loved her coming into to distract me when I was working from home (pre-pandemic).
We're here to discuss topics. If you are going to say that an iPad is a necessary tool for raising children, at least stand behind that point of view instead of removing it as soon as people disagree with you.
When I was a kid from a young age I'd go explore the creek, spend all day hiking in the forest with a shotgun hunting squirrels/rabbits, or my parents would hand me some legos or something and leave me for an hour to build stuff. These stories weren't terribly uncommon. It was pretty normal for kids to be let out the house during the day and not come home until dinner. Parents weren't spending a lot of time with us.
Now it feels like if you don't spend time with your kid 24/7 some Karen will call CPS on your ass lickity split and some goon from the state will happily trump it up as neglect or some such. People even get cited for leaving their kid in the car for 5 minutes while they buy a pack of cigarettes.
The infants shouldn't eat so much fast food so they don't get heavy.
The facts are:
- These games/apps are designed for commercial purpose, specifically to get parents to buy things. To do that they are designed to be exploitative and addictive. Adults are very susceptible to this, children even more so.
- These games/apps are inherently anti-social (and in all ways in which they are social is being exploited by pedophiles, see e.g. roblox)
- These games/apps are used by parents to avoid interacting with their children and to outsource parenting (often so that they themselves can scroll on their phone)
- These games/apps are used by children instead of real world interactions with other children
If you take all of these facts together the idea that there aren't serious negative consequences is just laughable. Of course there will be and the only real question is whether they can be mitigated and what avenues exist to reverse the damage.
None of this is to says that no child should ever play a video game, but obviously there will be consequences if a large parts of a child's early life consists of staring at a screen.
> A separate study by the same team in 2024 suggested that parents could help counteract some of the brain changes in young children caused by passive screen time by reading to them frequently and engaging more with them in person.
Presumably they haven't found the correlation yet.