From the ArcaMax Publishing, Health & Fitness Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/healthtips/s-378699-760945
BOSTON (UPI) -- Having the television on, even in the background, may
be detrimental to a young child's development, U.S. researchers said.
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts said that despite
pediatricians' recommendations that there be no screen media exposure
for children under age 2, three-quarters of very young children in the
United States live in homes where the television is on most of the
time.
The study, published in the July/August issue of the journal Child
Development, found background TV was found to disrupt the toy play of
the children, even when they paid little attention to the TV -- the
children played for significantly shorter periods and time spent
focused on play was shorter when the TV was on.
Lead author Marie Evans Schmidt, now a research associate at the
Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital Boston, looked
at 50 children ages 1, 2, and 3.
Each child went to a lab with a parent and was invited to play for an
hour with a variety of age-appropriate toys -- half the time with a
television on in the room, showing an episode of the adult game show
"Jeopardy!" with commercials; the other half-hour, the TV was turned
off.