Watching tv and eyesight development

Good day :biggrin:
I am looking for some links on tv ( or computer screen) viewing and little kids. Anything at all relevant to babys and toddlers watching tv would be great. I am doing some research, and havn’t yet found anything solidly against it! Considering how often this myth of tv is bad for little kids is sprouted I am looking for the reason it is supposed to be so bad. So far I have only found suggestions that watching tv takes away time that could have been spent on quality interaction. Based on that the experts should all agree that it is perfectly acceptable to plonked baby in front of YBCR while you have a shower or cook dinner! Thanks in advance :slight_smile:

Hi I’ve searched pubmed (which you may already have done) using “children television myopia” & came up with a grand total of:

J Am Optom Assoc. 1996 Sep;67(9):521-30. Is computer use a risk factor for myopia?

I have to be honest that I hadn’t ever heard of a specific link between tv & eyesight development & there isn’t too much out there about it. I would say I’ve heard more of a link between television viewing & concentration span (affecting later school performance) etc. There’s plenty of literature of course on the link between the amount of television/ media use & obesity.

You’ve likely seen this (which country are you based in?) - a report issued by the AAP which bascially says that under 2s need human not media interaction but that “further research” needs to be done into “into the long-term effects of early media exposure on children’s future physical, mental and social health.” So there you go, you are their lady:)

http://www.healthychildren.org/English/news/Pages/Babies-and-Toddlers-Should-Learn-from-Play-Not-Screens.aspx

Interesting you found just what I have there seems to be almost nothing out there! Worse than looking for research on early learning lol!
So basically what all this says is that it’s fine for kids to watch TV as long as they want to, provided it isn’t taking away their potential human interaction time ( ie mum watches too or mum is having a shower and is unavailable!) and you do some thing elsewhere in their life to increase their level of concentration!
Classic case of scare tactics I’d say!
Will keep looking, thanks for your imput.