A new study published in the journal Pediatrics took a fresh look at preschoolers TV watching in home-based day care. Researchers found that young children are sitting as many as two hours a day in front of a TV and when combined with home screen time, preschoolers may be spending more than a third of the about 12 hours they are awake each day in front of the TV.
CMCH Director, Dr. Michael Rich was not surprised by the results and argues that “we still have a culture that sees television as benign,” where parents and child care providers don’t fully realize that  screen time takes away from activities essential to child development, such as playing and talking with adults and other children.
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Does your child spend lots of time on the Internet? Does he/she have difficulty in ending an Internet session? Is her/his academic achievement deteriorating? Problematic Internet use can interfere with your child’s work, school, and relationships.

CMCH Director, Dr. Michael Rich, argues that parents should pay closer attention for signs of problematic Internet use and recommends an Internet-free approach before slowly introducing limited computer use in a shared room in the house.

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The increasing amount of educational applications available for smart phones, along with its interactive, built-in features, make it incredibly enticing for young kids to explore this new technology. Can smart phones help kids learn or do they encourage more screen time?

CMCH Director, Dr. Michael Rich, argues that although parents need to pay attention to their kids’ media exposure, the educational applications and interactive features in smart phones may “provide genuinely interactive experiences that make use of more of the child’s senses.”

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