Talking to Esperanza on the telephone is a daunting task, until I say the magic word. "Dora…is Dora with you today?" Just the mention of her favorite TV pal, Dora the Explorer, gets my 18-month-old great-niece giggling.

Esperanza is a living example of the recent findings of a new national study: today even the youngest children are immersed in electronic media. "Zero to Six: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers" comes from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Children's Digital Media Centers.

While the study examines media use by children from the ages of six months to six years, some of the most striking findings had to do with the under-2 set. Based on the results of a nationally representative random telephone survey of parents, 43 percent of children under two watch television every day. When all screen media are included (DVDs, computers, videos and TV) the percentage rises to 68 percent.

Those children two and under who watch screen media daily do so for an average of 2 hours and 5 minutes each day.

Need for More Research

Vicky Rideout, vice president and director of the Kaiser Family Foundation's Program for the Study of Entertainment Media and Health and lead author of "Zero to Six," presented the findings on October 28, 2003 in Washington, DC. "It's not just teenagers who are wired up and tuned in," she said. "it's babies in diapers as well. So much new media is being targeted at infants and toddlers, it's critical that we learn more about its impact on child development."

Co-author Ellen Wartella, dean of the College of Communication at the University of Texas, agreed about the urgency for further research. "Print used to be the major pathway to media for previous generations," Dr. Wartella said. "This generation's pathway is electronic, and we don't know the impact."

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that children two and under not watch any television at all. But "Zero to Six" reports that 25 percent of children in this age group have televisions in their bedrooms.

Dr. Michael Rich is a pediatrician and director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Harvard University. "At this stage, babies' brains are still embryonic," said Dr. Rich. "They need tactile stimulation, interacting with people. The AAP has not done a good enough job alerting parents to be cautious about this."

But Dr. Rachel Barr, assistant professor of psychology at Georgetown University, says that we still don't know enough about brain development to conclude that a "no TV" rule is necessary for babies and toddlers. "Babies are very social and attracted to other people," Dr. Barr told me. For that reason, she does not think that TV or other screen media will replace face-to-face interaction among infants and toddlers.

Dr. Barr was invited to present findings from her study "Television Exposure in 6 to 21-Months-Olds: An Examination of parent questionnaire and diary reports," to the New York University Department of Psychology in October 2003. Dr. Barr's findings concur with those of the Kaiser study regarding television exposure. Her data revealed that the average age of first exposure to television among her sample was 35 days.

She also found that parents watched TV with their children in her sample for 87 percent of the infant's total TV exposure. The parents in Dr. Barr's study regulated the content of programs watched by their children as they grew older. By the time their children reach 15 months, the parents were limiting exposure to adult programming much more than when their children were six months old.

What About Reading?

While science so far can't tell us what impact screen media is having on the youngest children's developing brains, "Zero to Six" found some evidence that for older preschoolers, aged four to six, television can get in the way of reading and physical activity

The survey found that one-third of children six and under live in homes where television is on most of the time, even if no one is watching. The study called these "heavy TV households." Children in these households, as well as those with TV sets in their bedrooms, tend to spend significantly more time watching TV and less time reading or playing outside than other children.

The study also found that for children between the ages of four and six, living in a "heavy TV household" was linked with lower literacy: 34 percent of children between the ages of four and six from those households are able to read, compared to fifty-six percent of children in the same age group from households where TV is not so pervasive. "Clearly the impact of TV on children's reading needs to be a top priority for further research," said Rideout.

Guidance for Parents

"Zero to Six" and other studies on media use by children point to the need for more research as each succeeding generation becomes more fully immersed in media, and as the media grows more technologically sophisticated by the day. Without more data, the argument for avoiding media exposure for infants and toddlers is countered by equally persuasive arguments that even the very young can and should benefit from the sophisticated media that surrounds them.

"At this point we just don't know how media affects the development of infants and toddlers," says Sandra Calvert, professor of psychology at Georgetown University and director of Children's Digital Media Center. "We need to study the role that media play in very young children's cognitive and social development, paying close attention to the kind of content they see."

"Zero to Six" researchers recommend that parents pay attention to how their children are using media and to set rules. Their study shows that children whose parents set time limits rules spend less time (almost a half hour a day less) watching TV than other children. Calvert concurs, saying that parents are key and need to be in the forefront of media use by their children.

Resources:

• Zero to Six: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers
• Children's Digital Media Center
  

Cecilia Garcia is the executive director for Connect for Kids.