Many of today's children are growing up with continuous access to electronic media right from the time they get up till the time they hit the hay. Many marketers claim that exposing children to baby videos gives a head start but research shows that the opposite is true. The new media environment is a recent occurrence and no one still knows the full extent of exposing children to a constant stream of this stimuli. However it is a well known fact that babies brains are optimized to learn from social interactions. Exposing the kids to this new media world reduces the time they spend with other people and thereby can impair many aspects of their development. Multiple studies have shown that infant TV watching is correlated with poor language development. A Thai study published that children under 12 months who watched TV for more that 2 hours a day had a six-fold increase in the risk of language delay.
Exposure to baby TV watching is also associated with reduced cognitive ability. The quick and bright colours may also interfere with the normal development of attention. Studies reveal that electronic entertainment has no benefit and clear costs before the age of 2. However, educational TV exposures for older nursery-school-aged children is a mixed blessing (though it has its own pros and cons) depending on the information it offers. In this light "Go outside and play" is backed not only by commonsense but by modern brain research too!
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