Experts recommend that children under two years of age not watch a minute of television and limit two hours of TV daily for the elderly. In addition, they now go one step further in the war against the silly box by unveiling a study according to which the constantly running TV runrún affects child development.
The disadvantages are not limited only to certain harmful content for children, because television takes time to play and share family activities, encourages sedentary lifestyle and obesity, but also focuses on the fact that the child is exposed to background sound, with how healthy silence is sometimes.
The hobby of having the television on at home even if nobody watches it is a fairly frequent custom, in fact, according to data from the research conducted by the Media and Pediatrics Center of the Boston Children's Hospital, 3 out of 4 American children live in a house where this happens and here the figures will be similar.
According to the observation of 50 children of 12, 24 and 36 months while playing with their toys, when the TV was turned off the children focused on their games, while with the TV on the game periods were shorter because they diverted their attention to the screen, even for a few seconds.
In conclusion, they have pointed out that a cumulative impact through long home sessions can impoverish children's cognitive and linguistic development and affect the ability to concentrate.
I can see the same behavior in my daughters, without needing to do any thorough study. As there are no external distractions, they focus more on their activities, and when there are several sources of distraction, they are more easily dispersed.
Anyway, I believe that beyond the obvious of this study, it is a healthy measure to turn off the TV when nobody is watching it and reduce the exposure time. We will see that we can use those hours in something much more profitable: to be with our children one hundred percent, without any background.
