Re:I introduced my 5-year-old and 2-year-old to startx and x...
by Fire-Dragon-DoL on Thursday November 04, 2021 @10:37AM
(#29107743)
Wait, this does not match my experience at all. I don't allow my daughter to watch youtube or have a tablet, but she plays the nintendo switch.
She describes everything, she learns stuff, and even tell me about the game afterwards by herself (she is 3). The major problem is that she does not realize when she is bored or tired. To be fair, that's a problem with many activities, but boredom with toys is way more evident (she would just step away), while with videogames she would just get incredibly demanding (I can't do this, I can't do that, this is scary, changes level, even though it's stuff she has already done). She also chooses and replays the same levels to discover more (and she does!)
Wether enough scientific fact has been gathered to understand the inner workings and circumstances are irrevelant, the cognitive weight of TV exist as a matter of fact.
Now there are of course difference between TV and monitor and screen time. What causes the problems are TV like stuff - passive, movie-ish information. Drawing lines in paint or typing buttons to see them appear on notepad is definetly another thing - the information flow and actions there are controlled by the kid and there is another huge difference if the parent is there explaining. Not the monitor itself is the problem, but the absolutely overwhelming quantities of raw information which designed specifically to catch and hold an adults attention. Kids simply have no means to absorb or escape it.
On my experience kids over 4-6 years starts to absorb some of the information and kids over 8 can sit through a disney movie with sufferable consequences.