If you want to really go back in the TV history books, you’ll find that this whole debacle was started with programs such as Sesame Street, Mister Rogers, Captain Kangaroo and 3-2-1 Contact. Hundreds of programs could be added to the list, but it was TV programs like these that started America on the trend of educating their children through one of the most convenient teachers in the house, the television. What has evolved from this are more educational TV Shows that incorporated more interaction like Blue’s Clues where children are asked questions, engaged with music and activities that include other children and the child viewer themselves. By 1997 a new child education system was born, Baby Einstein. The new development of the Baby Einstein DVD baby education package grew to a million dollar business quickly and was soon gobbled up by the Walt Disney Corporation. In the last couple years heavy scrutiny has come out against educational claims made by all these programs and systems.  read more »

While most teenagers (60 percent) spend on average 20 hours per week in front of television and computer screens, a third spend closer to 40 hours per week, and about 7 percent are exposed to more than 50 hours of ‘screen-time’ per week, according to a study presented at the American Heart Association’s 48th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention.

Researchers looked at patterns of screen-time through high school, including total time viewing television, video, computer and the Internet. Then they examined the influence of neighborhood social factors on distinct patterns of screen-time.  read more »