Screen Time Before 2

Parents are inundated with tips and tricks for raising their children from the moment they tell someone a baby is coming. Everyone has advice for everything from diapers to sleeping habits, clothing to toys. Nine months into this pregnancy and I think I have heard it all! It’s hard to make sense of it all and to learn what is marketing propaganda, what a study is really saying, and whose advice can be trusted.

Take it one topic at a time. Today, its media and toddlers. Media can be anything from television programs to videos/DVDs, web-based programming to smartphone and tablet applications.

It will pay to look closely at media exposure and its effects on your baby. These murky waters are clouded with false advertising claims, muddled research and studies that never reach their intended audience. The bottom-line is technology definitely won’t help you raise a genius and it may very well stunt learning skills. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), there is no evidence anywhere that supports any positive educational or developmental impacts gleaned from media exposure for children under two years old (2011). Incidences of obesity, sleep problems, aggressive behaviors and attention deficit disorders are dramatically increased in school-aged children who had a higher rate of exposure to media when they were under two (Nunez-Smith, 2008).

This can be confusing as many products are marketed as educational for children in this age group. Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby are two companies that have perpetuated these ideas. Disney came under fire in 2007 and 2009 when it was discovered, not only are the videos and DVDs sold NOT helpful, they can actually harm the tiny viewers. "The more videos they watched, the fewer words they knew," said Dr. Dmitri Christakis, director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children’s Hospital. "These babies scored about 10% lower on language skills than infants who had not watched these videos" (Park, 2007).

In fact, according to Christakis’ study, for every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs, infants learned six to eight fewer new vocabulary words than babies who had never watched the videos. More often than not, parents reported using technology to distract their children while they addressed other needs of their household. These products had the strongest negative effect on babies eight to 16 months old which is the age when language skills are starting to develop (Park, 2007). This didn’t go unnoticed by consumers and the general public. The New York Times released an article stating that after being threatened with a class action lawsuit, Disney was forced to remove “educational” from advertisements and packaging (Lewin, 2009). They went as far as to offer refunds to those who purchased under false pretenses. 

The way children learn changes dramatically once they hit two years old. There is recorded and research-backed proof that certain programs for children over two can improve social and language skills as well as school readiness. However, limiting exposure before to any kind of screen use will help your child. Even long-term successful shows like Sesame Street have been shown to have a negative effect on language skills for kids under two (Linebarger, 2005). It’s important to remember that not all language heard by infants is created equal. Big Bird singing the ABC’s or Barney talking about colors does not help a child learn nearly as much as when they are recited by Mom or Dad.

Apps for smartphones and iPads require a little more oversight as they are still too new for long-term research. The Apple store lists over 700 apps for children up to two years of age, but can they really be beneficial? The AAP is concerned because the time spent interacting with a tablet, is time spent removed from the three-dimensional world we live in (van Gilder Cooke, 2011). It stands to reason that watching a show on a tablet has the same results as watching television. But some games and the assertion that they can increase fine-motor or even language skills are still debatable. “Surely we would not want that to substitute for actually getting blocks and building something,” Dr. Christakis said. “This is not how the real world works, and babies do need to learn how the real world works.”

No one is saying that mild exposure to television or a computer screen is going to cause your child to lag behind other classmates. It is just critical to be mindful of what your child is tuning in to. It’s important to participate with your child if they are engaging media. Talk to them about what they are watching or playing with so multi-tasking and language skills can expand. Solo, unstructured play time for your little one is always better than unsupervised technology use. 

Limit or set concrete rules and timelines regarding media use. As always, if there are any major concerns, have a discussion with your pediatrician. “We know parents can’t be with their children 24/7,” said Tanya Altmann, a pediatrician and author of the best-selling parenting book Mommy Calls. “But don’t forget that when we were kids, our moms would just give us toys to play with on the ground and say, ‘Play.’ Just give them some time to explore occasionally on their own. They don’t have to have external stimulation every second of the day.”

Sources

American Academy of Pediatrics. (2011). “Media use by children younger than 2 years.” Pediatrics.

Lewin, T. “No Einstein in your crib? Get a refund.” The New York Times. New York. Retreived from: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/24/education/24baby.html?_r=0

Linebarger, DL and Walker, D. (2005). “Infants and toddlers television viewing and language outcomes.” American Behavioral Sciences. Vol 45 (5).

Nunez-Smith, M. (2008). “Media and child adolescent health: a systematic review.” Common Sense Media. Washington, DC.  

Park, A. (2007). “Baby Einsteins: Not So Smart After All.” Time. New York. Retrieved from: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1650352,00.html#ixzz2JVFoOrLG

Van Gilder Cooke, S. (2011). “Should Your 2-Year-Old Be Using an iPad?” Time. New York. Retrieved from: http://healthland.time.com/2011/10/20/no-screen-time-for-2-year-olds-do-ipad-apps-count/#ixzz2JVjS0MWP 

Shared Value or CSR

The world economy is trying to recover from one of the biggest downturns in history. People are being laid off in record numbers. Unemployment rates are unacceptable. Poverty reaches all corners of the globe. And those who make money are being looked at more closely. What are they doing to help? How are they giving back? For years this has job has been given to a department known as corporate social responsibility (CSR). These businessmen and women are tasked with creating or developing programs that give back to the community in one way or another.  
 

CSR has been great for marketing and building a company’s reputation, but their solutions are usually short-term. A lot of these programs require constant management from the parent company and the resources are spent with little return. It has been considered poor form to actually make any money off of these projects. Working with the poorest sector it can be hard to come to terms with profiting off what was once intended to be a philanthropic venture. However, the idea of shared value is making headway and in the last 5 years more and more companies are seeing the potential.

The idea of shared value is simply defined as “policies and operating practices that enhance the competitiveness of a company while simultaneously advancing the economic and social conditions in the communities in which it operates.” A major difference from a CSR philosophy is that these programs focus on improving the social and economic status of the geographic area.

Shared value is actually more beneficial for both the larger company and the poor or the economy of the third world country they are trying to assist. By helping to build a self-sustaining economy and making money off their ventures they are giving local people more reason to work hard and improve the quality of their products.

Plenty of companies are having issues with moving to a new set of rules for their projects. They are stuck in the outdated ideas of CSR and aren’t seeing any value in creating programs that may generate long-term profits. One of the hot ideas in CSR is a buy-one-give-one model. For example, Americans can buy a pair of shoes and another is given to a shoeless child in another country. It’s immediate gratification and appears to be a great idea. But what happens to the shoe maker in the other country? Less people will be buying shoes from him. The child has shoes for the short-term, but what happens when they get too small or worn out? A shared value take on this can be seen in Adidas’ program in Bangladesh with Grameen Bank. They are working to build a plant in Bangladesh that will provide jobs to the poor and create a product that can be sold for less than one Euro. This puts money back into the economy, provides a product that is available to more people and Adidas will get the benefits in the long-term.     

Companies are in their markets to make money. There is no reason why their philanthropic ventures cannot add to their overall value. Businesses aren’t used to seeing a problem in society and thinking how can we make an impact, but also make this work for us? Leora Black writes, “Companies could bring business and society back together if they redefined their purpose as creating ‘shared value’— generating economic value in a way that also produces value for society by addressing its challenges.”

How does a company find a way to convert their CSR values into ones that operate on the shared value model? The first option is to look at the products they make and where they are marketed. Can they be made cheaper or in the locations where they are sold? Can a new product line be developed geared towards the poorest sector? Another option is to take a close look at their value chain. How many executives know the ins and outs of their products from beginning to end? Looking at the source and the livelihoods of those supplying the raw materials may reveal a great opportunity to create a new program.  A third way to create a shared value program is developing a stronger support system for the company at all of its locations.

Sustainable programs are highly valued by the poorest sectors. These create a reason to keep improving their products by strengthening the buyer-supplier relationship. “Shared value could reshape capitalism and its relationship to society. It could also drive the next wave of innovation and productivity growth in the global economy as it opens managers’ eyes to immense human needs that must be met, large new markets to be served, and the internal costs of social deficits—as well as the competitive advantages available from addressing them,” says Michael Porter.

There is nothing wrong with profiting from shared value projects. They are more sustainable for the company as well as the group of people who they are trying to help. It is nothing to hide and the more programs that emerge with these ideas, the more society will see the true benefits. In a world that is so afraid of blogger or public relations backlash it is hard to want to pioneer a new field of thought. However the concept of shared value is gaining momentum. It’s time for more big businesses to jump on board and make the change. Everyone benefits. What’s so wrong with that?