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Originally Posted by gibingus
i personally find my toddler (22 months) has a normal attention span for his age, and i have read in many sources that children that age average about 60-90 seconds of focus on the high end.
in the end, we always seek to blame the cultural environment before we look to ourselves... if you use your tv as a babysitter, don't blame the tv.
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gibingus, First, the average normal attention span for your child's age is the normal attention span for all kids his age, including those who watch TV, which is most kids his age. You might be interested to find out if there are any studies on attention span of children that age before TV became prevalent ...
The first three year learning phase is a one shot deal. At the end of that phase the basic operating system is compiled and imprinted in the brain, it's read-only, hard-wired, forever. This is crucial brain development that stops by age three.
When a one-year old is playing with a something, she explores it, pokes at it, drops it, throws it... She's learning about space, about sound, and developing motor skills and a sense of competence. Watching TV just doesn’t provide the same sensory experience. In addition, the relentless chatter and noise emanating for televisions may interfere with the development of ‘inner speech' by which a child learns to think through problems and plans, and restrains impulsive behavior, like talking or thinking, or whatever...
The images and sounds emanating from television contribute nothing but fluffy useless data that will be imprinted peranently at around age 3. The more TV a child watches between ages 0-3, less substantive experiential data will be imprinted from which to build.
Lastly, a TV is not a culture, it is a TV. :-)