Get off the idiot box

TV causes damage in children: http://www.theage.com.au/news/science/the-idiot-box/2005/10/03/1128191629304.html

:headshake

In my house, it works the other way around. My three once dragged a 27" tv off of the entertainment center, sending it crashing to the floor during a fight over a videogame controller.

It still works, but it has a nasty purplish halo in one corner from where the shadow mask got dislocated.

From the article:

More than half of [British] three-year-olds have a TV set in their bedrooms...

Christ, I simply can't believe that this statistic holds true for America too. Or maybe I only know deprived kids, who knows? I thought in Britain you had to pay a steep television license fee per set, which meant most houses only had one television...

While I'm no fan of TV, this "study" has the stink of junk science.

Note this one:
"While the average Briton watches four hours of TV a day, children aged
11-15 spend seven-and-a-half hours a day watching TV and computers"

And computers? Comparing Apples and oranges, are we?

Then there's a bunch of other extraordinary claims. I doubt there's any extraordinary evidence to back them up.

And finally, the appeal to the Precautionary Principle: "What harm could possibly result from preventing very young children from watching television...."

Children now spend more time watching a TV screen than they spend in school, but viewing even a moderate amount can dramatically increase their risk of myopia, slow down their metabolic rate and may trigger premature puberty, according to Dr Sigman.

I'm having a really hard time figuring out the mechanism of action on this last one ...

leading to increased anti-social behaviour, new research claims.

Asocial behavior, I'll buy. Anti-social means something else entirely in a clinical sense.

I would estimate the number of American 3 year olds with their own TV in their bedrooms to approach 65%.

an•ti•so•cial adj.
1.shunning the society of others; not sociable.
2.Hostile to or disruptive of the established social order; marked by or engaging in behavior that violates accepted mores: gangs engaging in vandalism and other antisocial behavior.
3.Antagonistic toward or disrespectful of others; rude.

a•so•cial adj.
1.Not social: "Bears are asocial, secretive animals" (David Graber).
2.Avoiding or averse to the society of others; not sociable: "It's not that you're so asocial, but a man who likes people doesn't wind up in the Antarctic" (Saul Bellow).
3.Unable or unwilling to conform to normal standards of social behavior; antisocial: "crime, riots, drug use and other asocial behavior" (Derek Shearer).
4.Inconsiderate of others; self-centered

Are you going with #2 for antisocial. :question: