Television: Engage with baby

Some parents surely do believe a TV-swaddled environment is educating their infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers. But a better explanation for the widespread showing of TV to even 3-month-old babies probably lies in the stresses on the modern American family.

A UNICEF study earlier this year found the United States to have the second-worst conditions for raising children and creating family relations among 21 developed countries. Amid frayed, scattered families and some of the world's worst policies on family leave, parents reach for virtual help.

So, a study published in the journal Pediatrics has found that "children are growing up in a media-saturated environment." One-fifth of children age 2 and under actually have TVs in their bedrooms, according to the study led by Elizabeth Vandewater of the Population Research Center at the University of Texas. Similarly, a new University of Washington study finds that 40 percent of 3-month-olds and 90 percent of 2-year-olds watch TV regularly. Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a UW co-author, said there is "no evidence" to support parents' belief they are providing educational fare.

Families are caught by social policies, planning decisions and economic forces that give little emphasis to supporting children. An environment in which video guides development from the earliest moments seems like a social experiment in how to ensure a generation of socially isolated, physically inactive and passive children. So far, the experiment seems to be working.