Don’t ask child development author and lecturer Joseph Chilton Pearce how much TV is too much TV for children. And don’t ask him if public television shows like Sesame Street and Reading Rainbow are better than SpongeBob SquarePants and Power Rangers Dino Thunder. The answers are an unequivocal “None” and “No.”
“The average child watches 5,”000 to 6,”000 hours of TV before age five,” says Pearce, the author of seven books — including “Magical Child,” “Evolution’s End,” and “A Biology of Transcendence.” He not only asserts that television hinders neurological development, and thus intellectual-creative growth, but also says that “the damage of television has very little to do with programming.”
Timed with the 10th anniversary of “TV Turn-off Week,” the week of April 18, Pearce will speak on “What Brain Development Is Telling Us About the Needs of Children,” Friday, April 23 at 7:30 p.m. and will conduct a workshop on Saturday, April 24, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., both on the campus of the Waldorf School, 1062 Cherry Hill Road, Princeton. The cost for the Friday night talk is $10 and $50 for the Saturday workshop. A special $50 is available for those who register for both. To register, call 609-466-1970, x. 26 or E-mail dbarlow@princetonwaldorf.org.
Pearce presents a compelling argument for strictly limiting, and even eliminating, television and computer time for young children, based on a synthesis of brain research from countries around the world, including the United States.
Pearce explains that proper brain development depends on three factors from birth: audiovisual communication, nurturing, and play. “If you deny any one, you’ve compromised all three,” says Pearce. “Yet after 50 to 75 years of child development and neurological research showing all of this, it seems that here in America we manage to do the exact opposite.”
According to Pearce, research show that the audio element of audio-visual communication actually begins in utero, and language learning actually begins in the second trimester. At birth, if all goes well, the visual element is added, immediately reinforced by nurturing. “We have substituted audio-visual communication with audio-visual stimuli — that is, TV — which is radically different,” says Pearce. “The average young child sits for 2 1/2 hours a day in front of the television in a semi-catatonic blank staring state with no visual or verbal communication. In depth studies show this then compromises the neurological growth of the child.” He adds that time spent watching television is time away from nurturing and audio-visual communication with a parent or competent caregiver, with results that are “disastrous intellectually.”
The very fact that parents today were themselves brought up on television points to the reason why “our comfort level would be disturbed if we really paid attention to the research,” says Pearce. “People are very defensive. They say, ‘Hey, I grew up on television and I’m alright.’ But if you look very closely, they’re not alright.” He points to “the rising tide of violence in America. Every day, six to eight children are shot by other children, so many that newspapers don’t even carry it. If you tally up the number of children who died from 1990 to 20000, we lost more children to each other’s violence than we lost soldiers in Vietnam. Suicide is now the third cause of death in children, yet there is no historical precedent of suicide in this country under age 14.”
He cites Japanese research that shows video games bring about very specific neurological impairment and make users highly prone to violence, and Swedish research that shows children with a lack of imagination are prone to violent behavior. A child’s imagination can’t flourish in front of the TV, says Pearce.
The violence issue aside, Pearce says the negative effects of television on brain development are documented in other ways. “Play is the next casualty. In front of the TV or computer or GameBoy, there’s a complete absorption of the mind that’s taking the place of play. We think entertainment is the same as play.” But research shows that’s not the case. “Without play, more brain development is hindered.”
Another casualty of our television nation, says Pearce, is that television “has taken the place of storytelling in most children’s lives. Storytelling has a critical role in neurological development, it builds the structures that allow us to interpret metaphoric and symbolic systems, on which all higher learning is based. Storytelling foster the underlying basis of all internal inner imagery — seeing in the mind’s eye — that’s the way by which all great human thinking takes place.”
As if that weren’t enough, Pearce also cites research connecting our television and the early use of computers with our children to the failing health of our youth population, as evidenced by the rise in obesity, and in turn, juvenile diabetes, as well as the rise in asthma and allergies, Asperger’s syndrome, ADD, and autism. TV and computers breed a sedentary lifestyle, which also have a negative impact on the brain. “Learning requires physical movement,” says Pearce, who is a strong advocate of the Waldorf educational philosophy — with “a blueprint of education that matches the blueprint of neurological growth.”
So, how much TV is too much? In a perfect world, Pearce wouldn’t turn on the TV before age 11. Barring that, he advocates severely limited use in the early years and careful monitoring. Yet, despite this bleak picture, Pearce — with five grown children, 12 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild — remains surprisingly upbeat. “It’s always looking good for children in America. We’ve never known as much about what makes us tick as we do today. All we have to do is to start to apply it.”
—Jamie Saxon
What Brain Development Is Telling Us About the Needs of Children,” Joseph Chilton Pearce. Lecture on Friday, April 23, 7:30 p.m., $10; workshop on Saturday, April 23, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., $50. Waldorf School, 1062 Cherry Hill Road, Princeton. Register at 609-466-1970, ext. 26 or E-mail dbarlow@princetonwaldorf.org.
