Electronic toys have appeal, but likely keep kids from engaging in the world around them

Parents are bombarded with parenting advice that comes from many sources and can affect the way they will parent.

It is relatively easy for a parent to sort out “old wives’ tales” from scientific professional advice. But do parents today realize how much they may be influenced by a new, powerful source?

Well-executed and financed marketing campaigns do all they can to sell parents products like electronic toys for young children.

Look around you. In any public space many of us, young and old, are holding a gadget that has a screen. Some of these are designed for babies and marketed as educational. Though pretty expensive, they are popular. All parents want their children to be smart, right?

Let’s look at some new data about the effects of gadgets with screens on young children. One study looked at 26 pairs of parents and their children from age 10 to 16 months. Audio equipment was used in the home to record and monitor playtime activity. Each household was given three sets of toys. The electronic toys included a baby laptop, a talking farm and a baby cellphone. The traditional toys were wooden puzzles, shape-sorters and rubber blocks. The third set contained five board books.

Though the study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, was small, the results are pretty darn big.

Electronic toys that talked or sang or lit up were “less beneficial for language development than the traditional toys or books.” When babies played with such toys there was a lower quantity and quality of language production than when they played with traditional toys. Why? When the baby is playing with such toys the parents spoke less. There were also fewer parent-baby exchanges and parents responded less to the children who were were less vocal themselves.

Traditional toys led to more verbal parent-baby exchanges. Books? Reading to a baby produced the most verbal exchanges of all.

Play is vital to all young mammals. Play with objects helps the child find out what things are and how they work. Children use objects to express themselves and for social interaction with adults and other children. Noisy, light-up and electronic toys with screens are all good at getting the baby’s attention by “… activating their orienting reflex. This primitive reflex compels the mind to focus on novel visual or auditory stimuli,” say authors Jenny Radesky and Dimitri Christakis, both doctors.

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Conversation about objects during play not only aids language development but also leads to literacy skills and social skills. After a baby cellphone has the baby’s attention, then what? Contrast this dead end with two children building with blocks or Lego who converse and work together. “Toys with lots of bells and whistles may be appealing, but they could actually prevent children from engaging in the world around them and making what they learn meaningful.”

Another point about early learning, which is the precursor of literacy (and future success because reading is the key to school performance), is that the number of books in a household is a predictor of reading performance.

I have repeatedly said that reading to a child is only half of the parents’ task. The child should also see the parents read, which means there are grownup books around the house, not just children’s books.

What about e-books? A child cannot pull an e-book off the shelf and browse, as I did, to find a treasure like “Jane Eyre.” In a provocative piece in the New York Times titled “Our (Bare) Shelves, Our Selves” Teddy Wayne writes, “An unshared e-book is never glimpsed, let alone handled, and sometimes read.”

One other topic before I end my rant about the downside of electronic screens. An article in Pediatric Obesity reveals that children who sleep poorly consume more calories than those who get a good night’s sleep. The extra calories come from milk mainly consumed at night.

This article said nothing about electronic screens but it got me thinking. Do the children who sleep poorly have more contact with TV and electronic toys?

My nerves jangle when exposed to the previews at a movie theater or to kiddie TV. Everything moves too fast and there is too much noise for my aged brain. Perhaps this visual and auditory barrage also jangles a baby’s brain and leads to poor sleep hygiene? Somebody younger than I am should do research on this. Literacy and obesity are both important issues.

In the meantime I repeat what I have said many times. Parents: limit all screen time, especially in babies. We already know about the negative effects of TV. And you can save a bundle by buying blocks instead of a baby laptop.