The Elephant In the Living Room

September 1, 2006
Pediatrician and epidemiologist Christakis and economist and child development expert Zimmerman, both parents, codirect the University of Washington's Child Health Institute. Here, they analyze television's impact on children in areas such as attention span, educational attainment, social behavior, sleep, and body image. They encourage parents to rethink, restructure, and reduce viewing in order to lessen television's negative effects. Few shows, save those like "Sesame Street", have any educational benefit; indeed, most programming is demonstrably useless or harmful, especially for children under three. However, because TV is inescapable, the authors propose -mindful viewing, - wherein parents interactively watch alongside kids (the authors cogently note that how children watch is just as important as what or how much they watch). Akin to Marie Winn's "The Plug-In Drug: Television, Computers, and Family Life", this is a noble work that effectively references academic studies. Recommended for collections supporting education and social science programs and for large public libraries, where parents will find end-of-chapter wrap-ups especially useful. (Index and most graphs not seen.)" -Douglas C. Lord, Connecticut State Univ. Lib., Hartford"

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