This post was mentioned on Twitter by kriley19: Joanne Jacobs: Australia: no TV for under-twos http://bit.ly/uhQAZ Full http://bit.ly/2dCLKz...

Momof4 – you are assuming here that advertising is all bad. But much of it isn’t. Advertisers create things with the intent of appealing to our tastes and interests. I like knowing what new TV shows, books, theatre plays, films, etc, are coming out that I know about, yes, there are reviewers but they can have tastes quite different to mine (not many book reviewers in the papers appreciate Terry Pratchett). I am also interested in cheap air fares. And knowing the names of a number of different insurers is a good area to start looking when I go to get quotes next. Of course much advertising is of no use to me (though I quite like flicking through the Innovations catalogue, somehow the thought of all those items I have no desire to acquire is quite comforting). Getting information into other people’s heads can be a valuable service for both parties to the transaction.

This is not to say that all advertising is valuable to the consumer, but I don’t think your implication that all advertising is harmful is right.

And then there is the value that TV provides. Would you ban your kids from reading newspapers or magazines because they contain ads? While anything is bad in overly-large quantities, TV does have some excellent quality shows on it, both fictional and non-fictional.

I wish the people who argue that it has no (harmful) effect would stop to think that companies pay high prices to advertise on TV; they would hardly do so if they thought such ads had no effect.

I read before television became widespread, comic books were blamed as the cause for juvenile delinquency. There was a congressional investigation. Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin made a movie mocking the issue. I recall seeing the movie.

It is strange that no one tries to blame autism and asthma on TV. They both seem correlated to me.

I recall a cartoon from the New Yorker: “When you think of television’s awesome power to educate, aren’t you glad it doesn’t?”

Too much of anything is bad. Where should the line be drawn? Who should draw the line? What will be the consequences to those who do not comply?

Though others might, I don’t have supporting data.

And can you provide some links to that data supporting educational decline?

I am glad that you are taking my question at face value, my question to Robert Wright was also meant to be taken at face value. When I encounter someone making such bold claims as “having no doubt”, I have learnt to first check if this is a view based on reality or on faith, and the same as when someone like Robert makes a claim with such utter certainity.

Sure understanding’s important but one must draw the line at falsehoods that are defined by the discomfort they cause.

Yes, there has been a long term decline in education. To take as a sample one particular goal of education, literacy, one can see the falloff in literacy a) by comparing the kinds of materials average people read, decade by decade, for the past 150 years, b)by comparing records of citizen literacy era by era c) by tracking standardized test scores, and d) by noticing the falloff in the texts that my own students have been able to handle since I started teaching in the 1970s. The math teachers I know can make similar cases.

“Is there any evidence that would create doubt in my mind (that screen media is causal)?” I have to assume that you really mean to ask whether I would consider counter evidence if it were presented, and, of course I would. My interest is in reversing an educational trend, not in holding onto a particular theory.

That said, though, Neil Postman built a very good case, and my lifetime of observations strongly fit his findings. What evidence are you offering?

“If young children spend a bit of time sitting in front of the tube so their parents can get a moment’s peace, that strikes me as entirely reasonable.”

It strikes me as child abuse.