Why though? I’m very much not playing devil’s advocate here… but at 1 it’s like probably a bit of calming classic nursery rhymes with benign animations; maybe start to learn some counting and ABC’s by osmosis.

That same 2 hours at 5-8 seems to me to steer towards something like: toxic wish fulfillment, materialism, inappropriate slang & behavior models, “pranks” (ptuh)

As far as I'm aware, kids at that age are very dependent on experiencing the effects of their actions. They lift the wooden cube and drop it, and it makes a sound and rolls a bit. Do it again and it does it similarly but different. Push this chair leg and the whole chair moves away, pull it and the whole chair moves back. This builds their world understanding but also motor skills and reflexes.

Now they did not specify in the freely accessible portion but especially non-interactive stimulus is thus problematic as I understand.

As I recall there have been studies on this regarding toys that flashes lights and makes sound without interaction causing it, and the babies have a markedly different brain response to those, compared to toys which only blinks and sounds in response to direct interaction.

The other reason is that simply playing with the baby using wooden blocks, small dolls and such toys is in my experience plenty to keep them engaged.

A buddies toddler is about a year and just managed to place two cubes on top of each other without toppling them, and was is excited he cries with joy each time he does it. That's learning motor skills and experiencing reward you don't get with at least passive screen use.

The screen time crowds out time they could be interacting with the real world, engaging with all of their senses, and interacting with people. Two hours per day adds up over a critical time of their life that their peers are beginning to learn how to accurately learn to model the world and communicate.

At one years old, 2 hours is massive percentage of their "awake and aware" time, considering how much time they sleep and eat at this age.

> Why though? I’m very much not playing devil’s advocate here… but at 1 it’s like probably a bit of calming classic nursery rhymes with benign animations; maybe start to learn some counting and ABC’s by osmosis.

Kids, especially kids that age, don't learn from screens. They learn from interactions with people and the real world. A screen just mesmerizes them, and distracts them from higher value activities.

And you shouldn't be trying to teach 1-year-olds counting and ABCs, it's totally inappropriate. They're learning things like speaking, how to move their bodies, etc.

It's not entirely about what they're watching (though even what you are describing sounds awful), it's about what they're missing out on in that time. It's 2 hrs every day not communicating with another human being, not developing motor skills, not problem solving etc.

I have 2 kids under 5 and we have ~0 screen time (unless we are having some sort of crisis and need a distraction for a few minutes). We spend time with similar families, and those with more screen time. I'm not trying to sound superior when I say there is a VAST difference in ability between the two groups.

>benign animations

But why. Why are we stimulating with mindless color movement, like a modern lava lamp?

You can tell which kids shows care and which dont by how much unnecessary movement they introduce into the background plate. Some have a breathing and swaying so every element is in motion, others have stillness so your eyes and attention are drawn to the actual action.

Have your ever seen the face of a baby when screen, any screen is visible? They lock their sight on it, anything else is irrelevant including mother. Its like watching a heroin junkie with full syringe dangling around.

Maybe those kids with such massive exposure are more used to it, never did that experiment with our own kids. I may fail them later in life somehow but I certainly didn't do such basic mistake, screens are toxic to young mind on many levels, active ones quadruple so.

I've heard all the excuses from the parents, but in reality it mostly boils down to 'we are tired, we are lazy, I don't care anymore' from people glued to screens themselves. As parents do, so children follow. its hardly ever a 'good' content, cheap dopamine kicks is what works best.

I wonder when will society wake up, and starts treating these actors in similar fashion as say pedophiles. Active harm to kids is harm to kids, fucking up our future is one of worst crimes out there.