Saturnday Consumer Awareness : Baby Einstein DVDs Turn Infant Brains into Mush
September 2nd, 2007I remember a bit of conversation I had with a friend of mine who was a housewife, where I was complaining to her about my job stresses:
Gina: I have a pretty stressful job too, you know.
Jerkface Me: What job? Oh wait, lemme guess, you’re a mommy??? Ha! Ha! So what? I own two cats, but you don’t see me going around calling that my job. “Hey everybody! Not only am I a Web Developer, but I also own two cats!” what’s the big deal about kids anyway? You just sit them in front of the TV for 18 years.
Gina: You are so lucky I’m not there to kick you in the nuts.
Of course I was joking. Kids today are splitting their time between television, game consoles, and computers, and while I find that latter two improvements because they are engaging and interactive; kids are still spending too much time in front of these things, at the expense of their physical health.
 Baby Einstein DVDs Make Babies Dumb |
Still, it’s better to be a flabby nerd than a meatheaded jock. So it was with this in mind that I bought a gaggle of those Baby Einstein videos for a coworker’s baby shower two years back. While I thought this was a cool gift, several of the mother’s at the event made comments that my gift wasn’t exactly practical for a newborn, and things like teething rings and clothes might have made more sense.
Obviously, I figured, they were jealous of how much smarter my coworker’s baby was going to be than their comparatively late-blooming children. But now I am mulling this study from the University of Washington, which found:
The researchers interviewed the parents of more than 1000 U.S. children between the ages of 8 and 16 months, gathering information on the children’s vocabulary and how frequently they watched videos like Baby Einstein. When the team controlled for factors such as socioeconomic status, race, and parental education, it found that Baby Einstein and his ilk are not the geniuses they’re cracked up to be. For every hour per day spent watching the videos, children understood an average of six to eight fewer words than did those of the same age who did not watch them–a 17-percentile drop in vocabulary.
But wait! Walt Disney company is demanding a retraction (PDF Warning) of the University of Washington’s press release:
…while the press release touts that the study’s conclusions are based on a survey of 1008 parents of children aged 2 to 24 months, after a closer examination, its critical conclusions on the impact of baby videos on infants eight to 16 months is based on a much smaller sample of only 384 children. Of this group, 44 percent watched no television of any kind, leaving a total of only 215 infants with some television viewing– but with no indication whatsoever as to how many of this smaller number watch any baby videos, much less Baby Einstein videos specifically, at all. The study was also based on telephone surveys, not active observation.
Hmmm… This is a tough call. As UoW researcher Frederick Zimmerman points out in the article, Disney hasn’t done any research at all on their products’ effectiveness. At the same time, Disney claims that UoW’s research wasn’t good enough; although, the sample size was fine and telephone surveys are pretty standard.
I could rationalize this; after all, people have done so in the past when Big Tobacco told them smoking was harmless, and people are doing so now as Big Oil tells them Global Warming isn’t real. We should expect Disney to have their own study proving Baby Einstein DVDs are beneficial any day now, and we all know they don’t have any agenda in producing such research, which will surely be completely unbiased.
In the meantime, I think I have a moral obligation to let my friend know about this development, which will disincline him to set his infant down in front of the television with the Baby Einstein DVDs, and thus render my gift worthless.
From now on, I’m only buying diapers for expecting mothers. You can’t screw that up… unless I buy toddler size, but they’ll grow into those.
Anyone who expects their child to get smarter from a DVD is well how shall I say A dumbarse! You need to spend one on one time with your infant. You need to pick the right type of things you want your child to be exposed to! How in the hell people truly believe an infant could be come intelligent from a DVD that has hardly any vocabulary is an interesting point of view. Television should not be watched by any human younger than 18 months. And yes, it is hard to be a good “housewife” I had children to have someone with my point of view when I grow older. You are lucky I don’t kick you in the nuts:)
I was just wondering if you also call it Thor’s Day and Odin’s Day. I am suddenly in love with the days of the week again. 4/7 are named after Norse gods. Ok well I do have an opinion on the baby Einstein too… sometimes I think the videos are more for the parents. For example the sign language one, lots of people are arguing that toddlers can communicate with signs before they can understand and make words, I think the video just makes it so they are using signs the parent can understand. It’s not like they didn’t come out with a study that Sesame Street, by catering to children’s short attention spans, could be partially to blame for our attention spans getting even shorter. It’s a matter of choice, you choose which you would rather your kid watch, baby Einstein, or camp Lazlo. Nick doesn’t even spell Laszlo right. I suppose there’s always SpongeBob. :P
I’m just keeping it to the astronomical references. No deities allowed here, except Eris. : )
I was raised by the Jeffersons, Facts of Life, Sanford and Son, Who’s the Boss, etc, etc… and I turned out okay-dokey. Besides the occasional sexist remark, nervous twitching, and generalized goofiness.
Oh, you uninitiated unreproductive bumbler…:)
There are a z i l l i o n ways to screw up diapers. First you have to consider the mother’s preference for cloth diapering, disposable diapering, or no diapering at all. Sure, disposables clog our landfills, but cloth diapers use up valuable water resources and are much more time consuming to keep up with, and not diapering at all means you might want to gift wrap a can of carpet stain remover.
If you choose cloth diapering, what kind of cloth will you get? Bleached cotton? Bamboo? Prints, colors, or plain white, and if either of the first two, what kind of dye? Prefolded or Triangular? Velcro or safety pin?
And will you buy all the accoutrements that go with disposables, like diaper liners, plastic covers, safety pins–if necessary–, and/or dye-free perfume-free fabric-softener-free detergent?
If disposable, what brand? Luvs? Huggies? Pampers? Generic store brand? If Pampers, do you want Supreme or Natural Care? Moms have extremely definite opinions on what brands work for their babies. Then, do you know the weight of the baby you’re buying for? Some babies are in size five diapers by the time they’re four months old, others aren’t in fives until they’re over two. And some never even reach size five, as they potty train early.
Which brings us to the risk of offending those loony moms who don’t diaper at all, and instead spend every moment watching their little pee-and-poop dispensing cherubs for signs that they’re about to make waste, then rush to dangle them over the toilet. These women exist; I shit you not.
Skip the diapers and the Baby Einsteins. If you really want to do something nice, get a gift certificate for a one hour massage for the new mom and offer to babysit for the chosen massage-redemption afternoon.
Sheesh. And you think learning all THIS is on par with the two flicks of the wrist it takes to dispose of cat poo????
You are *so* lucky that Gina and I aren’t there to kick you, squarely and repeatedly, in each nut. Or to will you our children, then disappear in some Laphroaig-scented kilty Scottish mist :)
Kristina the Potty Trainer
In response to Krishna. Ha Ha poor Ryan, our brutal forces for child rearing and nut kicking combined will destroy Baby Einstein buying and diaper purchasing fools mmuuuaaahhhaaa. Howz that for smarts?
Boy, I’m glad I’m not going to have kids. I’ll stick to the two flicks of the wrist to dispose of cat poo! Child rearing sounds too complicated!
I think I’m gonna cry now. When I have kids, I’m just gonna do the Homer Simpson thing and let them go loose in the back yard and “let nature take it’s course.” I think Doctor Spock recommended that too.