Culture: Is TV bad for young kids?
It's the medium and not the message... according to psychologist and biologist Dr. Aric Sigman, a U.K. based author of Remotely Controlled: How Television is Damaging Our Lives (Vermilion). 
He claims "there are growing medical concerns for children under three watching TV as this is the time in their lives when they are experiencing most brain development, and what they are exposed to affects the shape, size and function of their brains".
The American Academy of Paediatrics concurs with this recommending that children under two watch no TV at all and from age three, a half hour a day is sufficient, building on that as they get older.
"Editing speeds are faster than when I was a child" says Sigman, "there are more zooms, pans, singing, dancing, colour, novelty and movement in children's TV programming today". He claims that TV prevents children from developing an imagination due to the "ready made images" it conveys, so a child's young developing brain doesn't have to work to paint pictures with words. It is only later in life that the apparent effects of this show up.
So should parents be more responsible of their babies/toddlers and disconnect the TV? Should they see the TV set as something to be rationed and controlled? Should we be more aware of what our kids are absorbing even if the TV is humming benignly in the background? Many think sure what harm could possibly come of watching a couple of hours of television a day? - after all it is not physically possible (no matter how hard we try) for a parent to spend every second playing with their child. It's a debate that has gone on for years with merits on both sides. Until there is actual medical proof of the effects on the brain, I'm not sure the masses will listen.