Baby Einsteins?

27 October 2009

Madrid

To our horror, we've just learned that the 'Baby Einstein' videos from Disney (actually, I've been fairly busy recently and this is the first I've heard of them) do not work. Nope, you cannot put your baby down in front of the television, turn on the video while you have a beer, cook dinner or read pornography and have your baby come out at the end of half-an-hour a budding genius. Apparently the American Pediatric Society (or Association?) doesn't think you ought to have baby in front of a screen at all during the first two years of life. I believe, technically, that the Pediatric Society has actually contacted the American Association of Podiatrists on the matter because of a serious concern about Disney having put their foot in it.

So, what was happening in Baby Fido's mind as he sat in front of the screen? From the very little I've read (and I mean the very little I scanned, this is an issue I'm milking because it strikes me as silly), it appears that the infant viewers were simply overwhelmed by the colors, noises and movement on the screen. They do not 'get' much or any of it; they are, seemingly, mesmerized by the videos and sit there, just like adults, their minds turned into some sort of flickering screen-induced mush, staring gape-mouthed until their parents recall their existence and turn off the machine.

Too bad there is no such protection for adults; I've been known to sit there stupidly watching one repeat of Friends after another, completely bereft of any indication of sentience, letting the noise and the color and the movement on the screen wash over me, just like junior.