I've been mulling an odd analogy in my head, and I wonder what you think. Whenever people talk about the impact of television on society, the concerns are often framed with television as a toxin: Ingest just a little, and you'll survive, but too much is simply poison.
Many experts on media would prefer, however, to talk about a "TV diet" that takes into account the different types of content that one might see on TV. Watch PBS, and you're eating your vegetables. Watch the Home Shopping Channel, and you've just consumed a Pop-Tart.
Taking a page from the "consumption" playbook, what if we think about children's screentime as yogurt? It's not a must-have food, but it sure can taste good. Some brands come with too much sugar, too much food-dye, too much corn syrup, too much obnoxious packaging. Sometimes yogurt simply masquerades as good for you, but it isn't. (Frozen yogurt comes to mind.) But, for many children, some yogurts are just plain wholesome and well-worth eating, and they come in a bunch of different flavors.
What's more, we all know that if we ate nothing but yogurt -- if we didn't make room for other foods (or, to carry the analogy, if we didn't make room for other activities like playing, coloring, exploring) -- we wouldn't look so good.
In our house right now, the yogurt of choice is Stonyfield's peach. And the new PBS show Super Why is a favorite too.
4:58:37 PM 
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