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What about computers and video games for small tykes? Computers are a different matter. Deemed smarter than either television or video games, Bogle, Caliendo and Hart have — so far — prohibited the technology from entering their children's bedrooms. Although their children cannot yet surf the Web, educational software has been used, and simple games like pinball have been played. Hart's Jacob, for example, shows a preference for an animal quiz game; while Caliendo's Gillen plays interactive games on the Thomas the Tank Engine website, which he reaches with the help of his parents. As Caliendo says, "We're always around when he's doing these things." The Bogles, who have recently moved, currently have their computer disconnected. Bogle, Caliendo and Hart have also refrained from using the myriad technologies now available that make the monitoring of TV, video game and computer use as easy as finding a wall outlet. (Electronic devices, like the new "Time Scout", police their fellow electronic gizmos simply by plugging into an outlet). Hart, for one, is confident that stations like Noggin, PBS and Disney are keeping her 6-year-old on top of things in the right way, and that the "general, but not rigid" household media structure, combined with Jacob's own interest in art activities, are serving him well enough to keep him from being too intensely monitored. "If he sees an art activity on TV, he's likely to turn it off and go try it himself," she says. Bogle describes her 7-year-old as "very good about TV," and doesn't seem particularly concerned about 2 1/2-year-old Owen's constant fascination with it. "At 2 1/2, Jack was similar to the way Owen is now," she explains calmly. Caliendo sits with her 4 1/2-year-old on those occasions when he's examining a new program for the first time. But her greater concern is with video games, with which the boy is fascinated. "He loves them, but we don't have them at home," she says. "He plays them at other people's homes or on trips when we're staying at a hotel somewhere. But the way he plays them, if we had a game player at home, he'd be at it all the time. I don't know if it would be worse if he did that or sat and watched TV all day — at least with a video game he's strategizing." Despite the strategizing, video games — depicting everything from pro football to outright murder — are blurring the line between reality and fantasy for young people in ways that television and movies never did. As Jonathan Dee gleaned from Atari's French C.E.O. Bruno Bonnell in the December 21 issue of The New York Times Magazine, video games qualify as personal expression only if "the game's creators dictate that there are some places, morally speaking, where one is not allowed to go." U.S. lags behind in launching media literacy programs "Kids are continually being encouraged into going into somebody else's imagination, not their own; the loss of space to create your own imaginary world is a troubling thing," Vespe warns. "Kids come to understand things and have empathy through imaginative play. I think this is a critical point: most children adopt their parents’ TV habits." They're adopting more than just that. According to the study, parents acknowledged that their children's imitative behavior from television is largely positive. The study does not address whether that imitation stems from the programming itself or advertising — a distinction that, in the end, may not matter. "Kids — little kids especially — can't tell the difference between advertising and TV programs," says Jean Kilbourne, visiting research scholar at the Wellesley Center for Women at Wellesley College and author of the book Can't Buy My Love. An avowed enemy of electronic and print advertising, she stresses that, along with exposing young people to "junk toys, junk foods, and later, alcohol and tobacco," advertising creates cynics. "By 8 or 9 they know it's hype, and then they expect everything to be junk. It makes them cynical about life. If it made them more critical, then it would be a good thing. It doesn't do that." In this area, media literacy courses may help — or may not, at least not as much as some might think. "Some programs are great, some are junk," Vespe says. Some, he claims, are financed by the television industry itself. "They'll say, 'Watch all you want, but be aware of advertising.' That doesn't particularly mean progress. It certainly doesn't teach them how to read or function in relationships." Kilbourne is encouraged about the positive potential of media literacy study. She notes that media literacy programs are alive and well in Canada, Australia, and throughout the United Kingdom, but as she points out in her book, the United States "is one of the few developed nations in the world" that has not yet addressed the subject formally and seriously. (The American Academy of Pediatrics, however, offers some valuable thoughts on the subject. Enter the keyword "Media Matters" on the Academy's homepage at www.aap.org). So — abstinence, monitored usage, media literacy lessons or 16-hour babysitter? The idea that shielding children day and night from electronic media may be just as damaging, socially, as overexposing them to it, is an idea that Vespe puts down without reservation: "Talking about TV is the modern equivalent of talking about the weather." As for Hart, her schoolteacher self sees some value in her son's electronic media life. "People worry about repetition with electronic media, but it can be a very positive thing," she says. "There are certain videos and books on tape that Jacob has watched and listened to over and over again, and each time he experiences something new. I don't worry about it."
