Real play vs. artificial entertainment

This article was sent to me from Stephen Lange, a good friend who studied school neuropsychology with me. He co-wrote this article with Brent Thompson.

They talk about the TV Kart, a shopping cart designed to continuously entertain children while their adult companions shop. The principal entertainment offered is exactly what the cart's name implies.

I agree with the point of the article: that is to say, little by little, we are supplanting natural opportunities for children to interact with the world with electronic, passive, automated interactions, which is definitely a negative.

From a young age, babies are exposed to mindless videos via Baby Einstein (which has been shown to not work); as children grow older, they spend inordinate amounts of time on sites such as myspace and youtube - I think that this article is correct in its warning.