Faster! Louder! Brighter! How the attention economy overwhelmed children’s TV

Does your child’s favourite show give them a chance to reflect, or does it move too quickly for its lessons to sink in? A version of this piece was originally published on Aeon as The bombarding of childhood I am at the airport gate waiting to depart, watching passengers hurry past with rolling suitcases and paper cups of coffee.

A small boy sits very still beside his mother.

He holds an iPad close to his chest, almost in a cramp, clutching the screen as if it might otherwise run away.

I hear loud clapping hands and squeaking children’s voices.

I lean over and see a cartoon character in green snatch a toy from another character in pink.

The pink character begins to cry, tears splashing like sprinkles from its enormous eyes.

The green character shouts sorry.

Instantly, the tears stop and a wide smile replaces them before I have blinked.

And, before I have even worked out whether the characters are speaking English or Arabic (as the mother does to the boy), the scene has changed and the two characters are rowing a boat with a random song in the background.

The boy’s eyes dart on the screen from right to left, centre, down.

His body is still but his attention is being hurried from cue to cue.

This is the problem I have come to think of as the pace of children’s media.

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