For years, parents have been told the same thing: screens are bad for kids.
That advice lacks important context. It’s also disconnected from reality and fails to acknowledge recent advancements and resources on this topic.
Screens are now embedded in modern life from the earliest months. Parents use them for many reasons: exhaustion, isolation, mental health, childcare gaps, medical challenges, and, increasingly, necessity. Telling families to practice prohibition without offering viable alternatives doesn’t reduce harm. It shifts responsibility onto parents while leaving the system itself untouched.
The children’s media industry, particularly content targeted at infants and toddlers, has spent decades optimizing for one outcome: capturing attention.
Attention drives advertising.
Attention drives subscriptions.
Attention drives product sales.
Attention = $$$
And the earlier that attention is captured, the longer the lifetime value of the consumer, not to mention an increasing downstream public health crisis.
To capture attention, producers of children’s programming rely on overstimulating design techniques: rapid pacing, constant novelty, exaggerated sound design, visual effects, competing points of interest, and attention-hijacking cues.
These choices are not accidental. They are production decisions made to maximize engagement, not to support early development. And these production techniques are being incorporated into children’s media at a dizzying rate as each program tries to outdo the other in an effort to capture our children’s attention. Even content labeled “high-quality”, “baby safe” or “educational” rely on these same design tactics.
Further complicating this issue, trusted organizations often partner with these studios and brands, which normalizes these harmful practices instead of confronting the structural incentives at play. Parents are left navigating conflicting guidance, unclear standards, and endless options that claim to be developmentally appropriate without ever being required to prove it.
The result is predictable.
Infants and toddlers are exposed to media that can interfere with regulation, attention, and early learning. Normal developmental behaviors are misinterpreted, and often improperly diagnosed and medicated. Parents experience anxiety, shame, and confusion. And the industry continues to grow - exponentially - while accountability remains diffuse.
I know this system from the inside-out. I spent over two decades working in the industry. And when I became a parent, screen time entered our home earlier than I ever expected. For us, it was colic and a pandemic.
Like many parents, I echoed the same slogan that I have heard over and over again: “I grew up on screens and I turned out fine.”
That belief didn’t come from nowhere. It was shaped by a system designed to normalize early exposure while minimizing scrutiny. Not to mention, children’s media is designed a lot differently than it was even a decade ago.
Once I began examining how children’s media is developed, produced, marketed, and monetized, specifically for the earliest years, I couldn’t unsee the pattern. I was convinced: research alone doesn’t change systems. Exposure alone doesn’t either.
Systems change when behavior changes.
And behavior changes when incentives change.
That understanding led to the creation of the Children’s Media Research and Reform Lab (CMRRL).
Our work begins with research; deep, cross-disciplinary analysis of child development, media design, and industry practices. But it doesn’t end there. Because identifying harm without offering alternatives simply leaves parents stuck between guilt and necessity.
That’s why we’re developing clear, science-based guidelines for what developmentally appropriate media for infants and toddlers should actually look like. Not aspirational language or a happy-medium. Not marketing claims or unrealistic guidelines that are placed solely on parents. We are creating measurable standards that parents, educators, and producers can understand and apply.
And it’s why we felt the necessity to create Early Years Media.
Early Years Media recognizes and agrees that children learn best from caregivers and the environment around them. But we are also aware of the realities of modern parenting. So instead of shaming parents we completely redesigned what screen-based content for the early years can be when children’s development, not engagement metrics, is the only priority. Our nonprofit public interest channel adheres to strict guidelines put in place to eliminate overstimulating production techniques. Instead, we mirror real-world experiences and pacing that is intentionally designed for the way infants and toddlers process information.
Most importantly, our goal is to give parents something they have never been offered before: an ethical, accessible developmentally aligned content + platform alternative.
When parents can see and feel the difference, they choose differently.
When choices change, markets shift.
And when markets shift, systems are forced to adapt.
What we are witnessing now is an inflection point.
Some of the most trusted organizations in this space are increasingly entangled with the very practices that contribute to harm.
Fundraising focuses more on influential partnership alignment over measurable impact.
Prohibition has blocked support and funding for innovation and reform.
And parents are still being asked to carry the burden alone.
That approach is no longer acceptable.
We need standards.
We need accountability.
And we need solutions that align early media with what we know about early development.
The future of children’s media will not be changed by another guideline telling parents what not to do. It will be changed by giving families, and the system itself, something better to choose.
Please email willmaurer@cmrrl.org for more information on how your support can make an impact for our youngest and most vulnerable.
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