Like it or not, the last five years have seen an explosion of media aimed at infants and very young children. In the guise of education, parents are utilizing the electronic babysitter - TV, video, computer - from birth on.

Is this good, bad or indifferent? I'd say the best gauge is what happens when you turn it off. Are you and your child(ren) at a momentary loss for something to do? Does the child become irritable when disconnected? Does your child talk to the box? Is your child more animated interacting with people or with animation? Are you?

New study raises concern:

In the last five years, there has been an explosion in electronic media for babies and toddlers: "Teletubbies," the first television show for preverbal children; computer "lapware" for babies to play with while sitting in a parent's lap; and hundreds of videotapes and DVD's for even the tiniest infants.

Many babies are now immersed in electronic media for hours every day. In fact, more than a quarter of children under 2 have a television in their room, according to a large study of young children's media habits that was issued yesterday by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

On a typical day, the study found, 59 percent of children 6 months to 2 years watch television, and 42 percent watch a videotape or a DVD. The median time they spend watching some form of media or another on the screen is slightly more than two hours.

"The last time we did a big study on kids and media, about five years ago, we didn't think to go younger than 2, because we didn't think there was anything there," said the new report's lead author, Vicky Rideout, vice president of the Kaiser Foundation. "But that's really changed. And based on what we've now found with the 6-month-to-2-year-olds, if we do this kind of study again, we'd probably go down to birth."

According to the study, 10 percent of the babies and toddlers from 6 months to 2 years have a television remote control designed for children. And 32 percent have videos from the "Baby Einstein" series, created seven years ago as a way of exposing infants to poetry, language, music and art. "Baby Einstein" is now a Disney line that includes books, flashcards and puppets, along with DVD's and videotapes whose titles have expanded to include, among others, "Baby Shakespeare," "Baby Galileo" and "Baby Newton." [NY Times]