Washington - A newborn baby cannot hold or even swipe at an iPad, but Fisher-Price is providing a way to keep infants glued to the device.
The Newborn-to-Toddler Apptivity Seat for the iPad allows parents to strap a baby to the reclining bouncy chair and slip a tablet into an attached case that hovers several inches above the infant’s face.
The seat is chafing parents and child advocates who say the introduction of screen technology so early is harmful to the health and development of babies. Fisher-Price’s seat seems to hit a new low, they say, but other retailers also are promoting holiday gifts that integrate tech into baby gear, even a potty training seat with an iPad stand.
Fisher-Price’s iPad seat is the “ultimate electronic babysitter, whose very existence suggests it’s fine to leave babies all alone and with an iPad inches from their face,” said Susan Linn, director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC), a child advocacy group .
The group launched a letter-writing campaign aimed at persuading Mattel, the parent company of Fisher-Price, to cease seat sales.
“Fisher-Price should stay true to its mission to foster learning and development by creating products for infants that promote, rather than undermine, interaction with caregivers,” Linn said.
Victor Strasburger, a doctor and professor of paediatrics at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, said attaching iPads to babies’ seats is “a terrible idea”.
“Does anyone out there think that kids need more screen time?” Strasburger asked. “There is no need to hurry to expose kids to new technology, certainly not babies – or newborns!”
Mattel did not respond to a request for comment on the iPad seat, but the firm promotes the seat as a way to entertain and foster a baby’s physical development. Fisher-Price describes the seat on its website as “a grow-with-me seat for baby that’s soothing, entertaining, and has a touch of technology, too”.
Mattel is already under pressure by the CCFC and other advocacy groups that have complained to the Federal Trade Commission that Fisher-Price’s mobile Apptivity suite of apps deceives consumers with promised educational benefits despite little research having been done to prove that online sites can help babies’ brain development.
The slew of new baby-tech products has drawn criticism from parents blasting CTA and Fisher-Price in Amazon.com’s customer-review sections. Fisher-Price’s seat had more than 100 reviews, many negative.
“If you want to damage your child’s development, buy this chair,” one reviewer wrote. – Reuters