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Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember, but not long ago

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Speaker 1: on the show, we had a debate about screen time

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Speaker 1: and how bad it is for kids. And the question

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Speaker 1: that we were asking is are we all just having

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Speaker 1: a gigantic moral panic about screens or are screens actually

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Speaker 1: as bad as the experts tell us that they are.

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Speaker 1: And I think we've got more evidence that Yep, the

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Speaker 1: latter is true. Screens are a really particularly pernicious problem

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Speaker 1: of our age for the little ones and frankly for

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Speaker 1: the adults as well, but let's focus on the little one.

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Speaker 1: So teachers are saying that there are kids turning up

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Speaker 1: at five, sometimes six at school who can't even put

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Speaker 1: sentences together. So an example from one teacher is maybe

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Speaker 1: a six year old might say me go P instead

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Speaker 1: of I need the toilet. Now, frankly, that's pretty alarming

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Speaker 1: for a six year old. That is what my two

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Speaker 1: year old talks like, so a six year old should

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Speaker 1: be way past that situation. The teacher said that they

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Speaker 1: had been teaching for twenty four years and never seen

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Speaker 1: this low level of language, and what they are putting

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Speaker 1: it down to is too much screen time, just too

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Speaker 1: much TV, too much iPad and apparently it's worse since COVID,

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Speaker 1: where screens became babysitters during lockdowns and parents haven't snapped

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Speaker 1: out of it, And this stuff is happening. And I

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Speaker 1: recently spoke to a grandmother who doesn't think that three

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Speaker 1: hours a day of TV on multiple days is a

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Speaker 1: bad thing for a toddler. Obviously, it's a bad thing

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Speaker 1: for a toddler. The problem with that is no one

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Speaker 1: is talking to that kid for three hours, or reading

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Speaker 1: them a book, or showing them how you properly structure

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Speaker 1: a sentence enabled in order to be able to go

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Speaker 1: to the bathroom. Now, I have no idea what the

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Speaker 1: hell is going on here with parents. If they don't

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Speaker 1: understand that this is a problem, I don't know how

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Speaker 1: you fix it if it isn't obvious to parents that

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Speaker 1: their child at six is not talking properly. But teachers

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Speaker 1: are right, I think, to feel frustrated by this. This

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Speaker 1: is not their job. I mean teachers, you know, I

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Speaker 1: argue a lot of stuff about what they need to

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Speaker 1: do in the classroom, but this is not their job.

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Speaker 1: They are right to expect that a five year old

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Speaker 1: who turns up at school can actually string sentences together.

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Speaker 1: This is squarely on parents. The evidence is now overwhelming

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Speaker 1: that too much screen time is bad for kids, and actually,

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Speaker 1: if we're honest about it, parents have really known this

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Speaker 1: since the nineteen eighties at least, haven't they. For more

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Speaker 1: from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to news talks

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Speaker 1: the'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast

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Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio.