A recent study suggests TV viewing in very young children contributes to attention problems later in life, and blames the rise of TV programs specifically aimed at children on the concomitant rise in children diagnosed with ADHD. Actually, I think there's a whole raft of reasons for the rise (regular readers will be noticing a theme here: I seem to think most everything has multiple causes; but I'm afraid, much as we'd all like there to be simple answers, this is rarely true), but the idea that the rapid bombardment of images and sounds in these formative years may skew the development of the brain in a particular direction seems ... actually, rather obvious, when you think about it. One of the researchers, Jane Healy, wrote a book about this some time ago (Endangered Minds: Why our children don't think), and although it was written in 1990, it is in many ways even more frighteningly true today ( and reading it made me appreciate the many ways in which New Zealand education has advanced, even if I think it's far from perfect).