A consumer group is campaigning for a recall on an infant bouncy chair that comes equipped with an iPad stand, reports AllThingsD. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) is calling on parents and supporters to sign a petition directed at Fisher-Price Vice President David Allmark asking parent company Mattel to stop selling the Fisher-Price Newborn-to-Toddler Apptivity Seat for iPad.
The Apptivity seat, which is priced at $80, has an adjustable three-position seat designed to fit both infants and toddlers.
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If you insert and lock your iPad® into the mirror’s case, the visual display provides another way to stimulate and engage baby while protecting your device from baby’s sticky fingers and preventing unintentional navigating to other apps.
According to the CCFC, which backs the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation discouraging screen time for kids under age two, the iPad blocks the baby’s view of the world and encourages parents to leave infants alone with iPads.
There are so many awful screen products for babies these days, but the Fisher-Price Newborn-to-Toddler Apptivity™ Seat for iPad® device is the worst yet. It’s a bouncy seat for an infant – with a place for an iPad directly above the baby’s face, blocking his or her view of the rest of the world. And because screens can be mesmerizing and babies are strapped down and “safely" restrained, it encourages parents to leave infants all alone with an iPad. To make matters even worse, Fisher-Price is marketing the Apptivity Seat - and claiming it’s educational - for newborns.
"It is wrong to create a product whose very existence suggests that it’s fine to leave babies as young as newborns alone and with an iPad inches from their face," says CCFC, while urging consumers to support the petition demanding the product be removed from store shelves. Josh Golin, associate director for the group, says the toy is the "worst of the worst."
Currently, the CCFC's petition had garnered nearly 2,000 signatures. The group is hoping for a total of 3,000 signatures
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Top Rated Comments
My first thought (mainly because it said recall) was that there was concern that the iPad could fall and hurt the kid. Oh well. I guess I was just not so attention seeking and pious in my views. I'll try harder next time.
Personally, I think we need to prepare our kids for the future. When they are "40"
When my daughter gets older she can use Macs (if they still exist, yikes) and iPads but there will be limits. I had my NES when I was little, and today I have my Xbox One and iPad—but my mom was smart enough to make me go outside and play with my friends. Our neighborhood wasn't exactly poor—maybe lower middle class at best. So with a lack of shiny new toys we got pretty creative with coming up with imaginative games to play. Later on in middle school the internet was developing, and I was able to use it to learn lots of stuff about how to do graphic design and program apps and websites, which led to my future career in app and web design. So I can see the benefits of both. I think a good balance of spare time (outside of homework and chores) will be about ⅓ on devices and ⅔ outside playing, or inside if it's cold playing with legos or reading. Though I bet a lot of the reading will be done on devices, so that might have to be adjusted.
I hope iOS continues to add new and refine existing parental controls, especially filters for Safari. Or use TouchID to set daily time limits—especially for certain app categories such as games. Their fingerprint won't work, say, after 2 hours of use until the next day. That could be overridden by the parent, of course. But could keep them from sneaking in extra device time here and there.
I'd love to hear from other (responsible) parents on how they manage the time spent on devices vs. other types of play. I feel like a lot of it will be trial and error, and it probably depends on the kid.
My first thought when seeing this earlier was that there would be a recall for the iPad coming dislodged from the arm and hitting the baby in the chair.