In 1998, Dimitri Christakis took time off fromrnwork to care for his two-month-old son. Atrnhome he found himself watching televisionrnto pass the time - "more TV than I had everrnwatched in my life" he remembers. Soon hernnoticed that his infant son was watching too.rnEven CNN kept the boy glued to the screen.rn"Obviously he wasn't following the news," saysrnChristakis, a professor of paediatrics at thernUniversity of Washington in Seattle.rnChristakis realized that the jumpy images on the screen were engaging the child's 'orienting response', a basic attentional reflex that directs the senses towards a sudden change in the environment. He wondered about the long-term effect of this on a brain that was at such a sensitive developmental stage.
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