Your Baby Can Read Shut Down

A few years ago you couldn’t get away from the TV ads proclaiming “Your Baby Can Read!” I was skeptical from the moment the first ad aired, because babies can’t read. I mean, my baby CAN change a flat tire, mow the lawn, and has memorized Pi to the 200th place, but reading? Nope.

I once posted in an online forum when a person asked if “Your Baby Can Read” was real or worth the money, that I didn’t think that it was, and that I didn’t think it would work. You should have seen the responses from people indignant: YES their babies could READ after following this system. Hogwash. And apparently, the FTC agreed with me. Thanks to the complaints of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, the FTC examined “Your Baby Can Read” and Your Baby Can Read shut down.

As the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood noted in their press release,

“Research has linked infant screen time to sleep disturbances, attention problems, and delayed language acquisition, as well as problems in later childhood such as poor school performance and childhood obesity. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time for children under age two. If parents followed Your Baby Can Read!’s viewing instructions, their baby would have watched more than 200 hours by the age of nine months. ” read more

I guess we all have to adjust back to a world where babies can’t read and have to be read to. The future is the worst!

 

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Tags: best of today, commercial-free childhood, deceptive marketing, From the Editors, ftc, your baby can read