One of the fundamental difficulties that I have with this kind of research (and this would include BOTH sides of this particular question)--
is that it all seems to rely upon cherry-picking meta-studies which go about FINDING the data needed to support particular claims.
It's fairly clear that whatever was going on in classrooms in 1940 is probably
not analogous to what is going on in them in 2005-- or it should be obvious, at any rate-- so making comparisons between today's parenting and educational practices and the Terman cohort should probably be done only with a lot of caveats and accounting for cultural shift in the intervening period.
On the other side, there are frequently such shoddy practices at
defining what is meant by "cognitive skills" in studies that seem to find a lot of benefit to 'screen time' that I have trouble believing that conclusion any more than the converse. Not to be
too cynical, here, but all too often, such studies are funded by those who stand to benefit significantly from one conclusion or another...
Too many variables, not enough controls, and correlation fallacy galore.
My fundamental beef over this is that the people spouting their conclusions for the edification of the media seem to be blissfully unaware that such practices even matter.
