> don't any other people here think 2-year-old kids shouldn't be playing iPad games at all?
> My own kid won't be here for a few more months, so I'm not preaching; just honestly asking.
> Shouldn't kids of that age, instead of learning in-game physics, be learning real physics? Like with balls, marbles, and blocks, running and falling down, and not with animated honeypots and flying unicorns?
You are in fact preaching, just not from direct experience raising children.
Please do not give your future 2-year-old marbles to learn physics with. Choking hazard. Harder to swallow an iPad.
two year olds are great with marbles when supervised. most of them have long abandoned the idea of putting non-food into their mouths by this age, and their development thrives on supervision and interaction regardless of what materials they are exploring.
There might be evidence that early exposure to television, before the child's neurological development is ready to deal with it, is harmful. But I'm not aware of "an established body of evidence" proving that TV is harmful. Do you have sources? I'm very interested in seeing such sources, as I used to be under the impression that TV is harmful, but I am now convinced otherwise.
Be careful ignoring the scientific method here. You are equating a fear of bad side effects from TV with bad side effects with iPad use. Fear is not the scientific method.
There are many dimensions to consider when evaluating harm. For example, in early childhood development, the child desperately wants to imitate the adult (or role model), and will suffer certain side effects (e.g., problems with self confidence) if forbidden to imitate. Thus even if there is harm in using the iPad, there could easily be more harm in forbidding its use (but this can easily be remedied by never allowing the child to see the adult using the iPad).
I urge you to be careful about following any lines of parenting that mold the child (e.g., the child should be outside playing ball, not inside doing X). I see parents force their kids to conform with preset ideas of how a child should be, ignoring how early child development works, and thus cause pscyhological harm (e.g., internalization of fear of the parent). An analogy would be the parent teaching the child how to walk by grabbing the kid's legs and moving them in micro-adjustments; the kid will end up with poor motor control.