What % of parents believe that "natural toys" (such as blocks, wooden
toys, and things made of natural materials) are better for their kids'
development than "electronic toys"?  Please reference the year the
information was gathered/provided.

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 16 Nov 2005 14:25 PST

Please let me know if this meets your needs:

The information posted below comes from a telephone survey of more
than 1,000 parents of children six months through six years of age.
The survey was conducted in the spring of 2003, and the report was
published in the fall of 2003. The survey was conducted on behalf of a
partnership of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the
Children?s Digital Media Centers (CDMC).

"How important, if at all, you think each of the following is in
helping the intellectual development of children?...

                            Very     Somewhat   Not too   Not at all
                          Important  Important  Important Important 
a. Reading books:           96          3          *          *

b. Building toys like 
   blocks or Legos:         77         20          2          1 


c. Doing puzzles:           74         21          3          1 

d. Using educational toys
   like talking books:      62         30          6          2 

e. Watching educational TV
   like 'Sesame Street':    58         34          5          2 

f. Watching educational
   videos or DVDs:          49         39          8          3 

g. Playing educational
   computer games:          43         36          9          6 

h. Visiting educational 
   websites:                31         36         16          9

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Which of the following do you think is MOST important to children?s
intellectual development?

Books:                       66


Something else:              32

Educational toys like
talking books:                8

Building toys like
blocks or Legos:              6


Educational TV shows:         5


Educational videos or DVDs:   4


Educational computer games:   3


Puzzles:                      2


Educational websites:         *


Something else/None of these: 4


Don?t know/Refused:           3"

----------------------------------------------------------------------

from "Zero to Six: Electronic Media"
http://www.net56.net/files/PDF/ZerotoSixElectronicMedia.pdf

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Clarification of Question by rachelg-ga on 16 Nov 2005 15:11 PST

The goal of the question is to figure out if "natural toys" are better
developmentally for the child than "electronic toys".  Or what is the
result of being exposed to natural toys over electronic ones, if
recorded.  The answer below lets me know how parents feel with regards
to the importance of natural toys and educational toys, but not as it
relates or compares to "electronic toys".  Looking for more of a
statistical or comparison answer.

I run a small bulletin board for mothers whose children average about
two years. There are about 50 mothers in the group and 25 responded to
the poll. Obviously this is far from a statistically sound answer to
your question, but I posed the question to them anyway in the hopes of
giving you a general idea.

Question posed and quantitative answers:

In terms of your child's development, do you generally.... 

Prefer natural toys over electronic toys  10 (40%) 
Prefer electronic toys over natural toys   1 (4%) 
Have no preference                        14 (56%)

There were many insightful qualitative responses about why they chose
the answer they did. I can make those available to you if you're
interested.