http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10751694

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SpongeBob SquarePants causes learning problems - study
12:03 PM Wednesday Sep 14, 2011


The study suggests just watching nine minutes of Spongebob Squarepants can cause short-term attention and learning problems in four-year-olds. Photo / Supplied

The cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants is in hot water from a study suggesting that watching just nine minutes of that programme can cause short-term attention and learning problems in four-year-olds.

The problems were seen in a study of 60 children randomly assigned to either watch SpongeBob, or the slower-paced PBS cartoon Caillou or assigned to draw pictures.

Immediately after these nine-minute assignments, the kids took mental function tests; those who had watched SpongeBob did measurably worse than the others.

Previous research has linked TV-watching with long-term attention problems in children, but the new study suggests more immediate problems can occur after very little exposure - results that parents of young kids should be alert to, the study authors said.

Kids' cartoon shows typically feature about 22 minutes of action, so watching a full programme "could be more detrimental," the researchers speculated.

The study suggests just watching nine minutes of Spongebob Squarepants can cause short-term attention and learning problems in four-year-olds. Photo / Supplied
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The study suggests just watching nine minutes of Spongebob Squarepants can cause short-term attention and learning problems in four-year-olds. Photo / Supplied

The cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants is in hot water from a study suggesting that watching just nine minutes of that programme can cause short-term attention and learning problems in four-year-olds.

The problems were seen in a study of 60 children randomly assigned to either watch SpongeBob, or the slower-paced PBS cartoon Caillou or assigned to draw pictures.

Immediately after these nine-minute assignments, the kids took mental function tests; those who had watched SpongeBob did measurably worse than the others.

Previous research has linked TV-watching with long-term attention problems in children, but the new study suggests more immediate problems can occur after very little exposure - results that parents of young kids should be alert to, the study authors said.

Kids' cartoon shows typically feature about 22 minutes of action, so watching a full programme "could be more detrimental," the researchers speculated.

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But they said more evidence is needed to confirm that.

The results should be interpreted cautiously because of the study's small size, but the data seem robust and bolster the idea that media exposure is a public health issue, said Dr Dimitri Christakis.

He is a child development specialist at Seattle Children's Hospital who wrote an editorial accompanying the study published online on Monday in the journal Paediatrics.

Christakis said parents need to realise that fast-paced programming may not be appropriate for very young children.

"What kids watch matters, it's not just how much they watch," he said.

University of Virginia psychology professor Angeline Lillard, the lead author, said Nickelodeon's SpongeBob shouldn't be singled out.

She found similar problems in kids who watched other fast-paced cartoon programming.

She said parents should realize that young children are compromised in their ability to learn and use self-control immediately after watching such shows.

"I wouldn't advise watching such shows on the way to school or any time they're expected to pay attention and learn," she said.

Nickelodeon spokesman David Bittler disputed the findings and said SpongeBob SquarePants is aimed at kids aged 6-11, not four-year-olds.

"Having 60 non-diverse kids, who are not part of the show's targeted (audience), watch nine minutes of programming is questionable methodology and could not possibly provide the basis for any valid findings that parents could trust," he said.

Lillard said four-year-olds were chosen because that age "is the heart of the period during which you see the most development" in certain self-control abilities.

Whether children of other ages would be similarly affected can't be determined from this study.

Most kids were white and from middle-class or wealthy families.

They were given common mental function tests after watching cartoons or drawing. The SpongeBob kids scored on average 12 points lower than the other two groups, whose scores were nearly identical.

In another test, measuring self-control and impulsiveness, kids were rated on how long they could wait before eating snacks presented when the researcher left the room.

SpongeBob kids waited about 2 1/2 minutes on average, versus at least four minutes for the other two groups.

The study has several limitations. For one thing, the kids weren't tested before they watched TV. But Lillard said none of the children had diagnosed attention problems and all got similar scores on parent evaluations of their behaviour.

- AAP

Interesting.

Spongebob sucks anyway.

Bye Bye Spongebob.

SpongeBob rocks!

Forgiveness Man wrote:

Spongebob sucks anyway.

Yeah.

I always knew there was something about him...

Forgiveness Man wrote:

Spongebob sucks anyway.

Have to agree. I don't find the problem with this show to be that it's too fast paced (huh?) as it just sucks, it's stupid, and what is the plotline here, really? You can't really say the problem is that it's 9 minutes a cartoon and fast paced because we all grew up on Looney Tunes and the original Disney cartoons which didn't run more than 10 minutes at a time at best either and they were very fast paced BUT they were intelligently put together, there IS a difference I believe.

And people are sounding off on this, some want to know why 4 month old babies are watching TV so much? Well isn't 3 months the earliest day cares take babies or so? And it turned out a while back that a lot of day cares just sit the kids in front of the TV for 2-3 hours a day, so why do parents pay for that glorified babysitting? Be easier to just have somebody stay home with the kids who can actually be bothered to DO something with them.

Also, I read this report the other day and it wasn't in the report but in the comments that somebody actually blamed Sesame Street for kids' poor attention spans because it's broken up into 2 minute segments here and there...what the hell? Most of us grew up watching Sesame Street and we don't suffer from bad attention spans.

Of course there are some people who will always insist the stuff we grew up on wasn't any better...and it's true, Kablaam may not have been the stuff of geniuses, but as children we also watched Muppet Babies which encouraged kids to use their imaginations; and we also saw the PBS show Wishbone with the talking Jack Russell Terrier who imagined himself as the heroes of classic stories like Tom Sawyer, The Red Badge of Courage, The Phantom of the Opera, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Time Machine, etc. and that show inspired a lot of kids (myself included) to actually read these classics, something you're not going to catch on TV today, I wonder why?

Also, when I was 8 Nickelodeon showed all of the Charlie Brown cartoons including the 8 piece miniseries This is America, Charlie Brown, which offered a look at the Pilgrims coming to America, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Transcontinental Railroad, the Wright Brothers, a look through the Smithsonian, and a glance at the possible future in the space program, and also a look at the history of heroes and music which included actual footage from Vietnam.

ALSO, when I was 8 they showed What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown? which was a follow up to the movie Bon Voyage Charlie Brown (And Don't Come Back) and was a tribute to the soldiers who served in World War I and II and showed Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Peppermint Patty and Marcie winding up in Omaha Beach and Linus walking them through what the Allies endured on D-Day as he leads them through the American Cemetery and the British dressing station where John McCrae wrote "In Flanders Fields". Oddly enough for some reason I've never been able to figure out, What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown? has NEVER been shown on TV since I saw it 13 years ago, I wonder why? My guess would be that somebody somewhere is severely opposed to kids learning about anything REAL anymore when they watch children's programming.

I'll tell you something though, I'd sooner have my kids watch that, than a stupid talking sponge, at least then they'd be coming away with it with something REAL to think about. I don't know though about this link to 'fast paced' shows because apparently people have very different ideas of what qualifies as it, but when I was 3 years old I could sit through full length movies (that did NOT talk down to its audience and treat kids like idiots) with a perfect attention span so why does that seem impossible now? Of course, I'm heavily biased and am a firm believer that just because something is easily available to see on children's TV doesn't prove that it's any good or that they should see it. Personally, this is one area where I think it's better to stick to the older stuff; when I was 10 I knew every show on Cartoon Network, Disney and Nickelodeon, knew every episode, every schedule, today I don't have any idea what's on but based on what I HAVE seen I can't say with any certainty that that's been a bad thing because I think I'm better off not knowing what some of this stuff is but then I feel sorry for the kids who have no idea what good entertainment actually is.

Spongebob does suck. I can't stand the sound of any of the characters. As far as the study, I am sure there is validity in it, but I wonder how random it was in assigning the kids to each of the three groups. Were the boisterous kids put in the Spongebob group to intentionally sway the results? I am always suspicious of these type of studies.