According to research published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, watching fast-paced cartoons like SpongeBob, even for just a few minutes, hinders abstract thinking, short-term memory and impulse control in preschoolers.
Led by University of Virginia psychologist Angeline Lillard, researchers randomly assigned 60 four-year-olds to three activities: drawing freely with markers for nine minutes; watching a slower-paced, PBS cartoon for that time; or watching SpongeBob SquarePants. Researchers chose SpongeBob for its frenetic pace: The show switches scenes on average every 11 seconds, as compared with the PBS cartoon, which switched only twice a minute.
Afterward the preschoolers were asked to do four different “executive function” tasks that test cognitive capability and impulse control, such as counting backwards, solving puzzles, and delaying gratification by waiting to eat a tasty snack until told to do so. Compared with those who were drawing and those watching PBS, the SpongeBob kids performed significantly worse on the tasks.
Study authors note that it’s hard to say what it was about the adventures of this friendly kitchen sponge that seemed to have such an immediate negative effect on kids, but they suspected it was the fantastical events and rapid pacing of the show. By contrast, the PBS show was slower and exhibited real life events about a preschool-age boy.
Parents and pediatricians have often commented that the frenzied pace of many kids’ cartoons today make kids distracted and kill their attention spans.
In a world where the average kid is plugged into some kind of media, be it the internet, smart phone, video games or TV for up to eight hours a day, the negative impact of all this media multitasking on young brains has become a hot topic for debate.
Many pediatricians and psychologists fear that the rapid oscillating between different stimuli will make kids unable to focus, especially when they start juggling listening to music, playing a video game and texting on their cellphone at the tender age of five.
What do you think? We want to hear all about it.
