Spongebob Squarepants destroys your childrens' brains!

[Syt]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2036270/Does-Spongebob-SquarePants-wreck-childrens-ability-concentrate.html#

Does SpongeBob wreck children's ability to concentrate? Scientists claim animations can over-tax young brains

Watching fast-paced cartoons harms toddlers' ability to concentrate and solve logic-based puzzles, as well as undermining their short-term memory, according to research.

Four-year-olds shown clips of animations with rapid scene changes, such as the popular SpongeBob SquarePants cartoon, performed significantly worse in problem-solving and attention tests than those shown slower sequences.

Psychologists who led the research believe that watching animations with constant changes of setting can over-tax young children's brains, especially the part that controls 'executive function' – including goal-directed behaviour, working memory and delay of gratification.

Dr Angeline Lillard, of the University of Virginia in the U.S., said that while her experiments only showed children performed worse immediately after viewing the cartoons, the findings backed up other studies that found longer-term effects.

'Our results are consistent with other research showing long-term negative associations between entertainment television and attention,' explained Dr Lillard, whose study is published today in the journal Pediatrics.

'Given the popularity of some fast-paced television cartoons among young children, it is important that parents are alert to the possibility of lower levels of executive function in young children at least immediately after watching such shows.'

Sixty American four-year-olds were randomly assigned to three groups.

One watched a nine-minute clip of the popular US cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants, in which scene changes occurred on average every 11 seconds.

Another group watched an educational cartoon of the same length with scene changes every 34 seconds on average, while the final group were given crayons, marker pens and paper, and allowed to draw.

The children were then asked to complete various tests. The first, a puzzle called the Tower Of Hanoi, involved shifting a stack of discs of different sizes from one peg to another via a third, without placing large discs on top of smaller ones.

In the second the toddlers had to correct following instructions telling them to told their toes when they were told to touch their heads and vice versa, with similar shoulders-knees instructions for those that did well.

They were then shown two plates on which were two and 10 sweets, and told that if they waited until the adult leading the experiment returned they could have the 10 sweets or they could ring a bell at any stage and then have the two.

Finally the children were given lists of numbers and asked to repeat them backwards.

The group that watched the rapid-paced SpongeBob SquarePants clip performed half as well as the slower educational cartoon group in the Tower Of Hanoi test, which in turn performed half as well as those given drawing materials.

They also did significantly worse on the head-toes-knees-shoulders and the gratification delay tests, and marginally worse in the backward number series experiment.

Dr Lillard also speculated that because the SpongeBob SquarePants sequence also included unfamiliar objects, characters and events, this too may have over-taxed the study participants' minds.

Previous studies suggest many children of pre-school age watch more than 90 minutes of television per day. A growing body of psychological research has linked healthy executive function to sociability and academic success.

'Connecting fast-paced television viewing to deficits in executive function, regardless of whether they are transient, has profound implications for children's cognitive and social development,' said Dr Dimitri Christakis, of the Seattle Children's Research Institute, University of Washington, Seattle, US.

'Put simply, television is both good and bad. The quantity of media, such as television, has been an unduly emphasised part of the story. It is not that quantity is unimportant, but the effects of media are more down to what is watched than how much is watched.'

[Martinus]

It seems like Spongebob Squarepants is in an ideological war with Teletubbies.

By making kids gay, Teletubbies made them future liberals. By destroying kids' brains, Spongebob makes them future conservatives.

[Eddie Teach]

By destroying kids' brains, Spongebob makes them future conservatives.

They could still become lawyers.

[Zoupa]

Or soldiers.

[11B4V]

Today their fucking with Sponge Bob. Tomorrow it will be the Penguins of Madagascar.

[Brazen]

In the second the toddlers had to correct following instructions telling them to told their toes when they were told to touch their heads and vice versa, with similar shoulders-knees instructions for those that did well.

Daily Wail sub-editors obviously watch too much Spongebob.

Modern cartoons seem to have no sense of narrative unlike bedtime stories or older cartoons (like Scooby Doo) which means the rewards of concentration such as understanding the denouement are not taught.