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SpongeBob Causes Attention Problems, Says New Study
They say everyone's favorite sponge causes attention problems.
Unless you’ve been stuck under a rock, you’ve seen a SpongeBob SquarePants episode or two, or 10… possibly more. SpongeBob quickly became a favorite in our household back in 1999. My oldest daughter was 7 at the time and most children in her class were tuning in. My younger daughter was 2, and she would watch along, not always knowing what was going on, but they enjoyed it. When my son was born, he also eventually became engulfed in what was going on in Bikini Bottom.
Now researchers are saying that the program causes an attention problem in many kids after just nine minutes of viewing, according to the study published online Monday in the journal, Pediatrics.They say that when they compared 60 four-year-olds who watched with SpongeBob or the slower paced Caillou, the kids who watched SpongeBob scored vastly lower than the kids who watched Caillou.
To their defense, Nickelodeon maintains that the show is geared for 6-11 year olds, not preschoolers. Yet on the other hand, I’d say that most four-year-olds do indeed watch the show. When my kids watched Caillou, they were about 2 or 3 the most. By age four, that show is extremely slow for most quick thinking four-year-olds who are already in full-time school. Plus, Caillou is such a whiner!
The comparison in this study was off simply because the age recommendations do not match. Also, how do we know that the kids involved didn’t already have attention problems prior to those 9 minutes of viewing time? Odds are, they did.
I’m skeptical that any 9 minutes of TV viewing can cause attention problems. Even the full show wouldn’t phase me or change my view that a half-hour cartoon can do anything harmful. Yet researchers disagree:
Kids’ cartoon shows typically feature about 22 minutes of action, so watching a full program “could be more detrimental,” the researchers speculated, but they said more evidence is needed to confirm that.
More detrimental, really? It seems like everything is becoming so crazy in parenting sometimes. Do we need studies for every little thing and even worse, rely on them to make up our minds? What happened to our common sense and confidence in being a parent to make the right decisions? This study is flaky to say the least.
The show is for older kids, yes, but it’s also funny. It’s a show that doesn’t make me want rip my ears off, one that I can watch without counting down the minutes until it’s over, and I like the cheap Mr. Krabs, the ditzy Patrick and the tough as nails, Sandy.
Do you let your kids watch SpongeBob? Will this study change your mind?
Image: Wikipedia
More on SpongeBob:
Spongebob Squarepants? 10 More Cartoons That Could Ruin Your Kid
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20 Comments
Jennifer commented on Sep 12 11 at 3:34 pmSpongebob is banned in our house. There is nothing valuable in that show, and I can totally buy into this survey.
Manjari commented on Sep 12 11 at 4:07 pmNo Spongebob in this house, mostly because I think it’s weird and irritating.
Jessica commented on Sep 12 11 at 4:16 pmMy son who will be 4 on Saturday is a HUGE fan of Spongebob. His birthday party last year had a SB theme and this year’s will be SB and Cars (his other favorite). Yes, he has loved that grating sponge for over a year now, and I really have no problem with it. Until he calls me a fool (thank you Squidward) or tells the dog he’s an idiot. Then he doesn’t get to watch it for a few days. He is a very active little boy who loves playing outside and riding his bike and lots of other activities. So I don’t mind that when he slows down he requests some Spongebob.
el commented on Sep 12 11 at 4:49 pmI’m sorry what? I was watching Spongebob and stopped paying attention. ;)
MAR commented on Sep 12 11 at 10:02 pmSpongebob is trash for the brain. Lord knows we have enough of that on TV. That is why TV in our house is monitored for educational content and we only allow 2 hours MAX in a day.
I am not raising illiterate stupid children to support liberal ideologies.
Matt commented on Sep 12 11 at 11:56 pmStudies like this always leave me skeptical.
1. They compared Caillou to Spongebob. Caillou is pure sedative. It is absolutely boring, and my kids struggle to maintain interest. After watching 9 minutes of that, drawing a picture is going to be downright awesome. At least I don’t have to watch anymore comatose Caillou.
2. There was no control group, therefore thIs is not even science. What if kids wached Animal Planet…or nothing? What if the follow-up task was a complex game, not drawing? Spongebob is simply more stimulative than boring Caillou, so settling kids down is harder, but so what? Who says kids learn best by being bored to death? Since when is a child’s mind supposed to be a sterile morgue?
We have this bias that a stimulated child is a problem. So we load them up with Ritalin. It is downright criminal. A child’s mind is wired to absorb and engage and to test boundaries. Good for that, it is how we learn.
Doctors, scientists and increasingly teachers simply want to sedate our kids into mindless passivity and obedience. It is self-serving garbage.
Matt commented on Sep 13 11 at 12:43 amJust to clarify my point above, these findings are the result of moving children from one level of stimulation to another too quickly.
The Caillou kids would have suffered in a fast moving activity too, but the researchers were not interested in enlightenment, only a buzzy headline.
john cave osborne commented on Sep 13 11 at 9:33 ami loathe caillou. amazed it has the appeal that it does.
i like spongeBob, but don’t love it. oddly, we’ve never really been that into it over at my house.
final thought: so with you on the every little study sentiment. what *did* happen to parents kinda figuring it out for themselves?
great stuff, danielle.
Sam commented on Sep 13 11 at 9:51 amSpongebob used to be fun to watch and only on the occasions of his never-ending screaming or crying did I sincerely want to fill my ears with peanut butter and hurt someone. Now the most irritating thing is that there seems to be a gay twist (no homophobe here) in everything and they changed the voice/actor to an even more irritating one. For my own sanity, I allow Spongebob viewing about as often as I go to the dentist or a gynecologist….
moi commented on Sep 13 11 at 11:32 amI think COMMERCIALS are more of a problem. They shouldn’t be allowed on kid’s t.v.
katybee commented on Sep 13 11 at 11:40 amI like SpongeBob, my son has watched the show since he was 2 or 3 he is now 5. We do not have TV access in the house anymore so the only SpongeBob he can see now is on the 3 DVDs which he has in his movie collection, so he doesn’t get too much exposure anymore, but I find the program very funny myself sometimes, it depends on your type of humor, I tend to be sarcastic like a lot of what you get in the show.
Danielle Sullivan commented on Sep 13 11 at 12:44 pm@John Yep, loathe pretty accurately sums up my feelings for Caillou too! Thanks for the kind words, as always.
bob commented on Sep 13 11 at 2:21 pmI, for one, have had my preconceptions reinforced by this study as well as this discussion of it.
Caitie commented on Sep 13 11 at 2:22 pmThere are far worse things out there then a 15 minute sponge bob episode. I think commercials are more of an issue then the actual cartoons.
Dawn Rose commented on Sep 13 11 at 3:48 pmMy 3 yr old daughter generally prefers more educational tv, so that’s what I let her watch in moderation. But, she also loves Spongebob. Personally I think spongebob is ridiculous, and offers nothing positive. With that being said, I truly believe that everyone needs a creative moment. A moment to decompress from the information overload every day brings.
Do I like Spongebob? Not in the slightest. Do I like my daughter watching Spongebob? It’s not my favorite. But I decided rather than completely banning something that isn’t what I would consider really harmful I allow her to watch an episode or two once a week. This way she gets to watch something she really enjoys, but not so much that it’s going to make a negative impact on her intelligence.
Jenna commented on Sep 13 11 at 5:50 pmNo Spongebob in our house but not because of this lame “study” but because for me Spongebob IS the show that makes me want to rip my ears off and count the minutes till it’s over. (Ironically, the same reason there is no Caillou here either.)
Stacy commented on Sep 13 11 at 8:28 pmMy husband and I discussed this study last night after reading about it in the New York Times. We both feel that shows like Spongebob and most of the other fare on Nickelodeon is too frenetic for our child. I feel out of sorts and overstimulated when I watch these shows with my older nieces and nephews, so I imagine they would affect my three-year-old in a similar (if not worse) way. Our son loves Curious George, Sesame Street and most of the Pixar movies, which is fine by us in moderation. But I agree with the previous posters that Calliou is awful and that the study needed both a control group that didn’t watch any TV and a more challenging puzzle or task after the show was viewed to make it more credible.
jenny tries too hard commented on Sep 13 11 at 10:24 pmHa, bob! Isn’t it great that there are people smarter and better-educated than us doing all these studies to tell us we were right to begin with?
Shaina commented on Sep 13 11 at 10:38 pmOh my goodness. One is really going to put a focus JUST ON SPONGEBOB?? I am hoping I am not the only one who hopes that their child has higher hopes for intelligence by banning EVERY CARTOON IN THE HOUSE. ONE SHOW DOES NOT CAUSE THE WHOLE BRAIN TO SHUT DOWN FOR GOOD. I am disgusted at the way that children only focus on TV now; when I was a child TV was for rainy days. I do not think that any parent has their child watching SpongeBob 24/7. No need to blow out parents. Your child will watch what they want to.
Chelsea commented on Dec 30 11 at 12:26 pmI seriously don’t see what the harm in spongebob could be… I watched it as a kid and still managed to have a super high iq and no attention problems what-so-ever. I am now the mother of twins and aunt of a 2 year old who loves her “pon-bob” and dora. When my twins get old enough, if they want to watch sponge-bob and actually sit for more than a few minutes like my niece does, I am certainly not going to deny them that!
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