Posted on 09/12/2011 5:51:15 AM PDT by ZULU
CHICAGO (AP) - The cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants is in hot water from a study suggesting that watching just nine minutes of that program can cause short-term attention and learning problems in 4-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.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...
Oh, swell!!
...”or the slower-paced PBS cartoon “Caillou””
Yeah but Caillou’s a wuss.
I’ll bet 9 minutes of time out does the most damage.
I feel vindicated.
I always told my kids Sponge Bob makes ya stupid.
What about kids who watch teleprompters? I have heard they’re the most brain damaged of all.
I would think that exposure to television programming at any age has an immediate attention draining effect. After all, television watching is inherently the cause of short term attention. Hasn’t anyone read Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death? That the government has to waste money on these obvious studies is frustrating.
Another ridiculous study...but stay tuned - there will be one out tomorrow to counter this one. Good grief. These are likey the same ilk that says Bugs Bunny was too violent for us, too. (from someone who has a shrine in the backyard to Mel Blanc)
I actually used to watch a bit of Spongebob when my daughter was that age...wasn’t bad...wasn’t great...but occasionally funny.
Cartoon police, here we go.
Yeah, really!
I used to watch spongebob all the time and I’ve never had...
uh..
wait... what?
But another study shows that kids who watch PBS’s cartoon “Caillou” are at much greater risk of being bored to death.
I watch Spongebob today. Sometimes its the most edifying show on TV which doesn’t say much for cable TV. You can only watch so many re-runs of National Geographic or take so much political revisionism on the History Channel. That leaves you with Spongebob, FOX, or Pawnstars.
But then I grew up watching Farmer Grey get his head beat in on cartoons. Aside from voting for a Democrat once or twice, I am pretty normal.
They tried the experiment with kids watching Oprah but one kid’s head exploded and they had to stop the experiment for ethical reasons.
LOL!!!
I wouldn’t think a 4 year old would “get” spongebob.
It’s not for kids that young as far as I can tell.
i have a feeling that the actual purpose of the study was to get parents to have kids watch PBS and get a bigger dose of politically correct indoctrination.
You should see what nine minutes of NPR does to my liberal friends.
The only thing more stultify on TV is the Joy Behar Show or the View!!.
I was in a doctor’s office once and they were running The View. I demanded they turn it off and the surprised Receptionist accomodated me.
Spongebob is a welcome breath of clever satire in the nearly dead corpse of modern cartoon programming. I think it is the Rocky and Bullwinkle of its time.
If 9 minutes of Sponge Bob turns young minds to jello, imagine the effect of listening to one of Obama’s teleprompter readings.
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