SpongeBob SquarePants In The News

One of the news websites I like to click on every few days is the health blog, "Well," on the New York Times website. Imagine my surprise when SpongeBob SquarePants popped up on there!

In brief, researchers found that 4-year-olds who had watched 9 minutes of SpongeBob did significantly worse on tests of working memory, problem-solving, and attention than children who had watched the slower-paced, more educational TV program Caillou, and children who had spent the 9 minutes drawing without television. The children who watched the cartoon were operating at half the capacity shown in the other two groups of children.

The tests were designed to assess the children's executive functioning, which is a big buzzword in education and psychology lately. Executive functions are brain skills that allow us to do things like manage time, organize tasks and things, prioritize what is most important, plan and adjust the plan as needed, set goals, create solutions to problems, be flexible, initiate and carry out tasks, self-monitor, and use feedback or corrections. You can see how these skills would be very important in learning, work, and social situations throughout life! I have heard executive function described before as the "conductor" if we think of all the other parts of the brain as an orchestra requiring someone to tell them when to start, play their parts, finish, and change course when necessary.

This effect does not happen only with SpongeBob. Similar outcomes have been demonstrated with other shows in which lots of things happen in fast succession, and lots of things happen that cannot take place in real life, such as "the bed catapults you out and you land in a lake wearing an astronaut costume."

Of course imagination and creativity are important, and can and should be developed in children. But these scientists wonder if  "the fast-paced fantastical sequences of some programs might actually prime the early childhood brain to 'not be able to pay attention to something that is not so fantastic.'" The random and unpredictable nature of the cartoon appeared to be more likely to "disrupt the ability to focus rather than strengthen it.” For more ideas on how to stimulate your child's imagination and creativity, you may want to click over to my post from last year on "boredom training sessions."

Here is a link to the whole article, where you can read more about the details of the study and some of the criticisms of it. Of course, this is just one study with one group of children, and we all know that we don't live in a bubble and there are lots of other things going on in our modern world! But, at least for me, this article brought up some interesting ideas to think about and consider.

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