From the day it aired on Nickelodeon in 1999, Spongebob Squarepants has been my favorite kids’ cartoon. Not necessarily my favorite overall (South Park’s hilarious social commentary earned it that spot), but definitely my choice among contemporary children’s shows. It’s funny, creative and has unique characters who all represent aspects of real people to various degrees. It even contains some musical numbers that break up the dialogue and spice up the episodes. The humor, especially in earlier seasons, was silly enough to keep kids entertained yet witty enough to evoke a chuckle from the parents watching as well. Overall, I think Spongebob is a pretty solid show.
Apparently, though, some researchers would disagree. Last week, a study was published in the medical journal Pediatrics which claimed watching Spongebob and other similar, “fast-paced” TV shows could lead to impaired executive functioning in young children. In other words, Spongebob is making kids dumb.
Right away, I found the results of the study surprising and felt a bit defensive of the show. I think the Nicktoon is actually pretty educational — the characters talk in complete, coherent sentences about familiar ordinary topics and face obstacles not uncommon in the real world. But according to the new research, the fact that each episode contains a lot of activity and scene changes (as opposed to some of the other less clever and more boring cartoons) is what messes with children’s heads.
The results of the study stated that children who watched a fast-paced TV show — Spongebob — performed less well on cognitive tests than children who watched a slow-paced educational program or who watched no TV and were just allowed to draw. But I’m not so quick to give in to what two researchers have to say without examining the experiment a little bit myself.
When I did, I realized a few things: First, the study only consisted of 60 kids, none of whom were actually tested for attention-deficit disorders that may have affected their behavior in the study. Second, each child was only exposed to one of the three stimuli — either the fast-paced show (Spongebob), the slow-paced show (PBS’s Caillou) or good old-fashioned paper and crayons. If the children had a chance to experience all three, and the researchers measured the differences between their scores after each stimulus, the study would carry a lot more weight.
Lastly, I took issue with the age of the study participants; they were only 4 years old. Spongebob is not targeted at 4-year-olds, and while some children this age are exposed to the show because of older siblings, most of the under-5 crowd is still watching Nick Jr.
It seems to me an equally good explanation for the study’s results is simply that some lame adults with doctorates don’t like the show with the talking sponge. After all, this isn’t the first time Mr. Squarepants has been brought into the public eye for accusations of “harming” youth — remember the ridiculous claims about the character being gay and the show having a pro-homosexual agenda? I wasn’t aware he ever disclosed his sexual orientation (not that it would matter — promoting acceptance is a good thing) or that a kids’ cartoon has any more of an agenda than making money.
In my mind, there’s not enough evidence from this research to claim watching Spongebob has any lasting psychological effect on kids. Think what you want of the study, but until a more conclusive one is conducted (and probably still even then), I’m sticking with my Krabby Patties.
Lauren Mendelsohn is a junior psychology major. She can be reached at mendelsohn@umdbk.com.
