National study shows SpongeBob decreases aptitude

LIS STEWART, staff writer

The “SpongeBob” study is a good message for parents about what kind of TV young children should watch, but more research needs to be done before they blacklist the sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea, Associate Dean for Research in the College of Education and Human Services Jim Dorward said.

“Don’t just turn off ‘SpongeBob’ because of one study,” Dorward said.

The popular cartoon came under scrutiny last week when a study was published online in the journal “Pediatrics,” in which four-year-old children took mental function tests after watching nine minutes of either Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob Squarepants” or “Caillou,” a slower-paced PBS cartoon. Another group spent the same nine minutes drawing.

The study found that the children who watched “SpongeBob Squarepants” did measurably worse on the mental function tests than those who watched “Caillou” or drew.

“Quite honestly the results are fairly dramatic,” Dorward said. “You normally wouldn’t expect differences in the data that are as noticeable or significant as these are.”

The kids’ problem solving, direction following and self control abilities were at about half-capacity during the tests, said Angeline Lillard, the lead author of the study done at the University of Virginia.

The study’s authors concluded that attention spans and learning abilities for children in the “SpongeBob” group were temporarily hindered because of the TV show’s fantasy setting and fast pace.

Dorward added a note of caution when taking this study seriously, however, due to the study’s small sample size. In science, he said, research begets more research.

The children in the study were primarily from white, middle-class families. No tests were done to compare the effects on kids with different cultural factors, age, gender, TV watching habits or disabilities. Dorward said these may be factors future researchers could look into.

“Every kid is different,” he said.

Studies involving children from lower-income areas and more likely Hispanic or African American are in the works, Lillard said. She said tests similar to the “SpongeBob” study are already being done.

“We are currently looking at how long effects last,” Lillard said. “We’ve done a study with six-year-olds and an 11-minute episode, as well as another fast-paced fantasy show — same effects — but want to look at full episodes and other age groups.”

Lillard also said she wants to study the effects of older cartoons, such as “Bugs Bunny,” to see how they compare and whether fantasy or fast-paced programming is responsible for the effects found in the study.

The short-term effects of fantasy, fast-paced programming is the kind of research that could be done at USU to measure brain activity, said Director Ray Reutzel of the Center for Early Childhood Education. The center recently purchased a near-infrared spectrometer, which shows how active the brain is while a person is engaged in various activites.

Last spring the spectrometer was used in a study to compare how active the brain of a fifth grader with dyslexia was, to another fifth grader without reading problems. Images of their brains showed the student with dyslexia used more of his brain to read the passage than the other child. So much activity taxes the brain and makes it tired, Reutzel said.

If a study were done with the spectrometer while children watched a fast-paced TV show, he added, he would expect the results to be similar. Showing TV programs to younger children makes their brains work too hard, he said.

“(The brain) is so engaged, it’s working so hard, it’s being overstimulated basically,” Reutzel said.

But a TV show like “SpongeBob Squarepants” overstimulating kids’ brains may not be such a major concern, Reutzel said, because kids aren’t watching the cartoon to learn.

“It’s sort of like mental junk food,” he said. “You don’t expect it to provide nutrients to the brain that would actually be useful. So why would you expect them to remember or value any of it? It’s just short term flashes of sugar.”

Dorward said there are TV shows made to teach, unlike fantasy, fast-paced programs like “SpongeBob Squarepants,” which are made purely to entertain.

“‘SpongeBob’ is the equivalent of mental sugar,” Reutzel said.

Lillard said it is important to be careful about when children watch fast-paced TV shows if parents notice they have a problem with self control after watching them.

“They might want to limit watching to times where there will be very low expectations of the child afterwards — so not before school, for example,” she said.

Reutzel said children are affected not only by when and what they watch, but also how much. He said more than 10 hours a week of TV watching, or about an hour and a half a day, is when grades start to drop. It’s important to read, learn and be active, he said.

“Don’t let your kids pig out on junk food all week long,” Reutzel said. “Mental junk food — too much TV — just over-taxes the brain.”

– la.stewart@aggiemail.usu.edu
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