New research finds that rapidly-paced cartoons such as SpongeBob
Squarepants may be associated with difficulty concentrating for
preschool children. The study out of the University of Virginia,
finds that preschoolers who watched just nine minutes of
SpongeBob were “significantly impaired” in tests that measure a
person’s ability to stay on task. These tests measured the
child’s ability to problem solve, follow rules and remember
information. One of the study’s weaknesses was its size, only
consisting of 60 four-year olds. The children were split into
three groups. One group watched SpongeBob, the second watched an
educational cartoon (Caillou on PBS), and the third group spent
the nine minutes drawing. The children who watched the fast-
paced cartoon did not perform as well in all tasks, compared
with the other two groups: 15 percent of the children who
watched SpongeBob passed the problem-solving task, compared with
35 percent of those who watched the educational cartoon, and 70
percent of those who spent th