Is Sponge Bob destroying kids’ minds — or accelerating their intelligence?
September 13, 2011 by Amara D. Angelica
Young children who watch fast-paced, fantastical television shows may become “handicapped” in their readiness for learning, says a new University of Virginia study.
U.Va. psychologists tested 4-year-old children immediately after they had watched nine minutes of the popular show “SpongeBob SquarePants” and found that their “executive function” — the ability to pay attention, follow rules, remember what they were told, solve problems, and moderate behavior — had been severely compromised.
“At school, they have to behave properly, they need to sit at a table and eat properly, they need to be respectful, and all of that requires executive functions,” said U.Va. psychology professor Angeline Lillard.
“It is possible that the fast pacing, where characters are constantly in motion from one thing to the next, and extreme fantasy, where the characters do things that make no sense in the real world, may disrupt the child’s ability to concentrate immediately afterward. Another possibility is that children identify with unfocused and frenetic characters, and then adopt their characteristics.”
OK, here’s another possibility: schools are just too damn boring and repressive, and it’s unhealthy to keep kids immobilized like prisoners. Can teachers — who were brainwashed as children to sit quietly, follow the rules, take mind-numbing drugs if they move around, and learn to be good little quiet robots — ever keep up with kids whose minds have been sped up way beyond them?
Here’s an idea: what if we replaced schools — modeled on 19th century factories and churches — with fast-paced animated learning environments using AI-enhanced video games, robot cartoon characters, and educational social networks, so kids can grow up with the ability to handle the wildly accelerating computerized world of the future?
Comments (21)
by carlea
well spongebob was never made for four year olds! so of course its going to rot the four year olds mind! its made for children around 18 or 19!
by Mr.X
Where I am from (Germany) most people think almost anything that’s been drawn and animated is made for little children.
I remember, not long ago when I was young enough to watch series (cartoons) like that (in the sense that they were still interesting), that I asked myself how children are supposed to understand these cartoons.
Simpsons for example has quite a lot cultural references and even political jokes.Anyway, it seems that this problem is getting solved by further moves toward “low-brow” culture.
And other cartoons are quite violent and/ or disgusting (in the sense of: better not eat anything before you watch it),for example “Ren&Stimpy.”
I have also seen many people who do not even check what their children are doing, or buy them stuff that may not be appropriate for their age without thinking twice.
This is allegedly the reason that I sometimes have to order movies and games from Austria (if they’re German), or in their original version, if I want to consume them uncensored.
Anyway, the research itself is nothing new, and hardly surprising.I mean, from an evolutionary perspective fast movement, violence, social happenings (look at the way these series are structured) are more important than the cramming of facts.The brain in general does not differentiate between what it sees in terms or real or unreal, and has not evolved to get bombarded through eyes & ears to such an extent (high frequency and high content) as is the case for today’s youth.
Another thing is, if I use my gross sensory motor skills and then immediatly try something like playing my keyboard/piano it is very likely that my performance will suffer.
Why should that be different concerning the attention span?Long-term effects would be much more interesting.
I remember reading a book that said by the age of 20 the typical westerner has recieved 20 times as much information through the visual and auditory channels as 20 average persons at the time
of their great great grandparents, all the while receiving much less stimulation through their haptic channel.This changed the way we construct our reality.
by Shelby
NO its meant for kids ages 6 to 12 and it is combined with very small adult humor here and the so adults can enjoy watching too. Nothing inapproprate rotting kids minds like all the new shows that are out these days that have huge amounts of discusting sybolism that is too inaprpriate for childern to watch,
by magnus yung
I think better when I am moving around or looking at something visually stimulating. It is good to be able to sit down and work, but if I sit for too long I get numb and start imagining things just to escape the boredom of sitting still. I don’t think spongebob makes kids smarter, but it definitely gives them a boost of energy after the show. It might be caused by happiness. After lunch the kids are restless too. I wouldn’t say that eating food inhibits a person’s ability to focus.
by Reasoning Rodent
Please link me to an accredited Open Source School … after all, if children are our future, and not all parents can afford the top flight schools, Open Sourcing is our only hope for equal access and fairness. Open Source teaching, and publicly available internet access for all students.
by kenmizell
Don’t know about ‘accredited’ (but then you have to question who’s doing the accrediting…) But have you seen the Kahn Academy? http://www.khanacademy.org/
This is the future of education. No more will kids get their information 2nd hand (or 10th hand) from a teacher who read a book 10 years ago, now they’ll learn physics from Stephen Hawking. They’ll learn about marketing from Guy Kawasaki. They’ll learn about any topic from the world renouned experts in the field, for free.
by Vstoriguard
Brava, Ms. Angelica!
Two things: at various times in my complicated life I’ve been a teacher, a college instructor, a journalist and an historian.
My experience in teaching has proved to me (at least) that the American school is hopelessly outdated. You are quite right when you saw it is based on Victorian idea about how to produce good factory workers. All those bells, and lining up, and all the rest…
Oh, an aside, the real villans in the piece are not the teachers, but rather the forces outside school ..particularly politicians…who can’t raise their own children but think they know how all children should be taught.
Second, as an historian, I have seen the way that all new media…everything from novels to the internet…has been accused of destroying kids’ minds. Sponge Bob joins an ancient and honored community that includes Huck Finn, Superman, H.G. Wells, and, yes, Shakespeare’s Prospero…destroyers all of proper cognitive processing. All of them were accused at one time or another, of being a bad influence.
vs
victor-storiguard.blogspot.com
by Amara D. Angelica
Victor, I agree. As I see it, education, as conceived by big-government sociopaths aligned with teacher drones, unions, and mindless media, is primarily designed to keep the masses in line to provide an endless supply of passive workers to fund their central-planning socialist goals. Making learners independent thinkers with autodidact tools runs counter to those goals.
by Mr.X
Mr. Orwell wrote people using this kind of language (slogans, big abstract words with negative/positive connotatation) have no specific thoughts on the matter at hand and just want to express that they have a general feeling of dislike for one thing and a feeling of “I like that” for another^^
This is not meant to be disrespectful, in case you feel attacked.
Your statement is just so higly ideological/religious, using all these big words like big-government and socialists.
I for one, if I catch myself repeating the lines of some particular group, start to reexamine what I just said/wrote.
For example, maybe you want to define the words sociopath, socialist and central planning.Or just admit you fell prey to cold war propaganda.
Because: You own idea at the end of the article would either be social discrimination against the poor, or need even more infrastructure to be implemented- making it central planning itself.
Another thing is, if that educational-system is not standarized enough, we’d be again in an age where you can’t know what your potential (do you want to speak to hundreds of them?) employee knows or does not know.
The problems innate in human nature/parental nurture are not solved anyway, but especially not if the curriculum is not standardized.You’ll just drive people apart, producing uneducated people, and encourage the balkanization of society.
If the curriculum gets standardized, then what you have is basically a more expensive school.
If schools are to be abolished and everyone is to be homeschooled, then you are just favoring the already those who are already favored.And your curriculum is certainly not standardized.
And the attention span thing is really annoying, it even harms social skills.And many people with short attention span are agressive.
Because of heritage there can’t be real fair competition between two individuals from different backgrounds, and unequality increases if the state just leaves people alone.
Ps:Who want’s passive workers?If you talk about people not standing up for themselves, then why do you rant against those evil socialist unions?^^
PPs: I am against centralization myself, and I especially hate the high taxes we in Europe have to pay if we are better off.
by Stei1853
In limited dosages, shows like these are probably fine. (Once a week?) Children are chaos wrapped in flesh and fueled by an intense energy to learn and play. Embracing this chaos from time to time (recess!) is good for their education. It’s when parents sit their kids down for hours on end that the damage/neglect happens. A child is a computer slowly being programmed… and when your input is $4i%, don’t be surprised when the software doesn’t meet your expectations.
I pray that once life expectancy takes off, world population stabilizes, and people have children LESS often, society can allocate tremendous amounts of resources to our young ones.
by Jackmode
I definitely agree with both comments. The ability to focus is diminishing among young children, as seen with the enormous increase in rates of conditions such as ADHD and subsequently the drugs associated with aiding the conditions. Isn’t attention a cognitive function that is absolutely essential to learning conceptual ideas, facts and other forms of learning? We must adopt the philosophy of optimizing attention span in our educational systems. Personally, I regard the ability to pay deep attention as one of the best qualities of what it is to be human.
Of course, technological advancement will enable us to grab the useful information quickly and leave out the (unimportant?) details because that is advantageous. Anything that is advantageous will proliferate, especially when it involves heuristics for useful information. We are already seeing this with news segments, web pages, etc. So we must be mindful that attention-span is an essential part of us while we continue to adjust to the new information-dense digital world.
Diet and exercise will continue to be absolutely critical to proper cognitive functioning (and particularly the ability to focus) for quite some time so we must emphasize this, but more so than currently being done. Everyone knows that exercise and diet can enhance well being more than most things. This can come from an obese, lazy smoker! People are failing to self improve in this regard, which can be seen in obesity rates. I propose that gym memberships be paid for by governments, which will have an initial investment but it will pay for itself several times over by vastly reducing healthcare costs.
by lachlan
I completely disagree with the point about accelerating intelligence! To put in layman’s terms (which I am), I think there are two very general types of people: those who create and those who consume (media, technology, etc.) – obviously there’s lot of overlap, but again generally speaking… I believe having a fully developed executive function is vital to develop into the former. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t advocate keeping the industrial age model of education, I just don’t think bombarding developing brains with fast paced digital imagery/stimulus will do anything but make them into short attention spanned consumers. Which might be fine once we get past the current paradigm where people have to work to provide basics like food/clothing/shelter, but who knows how long that will take???
by Editor
“Bombarding developing brains with fast paced digital imagery/stimulus will do anything but make them into short attention spanned consumers…” Agreed, and an important point, but I am not advocating compulsory “bombarding” of children (the war metaphor is indeed appropriate) and allow them to learn at their own pace and with tools (like those from the Khan Academy or in the most successful charter schools) that are most effective and enjoyable for each individual, something not possible with state-controlled education.
by Mind.matriX
Lol, apparently this study’s been everywhere. One of my professors used it in class today.
The sample size used in the study was too small, and there were a lot of flaws in the methodology of the experiment. Of course KurzweilAI would disregard these problems and put an obvious slant on how this study should be interpreted.
by Editor
Sample size, methodology: good points that I should have mentioned.
by geekette
I agree with everything you said except for one point. Retention of information in the human mind requires focus of attention. When we
are physically still, it engages different circuitry, some of it competing with,
focus of attention circuits that are active when we are active. I do think
sitting still as much as we are forced to is a BAD way to do things. But there needs to be a mind training to allow us to transition from a singular focus which is required for acquiring new information and retaining it, similar to that of meditation, and behaving like a squirrel. Kids absorb what they see like a SPONGE. Tai Chi is an nice blend of movement and concentration together. Totally different kind of mind state than that of hyper chaos behavior, flitting from one topic to the next, which is not conducive to retaining information.
DIET is another factor in our ability to concentrate. The American diet is loaded with sugar and carbs. This is another source of behavior
problem. and leads to obesity and diabetes.
Apologies for any typos. For some reason, the last upgrade in my browser makes the font size 6 when I pull up a news item.
by Editor
“Retention of information in the human mind requires focus of attention… there needs to be a mind training…”: Children focus spontaneously on useful and interesting information and when they are ready, and they don’t need meditation, Tai Chi, and other mind-control procedures — just freedom.
by Mr.X
“Children focus spontaneously on useful and interesting information and when they are ready, and they don’t need meditation, Tai Chi, and other mind-control procedures — just freedom.”
In my experience this is not true.Do you say that all these young persons whose development is “retarded”, who only do stuff that’s fun and are unemployable are produced by society, through the schools in which they fail?
Oh, sry.I forgot the USA has a big industry keeping this “pathologism” alive.Restless leg syndrom…
I guess this freedom thing explains why rich people send their kids to elite schools.
Have a nice day;)
Ps: I personally think one needs to learn how to control his mind, especially if he’s considering doing something hard.It also produces less egocentrical persons.
by rubart
Amara Angelica’s argument is a perfect example of “either/or”–that is, going from one extreme to the other with no middle ground. I think the University of Virginia study makes some very valid points: when children (and adults, for that matter) are subjected to to a continually frenetic pace, they lose their ability to concentrate and, in effect, become non-functional except as to how well they can be “moved” from one spot to the next (and the next, and the next, and the next . . .).
I agree that schools can be too damned boring. I certainly found them so when I was a student. But, by not being subjected to continual frenetic input (which we didn’t have in “my day,”), I learned to figure out *why* I found school so damned boring, what was wrong with much of what my teachers were saying about who I was supposed to be, who I *really* was, and what steps I might take to affirm who I really was and create a fulfilling life for myself (all of which I did).
In short, I learned to *own my own consciousness.*
This opportunity now seems lost in our present culture. Angelica might well cheer on kids’ growing up with all the chaotic madness so they’ll have “the ability to handle the wildly accelerating computerized world of the future.” But without having control of their own consciousness–which requires a solid amount of quiet time and space–they simply won’t exist, no matter how action-packed “their” lives are.
by Editor
“Requires a solid amount of quiet time and space…”: Agreed, something not possible with compulsory mass education.
by Mr.X
Yeah, I once read people line up their arguments like soldiers, and want their battles to be onesided.
Most of politics tends to extremes, something one can fall prey to if he has not much control over his emotions.This is true at least for me.