Does SpongeBob Hurt Attention Spans?

Kids who watch SpongeBob might have shorter attention spans than those that watch Caillou, but at least they're a lot cooler.

SpongeBob SquarePants will make your child stupid. Well, the cartoon might at least hurt your kid's attention span, as a University of Virginia study found that four-year-olds were less able to focus immediately after watching nine minutes of the show than kids who watched the much more gentle (and bo-ring) program Caillou or spent the nine minutes drawing. Immediately after the shows, the kids had to take tests to measure their recollection abilities, whether they could follow rules, and how well they solved problems. Those who watched SpongeBob were routinely outperformed by the other two groups. The researchers think the rapid, chaotic pace of SpongeBob has something to do with it, as the scenes changed in that show once every 11 seconds, compared to once every 34 seconds in Caillou. That might be the case, but have you ever tried to sit through Caillou? Watching paint dry is more stimulating, plus you have to think that a show about a cleaning utensil that lives in a pineapple under the sea has got to at least be helping these kids' imaginations.