The cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants is in hot water from a study suggesting that watching just nine minutes of that program can cause short-term attention and learning problems in 4-year-olds.
The problems were seen in a study of 60 children randomly assigned to either watch "SpongeBob," or the slower-paced PBS cartoon "Caillou" or assigned to draw pictures. Immediately after these nine-minute assignments, the kids took mental function tests; those who had watched "SpongeBob" did measurably worse than the others.
One, have you seen "Caillou?" My God, it is so boring that I remember times I was lucky to have an electric oven and a trigger lock. We should play it at Guantanamo Bay, for Pete's sake. If I had to choose operating heavy machinery after watching one of those two shows, I'd pick "SpongeBob" hands down. Let's not even open the floor to the "Barney" issue, eh?
And two, are they serious? This is what you are studying? So don't have your 4-year-old take their entrance exam for Little Einstein's Harvard Preparatory Pre-School and Thinknasium right after watching "SpongeBob."
I think I should let SpongeBob have the last word on this science:
Now that's what I'm talking about!
