This article, “Watching SpongeBob Squarepants Makes Preschoolers Slower Thinkers, Study Finds,” by ABCNews is misleading, but not exaggerated. The article highlights a study done where children were supposed to watch 9 minutes of the Nickelodeon show and then 9 minutes of a slower paced PBS show, and then after were told to focus on a specific task. The results showed that Spongebob had more negative effects in regards to attention span than the PBS show. The article makes it sound as if the content of the Nickelodeon show is what caused the defects, but in reality any sort of entertainment is bound to have negative results on young children. Spongebob is an extremely fast paced show and the National Library of Medicine concluded in a study that, “Children in the fast-paced television group scored significantly worse than the others despite being equal in attention at the outset, as indicated by the parent report.” Although the Nickelodeon show does make preschoolers slower thinkers, I believe the misleading content of the article lies in the fact that Spongebob Squarepants is specifically called out. Although it had more negative effects than the PBS show, the PBS show still had many negative effects also. A different source from the Child Mind Institute wrote an article on the same study and stated that, “[They] wouldn’t advise watching such shows on the way to school or any time they’re expected to pay attention and learn,” I think it is important to note that it is not just Spongebob Squarepants that is the issue, but rather there is larger scope of society influencing the younger generations in regards to media in the wrong way. Preschool is a susceptible age and it is important that children are not influenced by fast paced media at this time in their lives.
https://childmind.org/article/is-spongebob-really-bad-for-preschoolers/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9923845/#:~:text=RESULTS%3A,%2C%20age%2C%20and%20television%20exposure.