Comments on: SpongeBob: Not the Best Test Prep for Your 4-Year-Old

By: HumorAnyone?

HumorAnyone? — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 18:35:31 +0000

Olivia’s reaction to Curtis is exactly the point. She must have watched 9 minutes of Sponge Bob right before posting her comment.

By: Olivia

Olivia — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:24:21 +0000

@ Curtis
Um, are you being serious? A 9-year-old in first grade? If you ARE being for real, I suggest you get some help for that child. And if not then I suggest not sharing information like that. True or not. Sorry for the negativity. :P

By: Curtis

Curtis — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 15:47:08 +0000

Wow! What a great study! I let my kids watch Sponge Bob for like 10 hours a day – they like it and it keeps them out of my hair.

I was wondering why my 9 year old is still in 1st grade – I think I just found the answer.

Thank You Scientists!

By: red

red — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:24:26 +0000

@ Kat: I second that! I mean seriously if we as parents can not recognize the fact that sponge bob is meant to be dumb and our children can figure that one out then maybe we aren’t as smart as we think. I have a beautiful 2 year old who is incredibly smart, we do activities to learn all day, including watching education stuff on PBS like “super why” but at some point she, just like all kids need an escape to laugh at the dumb stuff on sponge bob. And really how is this study even remotely scientific or representative of the young population? 60 kids, 9 minutes of sponge bob and you test them immediately after???

By: Marlene Lundberg

Marlene Lundberg — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 00:05:35 +0000

Does this mean that I have to quit watching Sponge Bob?

Marlene, age 69

By: Kat

Kat — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 22:14:20 +0000

My kids love spongebob. They recognize that spongebob is a moron. That’s the whole point of the show. To laugh at the ridiculous. To find humour In the idiocy. Not everything in life has to Be serious all the time. I think we should be more worried about placing pressure on kids doing pre-school entrance exams, surely???

By: vel

vel — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 18:42:32 +0000

It seems that once upon a time, we expected our children to want to grow up and thus watch and read things more advanced than they were. Now, it’s okay to watch television of a moron cartoon character forever.

It may not be direct causation but it sure seems plausible that we are indeed making our children dumber by having such simplistic cartoons, reality tv, etc.

By: RJS

RJS — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 18:02:20 +0000

This is funny because I often tell my two young children, ages 6 and 8, that if they watch too much TV like Sponge Bob that their brain will shrink. I might actually be right!

By: GuruOfChem

GuruOfChem — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:05:31 +0000

Issues of correlation or causation aside, anyone who does not feel dumber after watching SpongeBob probably has no pulse either – or no brain at all…

By: JMW

JMW — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:54:15 +0000

Regardless of whether this is coincidence or cause-and-effect, in my humble opinion there is NO time that is a good time for a SpongeBob marathon. Or even a SpongeBob sprint.

By: Erik L.

Erik L. — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 01:30:43 +0000

When correlation is mistaken for causation it’s called “Doc’s logic”