Article discussion - Assignment Example

Assignment Byline Article Discussion of Article: “Is SpongeBob SquarePants Bad for Children?” Roni Caryn RabinDate of Publication: September 12, 2011 What is the purpose of this article? What does the author intend to convey? Within the article entitled “Is SpongeBob SquarePants Bad for Children?” the author’s purpose is to inform the audience, particularly parents or soon to be parents, about the recent research that was conducted on children who watched fast-paced television shows such as SpongeBob SquarePants.

The author intends to convey the specifics about the research including the results and the overall interpretation of what these results mean. The author appears to be interested in sharing this information in order to educate the public on the negative effects of television on children’s attention levels and their problem solving abilities. What did you learn from this article? There was much to learn from this particular article. The research itself comprised of 60 children who were split up into three different groups.

Each group was exposed to different elements(Rabin, 2011). According to the article, one group watched SpongeBob SquarePants, another watched an educational program, and the last group were given materials to draw and color with(Rabin, 2011). The time limit for these activities was said to be 9 minutes, whereupon the researchers would then give the children tests and tasks that measured their problem solving skills and attention levels(Rabin, 2011). Ultimately, the research showed that the children who watched SpongeBob SquarePants performed worse on these tests and tasks than the children who watched the educational program and those that drew or colored(Rabin, 2011).

The reasoning that the researchers gave as to why the results showed this was that shows like SpongeBob SquarePants were fast paced meaning that scenes are short and jump around quickly which impacts the child’s ability to focus and learn from the program. According to one of the researchers, Dr. Lillard, the fast paced television “disrupt(s) the child’s thinking process, so they may not be able to grasp the messages that are educational…This suggests the brain is working very hard to register it all and gets exhausted afterward.

”(Rabin, 2011). In the end, this means that fast-paced television is detrimental for young children because they are spending a great deal of their brain power on following the story which causes other aspects of their cognitive functioning to be placed on the back burner. If you were to further research this topic, where might you look, and what might you expect to find? I think that if I were to further research this topic, I would find that there are probably studies out there which refute the results of this research.

However, I think for the most part, most health professionals are in agreement that too much television is not good for people in general, and children in particular. Television can be a helpful tool in learning certain things, but there seems to be a lot of research out there which talks about why television is harmful for the brain and body due to the passivity of the activity, and the fact that most television programs are geared toward entertainment rather than education. I would most likely look for information about this topic in scholarly journals and medical journals because many important research projects have been published on this subject and these type of sources often carry this kind of research.

In fifty or more words describe how this article relates to this course? Be specific.This article relates to this course in that it deals with the idea of basic learning processes. Basic learning processes can encompass a variety of things, but generally, the subject deals with how human beings learn. In particular, children are often studied within this realm of psychology because a great deal of learning occurs within this age group. This article discusses how television plays a part in that learning process in the areas of problem solving and attention spans.

ReferencesRabin, R. C. (2011, September 12). Is spongebob squarePants bad for children? . NYTimes.com. Retrieved September 27, 2011, from http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/12/is-SpongeBob-squarepants-bad-for-children/?ref=psychologyandpsychologists