spongebob makes kids stupid.

[gyrene81]

Where did I attack those studies and their results?  You have confused my criticism of the study conducted by Dr. Christakis and the criticism of its results and that of other studies.  You have jumped to a conclusion that was unfortunately false.

aaaannnd it's on...    school is in session. watch carefully now, it's not slight of hand nor quantum science.

What kind of physician would release such inconclusive and misleading results?  
This is a perversion of clinical medicine and academic rigor.  
In conclusion, though this man is not a quack, his methodolgy is poor and his claims poorly substantiated.

false, wrong, nonsense...on what basis do you make such claims? again, you did not actually read the published study from the op.

here are a few to read with similar conclusions. (i know you won't actually read them and even if you did, there would be a lack of comprehension about the methodology) <---insult intended

first study article up, dr. dimitri christakis et al on the effects of television on 1 to 3 year olds...
http://www.pediatricsdigest.mobi/content/113/4/708.full
obviously the article in the op was not his first rodeo...

other published studies
http://stmaryseminars.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/5sanders.pdf
http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/156/9/910
http://umaine.edu/publications/4100e/

i guess they didn't realize you are a much more learned scientist...  

Furthermore, your statement that the similar socioeconomic backgrounds was a correct method is utterly false.  The samples in a correctly executed clinical trial are randomized.  These were not randomized, therefore the study is compromised.  Also, you have still not answered my question about long-term testing.

so according to you, to conduct a proper study of how television affects child behavioral development there must be a mix of control groups regardless of how it would affect the results of the study by intermingling children of divergent socio economic backgrounds. the researchers obviously used carefully screened "middle class" children because that socio economic class of people tends to make up the largest percentage of the countries population and they have the greatest tendency for exposure to the television program in question than higher and lower income households. if the study had a different focus, then yes, more randomized focus groups would have been called for. as it sits, psychological research has to be more focused than studies such as environment or public opinion.

The comment on my lack of education is psychology is pointless- I did not say that Lillard was right or wrong.  I said that besides her degree in the field, she has little else to offer in this debate. Also, the principles of clinical testing can be known by anyone, be they psychologist, entomolgist, ichthyologist, botantist, or high school student.  I was referring to how her endorsement of the claim is frivolous; there was no mention of any other opinion by any other psychologist.  Her PhD. in psychology does not make her any more of an authority on the subject than any other PhD.  With so many PhD.'s out there, it would be foolish to argue that Lillard's opinion is in any way representative of them all.

my comment on your lack of education is not based on opinion as it is provable fact. whereas, you're negative comments on the veracity of dr's lillard and christakis credentials are based on sheer uneducated opinion. dr. lillard has very obviously been involved with a large number of child behavioral psychology studies, therefore in this case her "endorsement" of the study in question is very much within her realm of expertise, regardless of whether you understand the studies or not. please explain how the opinion of a phd professor in quantum physics would carry as much weight on an article about child psychology as that of a phd professor in psychology? that is your assertion is it not? you appear to not understand the difference between "clinical testing" and "clinical study", the research in question is not testing children for a disease or abnormality, it is studying the behavioral effects of exposure to a particular type of television programming.

Where is my claim of intellectual superiority?

ok, am i to assume you do not view such language as a proclamation of your superior knowledge and expertise?

What kind of physician would release such inconclusive and misleading results?  
This is a perversion of clinical medicine and academic rigor.  
In conclusion, though this man is not a quack, his methodolgy is poor and his claims poorly substantiated.
Therefore, why would such a respected psychologist* release such an inconclusive and shoddy study that even a highschooler could shoot down?  
Face it, this study is baloney.  I've done my research this time.

Thus far, you have falsely accused me of:

• Claiming knowledge of psychology when I have not done anything more than pointed out the holes in a study, which is something that anyone could do
• Not comprehending written information while completely misunderstanding my clearly worded point.
• Making a claim of intellectual superiority while simultaneously making such a claim yourself.

quite the contrary, i have not made any false claims or accusations against you. everything i have said is very obvious to anyone who has bothered to read your nonsense.

Not only that, but you have dodged many of my questions as well:

• What long-term effects were there?
• Why were the groups not random?
• Why would a well respected psychologist release such a flawed study?

you never asked me any such questions. but i will attempt to answer if you like. there was no argument toward long term effects as the article clearly states "short term", however other such studies have come to similar conclusions based on similar study methods. the groups were random, they were not from the same geographical location, nor where they related. in order to rule out certain factors typically found in low income and high income households, children from the middle class were chosen due to their demographics. for one, they are more likely to be exposed to certain types of television programming than low income or high income children, which was the reason for the study. since the middle class makes up the largest portion of the u.s. economic group, they are typically used as the "average" or "median" study group. the baseline was established by choosing a socio economic group with the highest numbers within the overall population and the highest possibility of continued exposure to varied television programming. the study is not flawed, regardless of what you believe. at most it could be considered incomplete since the possibility of having prolonged access to the focus group of children is not likely.


if you do not like being insulted, do not pretend to know something you do not. i seriously would have thought you learned that lesson the last time you attempted to assert your genius only to have it exposed as a lack of knowledge.

[skorpion]

oh my, this is VERY entertaining to watch.


who knew spongebob could make such an argument...

[Penguin]

aaaannnd it's on...    school is in session. watch carefully now, it's not slight of hand nor quantum science.
false, wrong, nonsense...on what basis do you make such claims? again, you did not actually read the published study from the op.

here are a few to read with similar conclusions. (i know you won't actually read them and even if you did, there would be a lack of comprehension about the methodology) <---insult intended

first study article up, dr. dimitri christakis et al on the effects of television on 1 to 3 year olds...
http://www.pediatricsdigest.mobi/content/113/4/708.full
obviously the article in the op was not his first rodeo...

other published studies
http://stmaryseminars.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/5sanders.pdf
http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/156/9/910
http://umaine.edu/publications/4100e/

i guess they didn't realize you are a much more learned scientist...  

so according to you, to conduct a proper study of how television affects child behavioral development there must be a mix of control groups regardless of how it would affect the results of the study by intermingling children of divergent socio economic backgrounds. the researchers obviously used carefully screened "middle class" children because that socio economic class of people tends to make up the largest percentage of the countries population and they have the greatest tendency for exposure to the television program in question than higher and lower income households. if the study had a different focus, then yes, more randomized focus groups would have been called for. as it sits, psychological research has to be more focused than studies such as environment or public opinion.
my comment on your lack of education is not based on opinion as it is provable fact. whereas, you're negative comments on the veracity of dr's lillard and christakis credentials are based on sheer uneducated opinion. dr. lillard has very obviously been involved with a large number of child behavioral psychology studies, therefore in this case her "endorsement" of the study in question is very much within her realm of expertise, regardless of whether you understand the studies or not. please explain how the opinion of a phd professor in quantum physics would carry as much weight on an article about child psychology as that of a phd professor in psychology? that is your assertion is it not? you appear to not understand the difference between "clinical testing" and "clinical study", the research in question is not testing children for a disease or abnormality, it is studying the behavioral effects of exposure to a particular type of television programming.


ok, am i to assume you do not view such language as a proclamation of your superior knowledge and expertise?


quite the contrary, i have not made any false claims or accusations against you. everything i have said is very obvious to anyone who has bothered to read your nonsense.

you never asked me any such questions. but i will attempt to answer if you like. there was no argument toward long term effects as the article clearly states "short term", however other such studies have come to similar conclusions based on similar study methods. the groups were random, they were not from the same geographical location, nor where they related. in order to rule out certain factors typically found in low income and high income households, children from the middle class were chosen due to their demographics. for one, they are more likely to be exposed to certain types of television programming than low income or high income children, which was the reason for the study. since the middle class makes up the largest portion of the u.s. economic group, they are typically used as the "average" or "median" study group. the baseline was established by choosing a socio economic group with the highest numbers within the overall population and the highest possibility of continued exposure to varied television programming. the study is not flawed, regardless of what you believe. at most it could be considered incomplete since the possibility of having prolonged access to the focus group of children is not likely.


if you do not like being insulted, do not pretend to know something you do not. i seriously would have thought you learned that lesson the last time you attempted to assert your genius only to have it exposed as a lack of knowledge.

I'd like to make some things clear:
I have read and understood the study.  If you won't believe me, to you, I may as well be a dog who can type.
I have not made any claims regarding whether the results were true or not.
My only point is that it was not correctly conducted.

To continue, those links were quite interesting, and I will read them more thoroughly tomorrow because it is late and I have to wake up early for school.  I cannot make a comment on them at this time.  However, these studies have no place in this matter- I did not make an assertion as to their truth value.  I have no expertise in that area.  So please, stop parading that strawman around.

According to me?  Are you kidding?  That question is more loaded than Bill Gates.  The randomization of samples is a key part of any study.  In this case, the four year olds were unlikely to watch Spongebob anyway (I certainly don't remember watching anything besides Looney Tunes, Megaman, and Metabots back then, and that's only if I weren't completely out of ideas for playing pretend.).  How would poor children be unlikely to watch Spongebob?  Why would the rich not watch it?  Those claims have no substantiation.  As for the middle class being average, do you refer to the statistical middle class, or the professional class?  They are anything but similar.  However, I digress.  As for non-random samples being necessary for psychology, that is only true up until a point (e.g., studies of children require children, but not just white children).  This study has gone far beyond that point, its sample was almost all white and middle to upper class.

In brief, an ideal clinical trial is randomized and double blind.  The samples were not randomized, therefore the study is flawed. <sup>[1]

[1]</sup>Page three, fourth paragraph: http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=pIx-0LvD6agC&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=ideal+clinical+trial&ots=LeGa9TPPaW&sig=jGJgq_RqN0DeDMsyyd-rIvIWZbs#v=onepage&q=ideal%20clinical%20trial&f=false

Moving forward, clincal testing is part of a larger clinical study.  The article referred to a clincal study.  Again, you're dodging the point.  However, I must cede on the PhD. debacle.  I worded that horribly, if you'd allow me to rephrase (though this will sound redundant).

The fact that she has a PhD. in psychology does not make her any more of an authority on the subject than anyone else who has a PhD in psychology.

My bad, I tried to make it sound nicer and butchered the actual message.

As for the false claims and accusations, here are some quotes:
Your claim of intellectual superiority:

i would have thought the last time you tried to argue with me taught you a lesson,

Your failure to comprehend my claim, along with the accompanying strawman and the claim that I understand psychology:

here are a few to read with similar conclusions. (i know you won't actually read them and even if you did, there would be a lack of comprehension about the methodology) <---insult intended

first study article up, dr. dimitri christakis et al on the effects of television on 1 to 3 year olds...
http://www.pediatricsdigest.mobi/content/113/4/708.full
obviously the article in the op was not his first rodeo...

other published studies
http://stmaryseminars.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/5sanders.pdf
http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/156/9/910
http://umaine.edu/publications/4100e/

i guess they didn't realize you are a much more learned scientist...

The opening was harsh, as it should have been.  The study was incomplete at best and fatally flawed at worst.  If he didn't want to publicize it, he didn't have to.  You still haven't answered the most important question:

Why would such a respected psychologist publicize a study that required so much more work to be conclusive?

-Penguin

[Raphael]

guys just relax and watch sponge bob.

[Penguin]

guys just relax and watch sponge bob.

Ah, but is it good for us?

-Penguin

[gyrene81]

I'd like to make some things clear:
I have read and understood the study.  If you won't believe me, to you, I may as well be a dog who can type.
I have not made any claims regarding whether the results were true or not.
My only point is that it was not correctly conducted.

i know i shouldn't do this so damn early in the morning but...i'm up and the coffee is flowing.

just to get your thoughts on track properly, i say again, you obviously did not read the published study, nor did you thoroughly read the news article or look up other articles of the same study. the reason i know this is, your continued responses are clearly reactionary toward the title of the original post, not based on the contents of the news article and absolutely not based on reading the actual published study.  nowhere does the news article show that dr. lillards published research makes the claim that spongbob makes kids stupid. you directed your first response toward dr. christakis the pediatrician, whose only involvement was to write a commentary on the actual study, otherwise he was not involved. and you continue to refer to dr. christakis as the person who published the study. that is blatantly obvious to anyone who has read all of your responses, including those i quote here. you are literally chasing squirrels in an effort to be right and you are failing.

throughout all of your resonses you have repeatedly focused on what you believe to be proper research methodology, with no basis of fact to back your claim. also based on your repetitive responses i charge that you do not know what a clinical trial actual entails, as it does not pertain to dr. lillards study. the title of the article and the objective statement in the article plainly state the study was intended to measure "The Immediate Impact of Different Types of Television on Young Children's Executive Function". the objective statement:

The goal of this research was to study whether a fast-paced television show immediately influences preschool-aged children’s executive function (eg, self-regulation, working memory).

WHAT’S KNOWN ON THIS SUBJECT:  Previous study results have suggested a longitudinal association between entertainment television and later attention problems.

WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS:  Using a controlled experimental design, this study found that preschool-aged children were significantly impaired in executive function immediately after watching just 9 minutes of a popular fast-paced television show relative to after watching educational television or drawing.

now, had you actually read the entire published research document as i have, taking your claim to above average intelligence into consideration, you should not have made the same repetitive mistakes in questioning not only the research but the researchers, their credentials and their methodology. i'll let you find the actual published study since giving you the link would be too easy.

To continue, those links were quite interesting, and I will read them more thoroughly tomorrow because it is late and I have to wake up early for school.  I cannot make a comment on them at this time.  However, these studies have no place in this matter- I did not make an assertion as to their truth value.  I have no expertise in that area.  So please, stop parading that strawman around.

there is no strawman. contrary to your belief, those other articles have as much bearing on this discussion as any and all such studies are similar. questioning the validity of findings from one study out of many similar studies, questions them all. in your own words, you have no expertise, yet you continue to question not only the work but the individuals who do have the expertise based on some less than fully educated notions of how research should be conducted.

According to me?  Are you kidding?  That question is more loaded than Bill Gates.  The randomization of samples is a key part of any study.  In this case, the four year olds were unlikely to watch Spongebob anyway (I certainly don't remember watching anything besides Looney Tunes, Megaman, and Metabots back then, and that's only if I weren't completely out of ideas for playing pretend.).  How would poor children be unlikely to watch Spongebob?  Why would the rich not watch it?  Those claims have no substantiation.  As for the middle class being average, do you refer to the statistical middle class, or the professional class?  They are anything but similar.  However, I digress.  As for non-random samples being necessary for psychology, that is only true up until a point (e.g., studies of children require children, but not just white children).  This study has gone far beyond that point, its sample was almost all white and middle to upper class.

In brief, an ideal clinical trial is randomized and double blind.  The samples were not randomized, therefore the study is flawed. <sup>[1]

[1]</sup>Page three, fourth paragraph: http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=pIx-0LvD6agC&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=ideal+clinical+trial&ots=LeGa9TPPaW&sig=jGJgq_RqN0DeDMsyyd-rIvIWZbs#v=onepage&q=ideal%20clinical%20trial&f=false

Moving forward, clincal testing is part of a larger clinical study.  The article referred to a clincal study.  Again, you're dodging the point.  However, I must cede on the PhD. debacle.  I worded that horribly, if you'd allow me to rephrase (though this will sound redundant).

The fact that she has a PhD. in psychology does not make her any more of an authority on the subject than anyone else who has a PhD in psychology.

My bad, I tried to make it sound nicer and butchered the actual message.

As for the false claims and accusations, here are some quotes:
Your claim of intellectual superiority: Your failure to comprehend my claim, along with the accompanying strawman and the claim that I understand psychology:
The opening was harsh, as it should have been.  The study was incomplete at best and fatally flawed at worst.  If he didn't want to publicize it, he didn't have to.  You still haven't answered the most important question:

Why would such a respected psychologist publicize a study that required so much more work to be conclusive?

-Penguin

i'm not even going to bother readdressing the redundancy you continue to pursue. suffice to say, again, if you had actually read the news article as well as others based on the same published research document, and the actual published research document you would see that the research and the conclusions are sound. you should also actually read that book you linked, it clearly defines what a clinical trial entails and the research published by dr. lillard was not a clinical trial.

[grizz441]

You guys sure do put in a lot of effort to win the argument.

[gyrene81]

You guys sure do put in a lot of effort to win the argument.

  it's all in fun grizz. all in fun. 

penguin can be tenacious in his viewpoint and i'm willing to bet by the time he reaches college, he'll be tough to debate with.

[skorpion]

there in it to win it...

You guys sure do put in a lot of effort to win the argument.

[Penguin]

i know i shouldn't do this so damn early in the morning but...i'm up and the coffee is flowing.

just to get your thoughts on track properly, i say again, you obviously did not read the published study, nor did you thoroughly read the news article or look up other articles of the same study. the reason i know this is, your continued responses are clearly reactionary toward the title of the original post, not based on the contents of the news article and absolutely not based on reading the actual published study.  nowhere does the news article show that dr. lillards published research makes the claim that spongbob makes kids stupid. you directed your first response toward dr. christakis the pediatrician, whose only involvement was to write a commentary on the actual study, otherwise he was not involved. and you continue to refer to dr. christakis as the person who published the study. that is blatantly obvious to anyone who has read all of your responses, including those i quote here. you are literally chasing squirrels in an effort to be right and you are failing.

throughout all of your resonses you have repeatedly focused on what you believe to be proper research methodology, with no basis of fact to back your claim. also based on your repetitive responses i charge that you do not know what a clinical trial actual entails, as it does not pertain to dr. lillards study. the title of the article and the objective statement in the article plainly state the study was intended to measure "The Immediate Impact of Different Types of Television on Young Children's Executive Function". the objective statement:
now, had you actually read the entire published research document as i have, taking your claim to above average intelligence into consideration, you should not have made the same repetitive mistakes in questioning not only the research but the researchers, their credentials and their methodology. i'll let you find the actual published study since giving you the link would be too easy.

there is no strawman. contrary to your belief, those other articles have as much bearing on this discussion as any and all such studies are similar. questioning the validity of findings from one study out of many similar studies, questions them all. in your own words, you have no expertise, yet you continue to question not only the work but the individuals who do have the expertise based on some less than fully educated notions of how research should be conducted.

i'm not even going to bother readdressing the redundancy you continue to pursue. suffice to say, again, if you had actually read the news article as well as others based on the same published research document, and the actual published research document you would see that the research and the conclusions are sound. you should also actually read that book you linked, it clearly defines what a clinical trial entails and the research published by dr. lillard was not a clinical trial.

To begin, I will reply to the links you gave me, I read them, just like I promised.

The link to the first study is well-substantiated.  It is nothing like the abomination described in the news article.  If this is the article that you'd rather not give me a link to, I think I've been scared of a monster that was never under my bed to begin with.  However, the study mentions this interesting tidbit:

Third, we cannot draw causal inferences from these associations. It could be that attentional problems lead to television viewing rather than vice versa.

It also mentions problems with adjusting for emotional support and household environment.  This quote sums that up nicely:

For example, parents who were distracted, neglectful, or otherwise preoccupied might have allowed their children to watch excessive amounts of television in addition to having created a household environment that promoted the development of attentional problems. Although we adjusted for a number of potential confounders, including home environment, maternal depression, cognitive stimulation, and emotional support, our adjustment may have been imperfect.

To conclude, it needs further replication, but could be a good start to a new wave of knowledge.

The second is a red herring, it has nothing to do with TV making kids dumber- it points out that a TV show can act as a conduit for public health information, especially TV about interventions.

The third is an interesting piece, and highlights some details such as violence and anti-social behavior as a result of TV viewing.  The former hits home, when I was seven, my two-year-old brother and I would reenact scenes from Power Rangers.  I feel awful about it now, he always thinks I want to hurt him or lie to him.   However, I don't know if TV caused me to do it, because there was plenty of dumb stuff that we'd do that was in no way related to Power Rangers.  It doesn't make it right, though.

Moving on, your criticism of my skepticism is odd.  Skepticism of new findings is normal, and should be resolved by researching the matter and using your own knowledge and sense.  Do you then agree with their findings?  If so, what credentials do you have?

My assumption that it was a clincal study was flawed and unreasonable.  I cede that point.  I now know that there are many types of studies, not just clinical ones.  Oof.

-Penguin

[F22RaptorDude]

I outgrew spongebob about a 8 months ago, I still watch it when my sister or bro is watching it, but I don't watch it by myself

[Meatwad]

Dont know what the fuss is about, its funnier then hell sometimes. But then again kids these days are quick to be considered ADD or ADHD.

Guess cutting sugar and caffene out of their daily diets is unheard of now 

[Simaril]

Refuse to read 3+ pages of "Oh, yeah?" ..."Yeah!"

But as someone who diagnoses and treats ADD pretty routinely, and tries to keep up with the literature -

These studies all suffer from the almost insoluble problem of separating CORRELATION from CAUSATION.
(For example, it is a FACT that the more telephone poles per capita a developing country has, the more heart disease they have. That's a correlation, a measure of how much two things track together. BUT - heart disease is not CAUSED by telephone poles; there is a third factor, the "westernization" of lifestyle that ties the two together. Poor countries get by on low calories of food like rice, but once they get wealthy they get both telephone infrastructure and larger quantities of higher fat food.)

This correlation vs causation distinction is absolutely critical, but also beyond the comprehension of every news outlet I've come across.

Bottom line: in real world studies, you can't tell whether the distractability comes first (so the kids love the flashing lights and stimulation of TV) or whether the TV exposure comes first, causing the distractibility. You just can't do those studies, because you can't isolate the kids and control their inputs for 5+ years. You have to watch what happens in various groups, because you can't control the experimental variable (TV watching).

[Simaril]

Dont know what the fuss is about, its funnier then hell sometimes. But then again kids these days are quick to be considered ADD or ADHD.

Guess cutting sugar and caffene out of their daily diets is unheard of now 

I agree that ADD is diagnosed Waaayyyy too much...and much of the time the real problem is what we call "the other A.D.D. - "Absent Discipline Disorder."

Interestingly, though, studies have pretty much conclusively shown that sugar intake does not trigger increased distractability. When kids given placebo drinks/foods they do not show any less hyperness than the other kids in a study given the real sugary stuff.

[Babalonian]

Refuse to read 3+ pages of "Oh, yeah?" ..."Yeah!"

But as someone who diagnoses and treats ADD pretty routinely, and tries to keep up with the literature -

These studies all suffer from the almost insoluble problem of separating CORRELATION from CAUSATION.
(For example, it is a FACT that the more telephone poles per capita a developing country has, the more heart disease they have. That's a correlation, a measure of how much two things track together. BUT - heart disease is not CAUSED by telephone poles; there is a third factor, the "westernization" of lifestyle that ties the two together. Poor countries get by on low calories of food like rice, but once they get wealthy they get both telephone infrastructure and larger quantities of higher fat food.)

This correlation vs causation distinction is absolutely critical, but also beyond the comprehension of every news outlet I've come across.

Bottom line: in real world studies, you can't tell whether the distractability comes first (so the kids love the flashing lights and stimulation of TV) or whether the TV exposure comes first, causing the distractibility. You just can't do those studies, because you can't isolate the kids and control their inputs for 5+ years. You have to watch what happens in various groups, because you can't control the experimental variable (TV watching).

Not to mention the media has been having a field day taking it out of context (with a capital "C").  This study I found had absolutley nothing new or relevant in it to my surprise (for being a "groundbreaking" study rather than a general run of hte mill study).  As I read and understood it, the study was trying to pitch that watching high-energy/paced shows like IE: Spongebob (the media seems to heavily favor the "IE: Spongebob" more than  anything else in the study) kinda drained those kids energy/mental-fotitude.  Kind of like if you ran a mile before then imediatley taking your physics semi-final - you're going ot do better on your physics test if you relax and listen to some Mozart.  If you sit your kids down to watch something relaxing but also stimulating, like say Blues Clues (which I was SHOCKED the media was parading around in a bright light - we all know about that show's host and his *sniff* *sniff* history of riding the white pony).


@ most the rest of this thread: you guys need to stop eating out of the media's hand and also stop trying to show the world how smart you are because of it.  Childrens phsycology -vs- childrens entertainment is an argument older than Denis the Menace.

So, who's the repeating agressor in that situation - Denis or Mr. Wilson?   And, go!...  *popcorn*