Refutation and Concession

1) Anticipate their arguments. 2) Create strong counterarguments. 3) Strengthen your persuasive argument.

There has been a study about the famous 'Spongebob' and its effects on young kids led by University of Virginia psychologist Angeline Lillard. Researchers randomly assigned 60 four-year-olds to three activities for nine minutes: drawing with markers, watching a slow-paced, PBS cartoon, or watching SpongeBob SquarePants. Researchers said that they chose SpongeBob for the show switches scenes on average every 11 seconds, as compared with the PBS cartoon, which switched only twice a minute.

Afterward the preschoolers were asked to do four different tasks that test cognitive capability and impulse control, such as counting backwards, and solving puzzles. Compared with those who were drawing and those watching PBS, the SpongeBob kids performed significantly worse on the tasks.

 

Nickleodeon, the makers of SpongeBob, defended the cartoon, pointing out that the study looked only at white middle- to upper-class kids. The study subjects were also only four, two years younger than the target SpongeBob audience.

"Having 60 non-diverse kids, who are not part of the show's targeted demo, watch nine minutes of programming is questionable methodology. It could not possibly provide the basis for any valid findings that parents could trust," said David Bittler, a representative for Nickleodeon.

Those on the other side of the debate argue that all this multi-tasking is preparing kids for the internet-driven world they were born into, teaching them how to handle media in the way that many in the world today have had to train themselves to do.

A contradicting study in Tailand presented 2D cartoons to a sample of 200 students from 4 primary schools in Thailand. After the animation presentation, the researcher observed the response, questionnaire, interviewed and evaluated feedback in questionnaires. There is a sign or trend that children’s aggressiveness in mind decreased in short term, and has the potential to be changed in long term. From this we can see that studies vary in results and that it is not a reliable evidence to consider cartoons harmful to kids.