30/10/2025
📺 Why do today’s cartoons reduce children’s attention span?
🧠Our brains haven’t changed — but the images have.
Before the 1980s, a cartoon shot lasted about 8 seconds on average (what’s called Average Shot Length).
Today, it’s often around 2 seconds… sometimes less than one.
👉 In concrete terms, a child today sees 3 to 4 times more images and visual changes than a child forty years ago.
🎬 Old cartoons (like Babar, Maya the Bee, Cinderella) gave time to follow an emotion, understand cause and consequence, and stay focused.
Modern shows (Paw Patrol, Gabby, etc.) use ultra-fast cuts, bright colors, and constant transitions to stimulate reflex attention — the one reacting to novelty.
📉 As a result, children’s brains adapt to this frantic rhythm.
It then becomes harder to maintain voluntary and sustained attention — the kind needed to listen, read, learn, or wait.
🧩 A study (Lillard & Peterson, Pediatrics, 2011) showed that after just 9 minutes of a fast-paced cartoon, 4-year-olds already showed measurable decreases in executive functions: working memory, planning, and self-control.
🌿 In contrast, slower programs (Little Bear, Moominvalley, Puffin Rock, Tchoupi) promote comprehension, empathy, and emotional regulation.
They give the brain time to integrate, to feel, to breathe.
