Parents Beware: These Toxic Cartoons Disguised as Educational Videos Are Harming Children

Some cartoons marketed as educational content contain disturbing themes that can negatively impact children's mental health. Learn how to identify and protect your children from these harmful videos.

Parents should be aware that the early education cognitive animations that children often watch and enjoy might be hidden “toxic animations.” You never know until you search; it’s shocking when you do.

Next, let’s take a look at the video that ranks first when searching for “color cognition” on a well-known video site. When I showed this video to people around me, few could detect its toxicity:

• Some think there’s nothing unusual, it’s just teaching colors.
• Some find it abstract — how can a duck spit out a kitten?
• Others wonder why the colors are so bright?

Speaking of this video, children will be very interested and it contains learning objectives, which easily makes parents let their guard down. But it actually has very serious problems. This type of animated video is truly “highly toxic.” Next, let’s talk about where its toxicity lies.

Where Is the Toxicity of “Toxic Animations”?

1. Visual Impact, Making Children Addicted

These types of videos contain many factors that make children addicted, affecting the secretion of neurotransmitters in the brain.

Firstly, the highest saturation colors that are different from usual vision. Let’s think about the reaction to high saturation colors in daily life, such as warning signs on the street, life jackets, and big red lanterns hanging high… Aren’t they eye-catching at a glance? Because such high saturation colors can bring visual impact to the eyes, thereby stimulating the visual center of the brain and capturing our attention. So when watching the video, children are constantly exposed to high saturation colors, and the brain remains in a state of continuous excitement.