The program was conceived in 1966, and first aired in 1969. It has now been translated to 70 languages and broadcast in over 120 countries.

Its impact has been widely studied since then. While many commercial cartoons had negative impacts on young children, Sesame Street had a significant and positive impact on school readiness, vocabulary retention, on school grades in English, math, and science, and on ability to resolve interpersonal conflicts without aggression.

Moreover, those effects were durable. Children who regularly watched Sesame Street had better academic performance in middle and high school, and as adults, were more likely to be employed, and to have higher wages, even when controlling for other confounding factors.

In contrast, short form online video content such as Tiktok has negative cognitive effects, damaging memory formation, attention span, empathy, reading skill, analytical skills, and conversational depth, in both adults and children.