A new study shows that excessive TV watching by youth will lead to depression later on in young adulthood. The more TV they watch, the more likely they are to suffer from depression as they grow older.
The study was presented in the February issue of The Archives of General Psychiatry which is published by the American Medical Association.
But more interesting to this web-site was a little fact buried within the article that was written by the International Herald Tribune (the global edition of the New York Times). What was that fact?
“There was no association of depression with exposure to video games, videocassettes or radio.”
As for the study itself, they analyzed data from a large pool of 4,142 adolescents who were not depressed at the start of the study. After seven years of follow-up, more than 7 percent had symptoms of depression.
It goes on to say, “But while about 6 percent of those who watched less than three hours a day were depressed, more than 17 percent of those who watched more than nine hours a day had depressive symptoms.”
I found it particularly interesting as a gamer myself (naturally) that gaming did not lead to depression like TV did, ignoring of course the horrible terms used by the article. Who says “videocassette” and “radio” in this day and age? I interpret those terms to mean “movies” and “music” (respectively). They also said “computer games” but we all know what they REALLY meant (so I edited it). But I digress.
Personally I have to say that my younger sister seems to be more and more detached as she borders herself (no not literally) in her room for hours and hours on end watching television. She is in her mid-teens (turning 16 next month) and it is my personal opinion that watching that much TV, especially when it’s brain-rotting MTV drivel, cannot be a healthy thing.
I think that video games avoid what TV causes because of the simple fact that they keep the brain much more active. When playing a video game you are constantly thinking, as your brain sends signals to your fingers telling them to move in a specific way to make your character perform a particular action, something that gamers almost do automatically.
Think about it, even the very basics of a video game are keeping the mind actively involved. You cannot play a game without the brain constantly thinking “I have to move here.”, and this goes for any type of game, from fighting to racing to platform to action adventure to first-person shooter.
Now obviously how active a game actually is varies wildly, with “fitness” style games like Dance Dance Resolution and Wii Fit or music games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band being the most active physically.
But I have been playing Resident Evil 2 recently and with a game like that your mind is constantly streaming thoughts about where you need to head next and where a particular item must go for you to proceed in the game; as you literally try to map out the entire location in your brain so as to minimize how much “wasted time” you will create by going in the wrong direction. You simply do not get that kind of brain activity with TV in my humble opinion (and we all know TV is passive not interactive). Much less the tension that grips the mind and hands as you are fighting a boss and running low health and ammo!
I also tend to believe that TV focuses so much on relationships between people that it is bound to get a person depressed as the emotions of the various characters on-screen move from highs to lows and everywhere in between. And it is naturally going to be amplified in teenagers whose worlds revolve around relationships. I imagine that it particularly negatively effects those teens who do not currently have a boyfriend/girlfriend since everyone knows that every TV character in existence must have one.
Oh, and this study makes me glad that I limit my TV watching to news shows and DVD seasons of TV shows. TV is highly overrated.
And that my friends, is my rant of the day. 🙂
* Top image courtesy of cartoonstock.com. Copyright of the original artist on the side of the image. Gaming image taken from here.