Heavy TV Watching Linked to Smaller Brain Structures and Higher Dementia Risk
Heavy TV watching associated with smaller brain structures, study finds
Our research reveals that frequent television viewing in midlife correlates with reduced brain volume in memory-related areas and increased dementia risk. Unlike other sedentary activities, TV watching specifically harms brain health, suggesting that what you do while sitting matters more than the sitting itself. We found these structural changes persisted even after controlling for lifestyle factors, highlighting a unique neurological impact of passive screen time.
For years we've focused on how much people sit. Our findings suggest we should also pay attention to what they're doing while they're sitting.
- Lerc
I guess that means we are lucky that TVs weigh so much less now.
- haunter
Interestingly there is no mention of semantics or what does actually "TV watching" mean.
I have friends who self admittedly don't "watch TV" but they watch every single hyped up Netflix series available.
Are they watching TV? By this study they probably not. Are they watching TV? I'd say most likely yes, they also use the device called TV to watch Netflix
- laxmena
One big concern for me in this article is, the MRI scans were not taken during the start of the study. But, I couldnt eliminate this because the pattern (of reduced white matter in brain) seem to hold true across the pool of 1700 people.
Most curious part of in this article is the active vs passive sitting distinction. Occupational sitting (or performing intellectual activity while sitting) correlated with better brain scans and white matter.
This makes sense, if I view it as consumption vs processing thing.
TV is pure consumption, Intellectual work requires output and creation.
If this thesis holds, the rise of AI tools is a bit concerning for knowledge workers. We are shifting from active creation (writing code, writing articles, designing, etc) to passive consumption and curation (reviewing AI generated content).
Will be interested to learn more on how this study unfolds further.
- Aurornis
Direct study link: https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/alz...
Observational study with an MRI at the end and user-reported activity histories. The results indicate a correlation, not necessarily causation. The study authors don't pretend to imply causation and are straight with these facts.
You can't randomize humans to either do a lot of TV watching for years or stay away from TV for years. So you can you safely assume any study making these correlations is not randomized. It does not mean it should be discarded.
There are a lot of other studies looking at how cortical volume can be preserved through aging with other interventions, however. There are a lot of before/after studies showing aerobic exercise can reduce the brain volume loss associated with aging - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41491407/
So despite this being a correlation study, the result is not surprising. Sedentary activity is correlated with slightly faster degradation of multiple brain measures.
What is interesting in this study is that sedentary work that was intellectually challenging appeared to be somewhat protective. This is also consistent with past studies with before/after measurements around interventions like really intensive skill learning or even meditation.
- m4nu3l
When I find articles like these, I remember I haven't watched TV for almost 12 years, except when at someone else's home.
By this, I mean I never turned on the TV to see what's on the television.
I used the TV as a monitor to play games or watch movies from streaming services at times.
Given that I moved to the UK after I stopped watching TV, I barely know which channels even exist on the TV.
I do watch a lot of stuff on YouTube. But it's things I chose to watch because I find them interesting, and I don't find most of the stuff on TV interesting enough.
And the interesting parts, usually, you can find them on streaming services and only watch those whenever you want to watch them. Even scrolling brain rot on Instagram seems less of a waste of time. At least the algorithm knows the type of brain rot I like.
I wonder how many people still watch TV today.