Heavy TV watching associated with smaller brain structures, study finds

https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/heavy-tv-watching-associated-with-smaller-brain-structures/

by mashally • 3 days ago

109 70 3 days ago

dornsife.usc.edu

Correlation or causation? The article doesn't specify whether the subjects' brain sizes were measured prior to the study.

dozerly• 3 days ago

I understand the difference, but in this case it’s not a good look for TV viewing regardless

tptacek3• 3 days ago

What does that even mean? If people with cognitive deficits have a powerful idiosyncratic preference for pineapple juice, that's not a bad look for pineapple juice.

jldugger• 3 days ago

The linked paper suggests brain sizes were only measured once at visit 5.

testing22321• 3 days ago

It’s called “the idiot box” for a reason.

BoingBoomTschak2• 3 days ago

It's not called an "idiot box" for nothing =)

analog83743• 3 days ago

it isn't the obvious idiocy that you've got to worry about, it's the not-obvious idiocy

BoingBoomTschak2• 3 days ago

Why not both?

analog83743• 3 days ago

people like to put their television down, but we are still good friends

Aurornis• 3 days ago

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.

nabbed4• 3 days ago

The results indicate a correlation, not necessarily causation

Just to drive that home, "Study participants also did not undergo a baseline MRI", which of course could mean that they already had some of these brain changes, which may have driven more TV watching.

Sedentary activity is correlated with slightly faster degradation of multiple brain measures.

It seems to matter what you do while you're being sedentary, at least according to this study. From the article: "Strikingly, the sedentary element of TV watching didn’t appear to be the main driver for these changes."

amarant• 3 days ago

Seems that the direction of causation is still an open question. Is TV watching causing smaller brains, or is it the other way around?

Intuitively both seem plausible. More research needed!

relium• 3 days ago

Now I'm curious if it matters what you watch.

dd8601fn• 3 days ago

Yeah... like, does watching an Attenborough documentary or two offset many hours of marvel movies? Asking for a friend.

moscoe• 3 days ago

I doubt it. It’s about consumption vs creation. Active vs passive.

nephihaha7• 3 days ago

I don't think these are a good comparison. The nature documentaries are primarily visual (and since it's Attenborough involve a lot of Foley work). His docs are extremely well made, but you could still use them as wallpaper as I have seen some do.

Maybe the same could be said about the Marvel films. You don't have to concentrate much, but you are guessing some of what is going on.

Some programmes do require some more imagination or interaction. A murder mystery, if it's any good will get you wondering whodunnit. If you are watching a better quality gameshow, you may be at least attempting to answer the questions. Or both may be wall paper.

tejtm2• 3 days ago

probably not as much as doing anything non sedentary

haunter2• 3 days ago

Strikingly, the sedentary element of TV watching didn’t appear to be the main driver for these changes.
Those who reported high amounts of sitting at work actually had larger frontal and occipital lobes, as well as reduced white matter hyperintensity volumes, indicating better brain health than among those who sit to watch TV. This could be due to the intellectually stimulating nature of many sit-down jobs, say the study authors.

mashally• 3 days ago

I think our brain's power lose its functionality,"thinking", when we forced to something.

dredmorbius6• 3 days ago

Given the difficulties of random blinding, and the long-term (decades-long) duration of the research, studying that aspect (with the same post hoc brain morphology analysis) might help assess causality.

There was some exclusion of other factors in the study per TFA.

nephihaha7• 3 days ago

The island of Saint Helena only started getting TV relatively recently, so some studies have been done on children there to compare effects.

tripleee• 3 days ago

Use it or lose it

Lerc• 3 days ago

I guess that means we are lucky that TVs weigh so much less now.

tessellated• 3 days ago

How even more lucky we are that social media and short form videos are floating in the cloud - lest they be crushing our poor little brain structures.

laxmena• 3 days ago

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.

tqi• 3 days ago

Would they have published this study if the correlation was inverted, or would that have been rejected as spurrious bc it goes against our priors?

WalterBright• 3 days ago

Lack of exercise results in smaller muscles, too.

haunter2• 3 days ago

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

deepsun• 3 days ago

Maybe no, as they don't watch ads that are so pervasive in classic TV? Just kidding.

al_borland• 3 days ago

Netflix is TV for the modern era, I don’t know who they think they’re kidding. It’s like the slogan, “it’s not TV. It’s HBO.”

I haven’t had home television service for nearly 20 years, but I watch my TV constantly. It’s the same thing with a different delivery mechanism.

Fnoord• 2 days ago

Aye, though supposedly without the ads. But with filler episodes. You wanted to waste less time, instead you get tricked. Then there's the cancelled after S1 thing which is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

nabbed4• 3 days ago

Interestingly there is no mention of semantics or what does actually "TV watching" mean.

Also, is one watching "The Real Housewives of <place name>" on Bravo or an author interview on CSPAN.

GeoAtreides• 3 days ago

Participants were asked how frequently, on a scale ranging from “never/seldom” to “very often,” they watched television during their leisure time and how much of their workday they spent sitting.

joshspankit• 3 days ago

I’d even say that YouTube autoplay is “watching TV”

danubis• 3 days ago

Sitting while passively watching something that captivate your brain leaving no room for thoughts seems like the perfect combo for brain rot

nabbed4• 3 days ago

I watch (or listen to) a lot of youtube on my iPad (and sometimes on my TV, but not too often). I wonder if youtube watching is also correlated with the mentioned brain changes.

epgui2• 3 days ago

Obviously? Why do you think it would be any different?

mejari• 3 days ago

The type of content, the length of content, the method of ingesting the content, the different motivations/precursors to TV watching vs online watching (since the study doesn't determine causation only correlation) lots of things.

Science doesn't work by looking at things and saying what's "obvious" or "common sense", because what's supposedly obvious or common sense is often actually false.

nabbed4• 3 days ago

Not sure myself.

There's more variety of content on youtube, whereas I think TV sometimes caters to lowest common denominator (although that's less the case in the era of streaming: TV is much higher quality than it was when this study started in 1987).

On youtube, you could watch lots of silly dancing videos, car crashes, etc., possibly rotting your brain. Or you could watch history lectures, book reviews, documentaries, etc.

nephihaha7• 3 days ago

YouTube algorithms have a tendency to try and lead you down rabbit holes and watch AI generated content. I notice YouTube constantly trying to bias me in one direction or another. A lot of the political content on there is nowhere near as intelligent as it pretends to be.

If it notices you are interested in something, it will show you a glut of content on that particularly subject. Some of the videos are just churning out similar content. If you click on a Monty Python video, Python takes over your suggestions. Nothing against Python, I just want to watch a variety of things.

wartywhoa23• 3 days ago

Next up: Heavy AI usage.

nephihaha7• 3 days ago

I could have told you that years ago. LOL. The problem is that as a medium it is so passive. Radio forces you to visualise to some extent or maybe do other things. Computer games and some of the internet (even social media!) require some interaction.

Reading and stage plays require heavier use of the brain too. In the case of reading, you both interpret the words and in many cases visualise things based on them.

theplumber• 3 days ago

I guess it’s just brain rot and it could apply to any kins of compulsive consumption of junk(I.e social media, Netflix, TV etc)

cramer4next• 3 days ago

I'd like to see the study go farther with a specific consumed content breakdown. For example somone who watches Jimmy Kimmel vs someone who watches Dateline nightly. How much impact does the content affect the brain rot?

holografix• 3 days ago

Maybe smaller brain structures watch more tv?

andrelaszlo• 3 days ago

They make the TV heavier, I think.

bushwart• 3 days ago

Bad TV, very bad. Good thing I watch my moving pictures on social media instead!

yugioh3• 3 days ago

Poor study design for such sweeping claims. Correlation is not causation. Plethora of reasons people who were later measured with small brain sizes may have been heavy TV watchers earlier in life.

Perhaps people who already have small brains watch more TV. Or perhaps exercise is important to brain size, and people who can’t exercise watch more TV. Or maybe not watching TV, and doing other things with your time, grows your brain size.

m4nu3l2• 3 days ago

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.

comrade1234• 3 days ago

I assume passive watching, like you're doing, is the problem.

m4nu3l2• 2 days ago

The study seems to be strictly for TV watching. I mostly watch science/math/history/economics related videos on YT. I prefer the more in-depth ones; I also watch gaming/movies related videos sometimes. I don't think it's nearly the same as watching TV. But I don't watch hours a day of those either.

basket_horse• 3 days ago

Woosh

effnorwood• 3 days ago

Heavy study reading associated with heavy TV watching a landmark study finds

jschveibinz• 3 days ago

Geez, growing up in the 60's and 70's I watched a lot of TV: Little Rascals, Three Stooges, Bugs Bunny--the good stuff. I guess without that time spent watching my brain now would be the size of a large watermelon.

xtiansimon• 3 days ago

“[Television] is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." —Karl Marx not talking about television.

kiaansaraiya• 2 days ago

The first question that comes to mind is reverse causation (probably because I'm a debater). Is increased TV viewing contributing to the brain differences, or are people with say preexisting reduced brain volume simply more likely to engage in activities like this? Essentially, there may be more to this than surface level.

Heavy TV watching associated with smaller brain structures, study finds

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