13 ms·

Television viewing and cognitive decline in older age

289 points by casefields 7y ago

john_moscow 7y ago
I think, the problem is deeper than just watching TV. The real question is what activities does it replace. 3.5 hours per day is a a significant portion of one's day, if you subtract sleep, food, shopping, doctor visits and other basic needs. I wouldn't be surprised if those who watch less TV fill that time with creative hobbies, socialization, reading of thought-provoking books, etc. As a matter of fact, I would love to see a paper trying to structure those activities and correlate the prevalent groups to the cognitive performance.
- friendlybus 7y ago
  Roald Dahl the famous writer used to love reading news and the like, saying he could do it all day. This problem has likely been around for a long time. I'd be curious what people do in cultures without the drip feed and their reaction to it.
Zenst 7y ago
I've often wonder the effect of refresh rate. Back in the days of NTSC/PAL TV days, Americans had NTSC running at 60Hz and the UK ran at 50Hz refresh rates (same as the electricity supply runs out btw). This would yield American friends/colleagues comming to the UK and for a few weeks watching TV would complain about the flicker. Reason for this was their visual system had got used to the higher refresh rate and suddenly seeing something lower, stood out and once noticed, was hard to un-notice and would for them make for a noticeable flicker. I've often wondered what effects refresh rate has upon the brain and how fast/how we process information and equally, how we adapt. So with all that in mind, I wonder how old people who grew up with a 60hz TV compare to those accustomed to 50hz and if the statistics of cognitive decline are not the same - more interesting questions.
- ygra 7y ago
  Personally, both 50 and 60 Hz are horribly flickery. Back when I used a CRT I couldn't stand anything below ~85 Hz and would get headaches. Now that the screen no longer flickers, I guess in terms of motion fluidity there's a perceivable difference between 50 and 60 Hz. Something I personally cannot unsee, though, is 2:3 pulldown, which is something you don't see in Europe (at the expense of slightly faster movies).
  - joshspankit 7y ago
    I’m pretty convinced on the theory that some people see “faster” than others. Most people can be taught to notice flicker, but I really feel like some see more naturally.
isuckatcoding 7y ago
Perhaps I should curb my Netflix binging habits.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- johnchristopher 7y ago
  The very definition of binging is about excess. That somehow it became a normal activity is telling something else.
copperx 7y ago
Is there a reason to believe that there's a difference between TV viewing and passive textual content consumption on the web? I used to think so, but nowadays I'm not so sure. Passive consumption of media designed to entertain, be it visual or textual, seems too similar.
- newnewpdro 7y ago
  How does one passively consume textual content? Reading engages the brain in an entirely different way than viewing images does. When you read you interpret meaning from text and construct a mental model of what's being described.
  - brujoand 7y ago
    You can’t passively consume anything. You say you have to interpret meaning from words. Sure, but.. What about faces? Tone of voice? Body language?
    - monkeycantype 7y ago
      You’re correct. It seems though that there’s something about the level of - I can’t think of a less ridiculous phrase than - adaptive engagement you marshall while performing tasks that’s important. a director watching a cut of a movie, weighs every detail with a focus that is quite unlike the mental state of the public audience. I think that changes the way they watch all films, always dissecting. So I’m assuming the importance of television isn’t that it’s television, but that it’s minimally stimulating activity, so easily within your cognitive capacity as to require neither physical nor mental discipline nor adaptation, requiring just enough from you to displace sleep. I don’t watch a lot of tv, but I choose to take this as a warning I need to do less scrolling Edit: one thing in particular that stands out is the discussion of television being fast paced, fleeting information, I wonder if I’m viewing adaptation incorrectly here, what if it’s that we are exhausting our adaptive capacity, training ourselves on static?
      - cgriswald 7y ago
Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
"Watching television for more than 3.5 hours per day is associated with a dose-response decline in verbal memory over the following six years, independent of confounding variables." associated Not "caused". It is still an interesting study, but this should be the first thing to recognize, whether it claims association or causation.
- prox 7y ago
  I also wonder if the type of programming matters : if watching quiz shows that jog memory and recall are different from watching soap opera, or sports, or learning programs for instance.
  - Lerc 7y ago
    It might not be that simple. I think intellectual effort of these shows varies more within type than across. Tipping Point and Only Connect are both quiz shows but the first has questions like How many degrees are there in a circle? The latter has questions like; What can come fourth in this sequence? All this happened more or less. Sherlock Homes took his bottle from the corner... There were four of us - George and William Samuel Harris...
    - petepete 7y ago
      To summarise; BBC4 - good, ITV - not so much.
      - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
        Maybe there’s a progression though? I have no idea what came fourth in the sequence, does that mean I should expect rapid age-related cognitive-decline? I’m probably going to blame that on all the hard drugs I’ve abused, rather then my lack in other areas.
    - yrro 7y ago
      It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
thundergolfer 7y ago
I am surprised that 3.5 hours a day is the threshold where decreased performance begins, as in my little life bubble that seems like an abnormally large amount of TV watching. However Wikipedia[1] tells me the average USA "consumer" is watching 4 hours a day! Yikes. To a layman like me this seems like great research. A lot of effort was put in to draw a rigorous conclusion about the effects of TV watching on some aspect of mental performance. I just read Amusing Ourselves to Death though, and I find myself compelled to be a lot more dramatic about the negatives of TV watching, on the late author's behalf. Yes it's pretty bad that (excessive) TV watching literally damages your cognitive ability to some degree, but I would say (and please point me to research) that before that damage starts to show it's already near devastated your personal 'knowledge-base'. To try and paraphrase Postman, the content on TV is either trivial or non-trivial but delivered in such a way as to keep you from holding onto any significance, meaning, or theory. TV as a medium is terribly fractured (commercial breaks, 'Now..This' segues) and fundamentally visual (rather than typographic). Human minds thrive in connectivity, interrelation, and continuity. Our minds thrive in the typographic world. At his most polemic, Postman argues that TV at is worst is totally incoherent, conferring basically no knowledge whatsoever. A person's mind might still performance just fine in tests, but having been starved of knowledge it is practically unintelligent. Think also of the opportunity cost. At an average of 4 hours a day, as USA 'consumer' watches 1460 hours of TV a year. An average person reads 200-250 words per minute. Taking the upper bound, and the average non-fiction book as 50,000 words. They could finish that average non-fiction book in 4.16 hours. So, they could be reading almost 1 book a day for a whole year instead. Now, that napkin-math result seems implausible to me, but imagine if I was off by an order of magnitude. Say this person could read 35 non-fiction books in a year if that wholesale swapped TV for reading non-fiction. 35 non-fiction books at ~42 hours per book. They would be enormously enriched by this alternative behaviour. As an extreme (but unfortunately not uncommon) example, instead of getting all red in the face hearing about Socialism coming to the USA from Fox news, our dear average USA 'consumer' could have read Das Kapital, and The Soul of Man Under Socialism, and The Road to Wigan Pier, and Capitalism and Freedom, and On Liberty, and... etc etc. You get the point. So yeah, I'm really onboard with the thesis of Amusing Ourselves To Death. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_consumption
- 7y ago
uberduber 7y ago
I know a ton of these older adults. I think the true problem is that they are not socializing enough which is the cause of the mental decline and often paranoia. Some of them have moved somewhere cheaper to retire where they don’t have many friends, but most of the ones I know just watch tv instead of calling a friend to do something. The friend is the same even though they would love to hang out. I’ve tried nudging them with no success.
- criddell 7y ago
  My grandmother fought against leaving her house for a retirement home for a long time. When she was about 85 she finally gave in and was surprised to find out she loved it there. In her home she mostly passed the time watching TV and knitting. In the retirement home, she joined a choir, she ate with friends every day, she took advantage of regular trips to restaurants and shopping malls, and she was constantly playing cards. Having friends around and things to do with them was huge for her happiness.
subroutine 7y ago
The amount of TV watched might be correlated with cognitive decline, but is certainly not the cause. I doubt there is any activity that can accelerate the rate of decline apart from the things we put in our bodies (food & drugs). It's better to think of cognitive decline proceeding at some baseline rate and the mental and physical activities we engage in act to buffer this pace. Watching TV happens to be a poor buffer, especially over such long stretches of such passive stimulation (requires little mental or physical exertion). You would get the same low buffer effect staring at a wall, flipping through a picture book, or knitting a scarf for 3.5 hours. This might be obvious but TV isn't causing decline, it's just not helping to prevent it.
- Cougher 7y ago
  "is certainly not" What do you base your certainty on? It's certainly not fact. "I doubt there is any activity that can accelerate the rate of decline apart from the things we put in our bodies (food & drugs)." You missed oxygenation.
  - subroutine 7y ago
    Yes, oxygen goes inside our bodies. Also liquids. I base this certainty partially on my expertise in the field of cognitive decline, but mostly common sense principles. Cognitive decline is a natural part of aging. It happens to everyone regardless of how much TV one watches; even people who watch no TV whatsoever cannot avoid cognitive decline. Thus our best estimate of what causes cognitive decline points towards the aging of the underlying biological apparatus that supports cognition. Furthermore, there are likely to be infants and young children who watch as much TV, and view programming geared towards learning; and as they mature will see gains in cognitive abilities. How is that explained it TV causes cognitive decline.
littlestymaar 7y ago
I wonder were the effect comes from: - is that the medium itself (and the fact we watch it passively)? - is that the fact that it replaces other activities? - is that the retarded content it shows? - is that the stressful content that appears in the news all the time (crimes, natural catastrophes, war, terror attack, etc.)? - is that the way it's shot (with non-stop movement, even when nothing happens,just to keep us watching)?
glaberficken 7y ago
Anedoctal evidence. Source: My own grandmother (80yo in 2019) I have observed in my grandmother that she displays markedly lower cognitive decline when compared to her peers (friends and family around the same age). Here are some (maybe biased) observations. In the early 80s (at 40+yo) my grandmother was working as a secretary in a small office and went through the change from mechanical typewriters to electronic ones. While she was doing this the majority of her friends where 100% house wives. In the early 90s(at 50+yo) my grandmother learned to use a T9 mobile phone by herself. Her friends didn't have a mobile phone for years, and even myself would only have a mobile phone much later than her. (in fact i remember her teaching me how to navigate a Nokia that she gave me when she upgraded) In the early 2000's (at 60+yo) my grandmother bought a Windows XP PC, learned how to use it from scratch (had never used a computer in her life) and started to browse the internet, write emails, copy photos from digital cameras on to the computer etc. At the same time, her friends had no clue how to use a computer. In the 2010's my grandmother quickly transitioned to iPad to browse the web / iPhone to keep up with grandchildren on social media. Her friends would only come to have a smartphone and join the social media revolution in the mid 2010s.
- cj 7y ago
  How much television does she watch?
  - glaberficken 7y ago
    A lot! Mostly football (not the US sport), any sport that is on TV really, news and hollywood movies. Also she is a chronic late sleeper (as in going to bed late and waking up late) which both me and my mom seem to have inherited.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
      There’s always outliers. Some tiny percent of the population can smoke and drink non-stop, never exercise, eat shit constantly, and die by getting hit by a bus while jogging at 02:30. Still not real helpful for us who didn’t win the genetic lottery.
sitkack 7y ago
The brain thrives on two things, movement and questions. Passively letting an uncritical experience wash over the mind wipes the chalk from the slate. Having active shared experiences with other people while asking and answering questions is what keeps us us.
- nkozyra 7y ago
  > Passively letting an uncritical experience wash over the mind I don't watch much television but I think that consuming and processing narrative is not entirely passive. Your brain is still doing work to connect dots in stories, you're building internal networks of events and characters. I think there's a lot more interaction on the receiving end there than you're giving credit. Truthfully what television removes (though not entirely) from story processing versus reading is a huge chunk of imaginative work and some memory requirements.
  - naringas 7y ago
    > consuming and processing narrative is not entirely passive. while I agree with this, modern television requires far less "interaction on the receiving end" than you give it credit for. It lacks novelty.
    - gruez 7y ago
      > modern television [...] lacks novelty. Can you elaborate on what you mean by “modern”? We’re in a golden age of television, according to some. I can think of at least a dozen shows released in the past few years that have deep and complex storylines.
      - robryan 7y ago
        I think it works both ways, we have some much choice now that you can easily seek out both ends of the spectrum. There is no shortage of mindless TV for people to watch if that is what they are after.
      - 7y ago
Merrill 7y ago
>Immediate and delayed verbal verbal memory were assessed using a word learning task in which participants were presented with 10 common words by a taped voice, one every 2 seconds. Participants had to recall as many words as possible immediately and after a short delay during which they completed other cognitive tests. This is the measure that declined in heavy television watchers. It is also a task that television watching doesn't require, since recall of previous spoken words is rarely needed to understand the next video sequence. It's also a task that I don't do well on. I do much better if the words are presented in writing. I can watch a TV show and not remember a thing about it later. It may be a way the brain has of protecting memory from being overwritten by nonsense.
- rightbyte 7y ago
  If your health is bad you probably watch more TV and listens to radio, though, since you can't go out as easily.
  - Merrill 7y ago
    True, although I know people who neither watch much TV nor have lots of social interactions with people. There engage in other passive activities like reading or they have a variety of hobbies, sports, etc. Some people have little need to listen to chatter, either from a box or face-to-face.
    - mlyle 7y ago
      The question is what causes what. We know that TV and cognitive decline in this population are associated. Does television watching cause cognitive decline? Does cognitive decline cause television watching? Does some other factor cause both television watching and cognitive decline? Knowing some people are inactive and read books doesn't help much in probing this. Because we're not asserting cognitive decline always causes television watching, or whatever.
- jperiasw 7y ago
  What if you are from a developing country and have to rely on subtitles to understand the sequence, and also you cant read fast enough and hence you need to rewind sometimes to retain the sequence. Is this good or bad?
gingerlime 7y ago
Interesting that the threshold is at 3.5. 3 hours or less is fine. I wonder if there’s a way to have TVs with watch timers. For better self-control. I notice at my parents house that the TV is almost always on. It personally drives me insane. I think they want to curb it down, but it’s a habit that’s hard to break... so maybe a screen-time app for the TV can help??
- wj 7y ago
  TVs have sleep timers where they turn off after the set amount of time. Or at least they used to. You might be able to use an Alexa plug between the TV and the wall to the same effect.
  - gingerlime 7y ago
    Yeah, but it's something you actively need to activate every time, and it doesn't count accumulated time over a 24 hour hour period... anyway, was just toying with the idea. (inspired by the iPhone screentime)
    - matwood 7y ago
      The streaming services will present a dialog asking if someone is still watching after a period of time. If I do not respond to that dialog, my ATV will eventually turn off which turns off my TV.
      - gingerlime 7y ago
        That sounds like a variation of a sleep timer. I'm talking about measuring (and maybe even alerting/stopping) excessive watch time. i.e. if someone is actively flipping channels for 5 hours a day, that's not healthy (according to this research)... Streaming services sadly have the reverse incentive in this case, to actually make you watch more.
JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
I don’t know enough to know the answer to this, but does the paper address the chance that people that have a cognitive decline watch more tv and it is an effect not a cause?
- paufernandez 7y ago
  That's exactly what I was thinking. The assumption that the TV is the culprit is so powerful that is not even questioned.
- thundergolfer 7y ago
  They say in the study that they looked for reverse causality, and that they checked for study participants that acquired a medical diagnosis of cognitive decline (eg. dementia) during the study period.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
papito 7y ago
It's like when they say "wine is good for your heart". And then a study analyzed over three million grocery receipts.. "The people who bought wine were more likely to place olives, low-fat cheese, fruits and vegetables, low-fat meat, spices, and tea in their carts. Beer drinkers, on the other hand, were more likely to reach for the chips, ketchup, margarine, sugar, ready-cooked meals, and soft drinks." Schatzker, Mark. The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor (p. 155). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. EDIT: What I am saying is - yes, television shuts off the thinking part of your brain, but then you also don't move, don't exercise. Causation here is VERY flaky.
- 300IQGAMER 7y ago
  They did also mention that video games were better for cognition, so it could be that passive activities are worse than active. Not necessarily to do with exercise.
  - papito 7y ago
    It totally makes sense that video games are good for cognition - reaction training, problem solving. BUT, when you are younger, your body can take a hit if you abuse it. Younger people binge-drink and watch Netlfix for hours, and can still be sharp and fit. But then activities become much more important after 30, as you've drained the gift of genes and youth. I bet there is not a lot of info on the results of 70-year-olds playing half-life :) Either way, I always skeptically view these studies that take two random things and tell you that they somehow directly relate to each other. Especially with humans, where the number of variables at play is nearly infinite.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  Maybe. What are old people watching? If it’s anything like what I see at my relatives and at assisted living facilities, it’s also of cable news and weather. Staring at repetitive, content free crap cannot be good for your brain.
  - papito 7y ago
fortran77 7y ago
Wow! I'm 57 years old so I'm already into the sample set (they started at age 50). I wonder if my Sunday Afternoon TiVo binges of "Dr. Pimple Popper," "Below Deck," and an occasional "Judge Judy" are making me dumb!? I hope not. Oh, and I tried the new podiatric reality show: "My Feet Are Killing Me." I think I'm smarter because of it. Granted, I watch about 4-5 hours of TV a week, not 3.5 hours/day. But only because I don't have enough hours in the day. I enjoy television, and look forward to my Sunday binges.
kylek 7y ago
Ma was right, it’ll rot your brain!
NPMaxwell 7y ago
A randomized controlled experiment: Find a collection of 200 people who you will be able to test 5 years from now. Send copies of this report to a random selection of 100 of them. Send a similar article not about television to the other 100. Test after 5 years.
viburnum 7y ago
What else are you going to do but watch tv when your brain starts to go?
yalogin 7y ago
Instead of watching TV what if i browse reddit or HN and keep commenting? How is that any different? Sure I am not using my brain when watching tv but I am not really turning it off. I am still trying to process the visuals and in some cases trying to understand or predict what might happen. How different is that from mindless browsing?
finneganscat 7y ago
This study does not look at the content of the television watching. Would watching history documentaries result in the same decline as watching reality TV?
originalbryan2 7y ago
Me watch many tv and have great word speaking.
samantohermes 7y ago
It's probably because overload of long-term memory is related to Alzheimer's and other dementia: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12269167_Does_longer-term_memory_storage_never_become_overloaded_and_would_such_overload_cause_Alzheimer's_disease_and_other_dementia https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12269167_Does_longe...
vorotato 7y ago
Of course, cognitive decline could also cause television.

289 points by casefields 7y ago

I think, the problem is deeper than just watching TV. The real question is what activities does it replace. 3.5 hours per day is a a significant portion of one's day, if you subtract sleep, food, shopping, doctor visits and other basic needs. I wouldn't be surprised if those who watch less TV fill that time with creative hobbies, socialization, reading of thought-provoking books, etc. As a matter of fact, I would love to see a paper trying to structure those activities and correlate the prevalent groups to the cognitive performance.

friendlybus 7y ago
Roald Dahl the famous writer used to love reading news and the like, saying he could do it all day. This problem has likely been around for a long time. I'd be curious what people do in cultures without the drip feed and their reaction to it.

Zenst 7y ago

I've often wonder the effect of refresh rate. Back in the days of NTSC/PAL TV days, Americans had NTSC running at 60Hz and the UK ran at 50Hz refresh rates (same as the electricity supply runs out btw). This would yield American friends/colleagues comming to the UK and for a few weeks watching TV would complain about the flicker. Reason for this was their visual system had got used to the higher refresh rate and suddenly seeing something lower, stood out and once noticed, was hard to un-notice and would for them make for a noticeable flicker. I've often wondered what effects refresh rate has upon the brain and how fast/how we process information and equally, how we adapt. So with all that in mind, I wonder how old people who grew up with a 60hz TV compare to those accustomed to 50hz and if the statistics of cognitive decline are not the same - more interesting questions.

ygra 7y ago
Personally, both 50 and 60 Hz are horribly flickery. Back when I used a CRT I couldn't stand anything below ~85 Hz and would get headaches. Now that the screen no longer flickers, I guess in terms of motion fluidity there's a perceivable difference between 50 and 60 Hz. Something I personally cannot unsee, though, is 2:3 pulldown, which is something you don't see in Europe (at the expense of slightly faster movies).
- joshspankit 7y ago
  I’m pretty convinced on the theory that some people see “faster” than others. Most people can be taught to notice flicker, but I really feel like some see more naturally.

isuckatcoding 7y ago

Perhaps I should curb my Netflix binging habits.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
johnchristopher 7y ago
The very definition of binging is about excess. That somehow it became a normal activity is telling something else.

copperx 7y ago

Is there a reason to believe that there's a difference between TV viewing and passive textual content consumption on the web? I used to think so, but nowadays I'm not so sure. Passive consumption of media designed to entertain, be it visual or textual, seems too similar.

newnewpdro 7y ago
How does one passively consume textual content? Reading engages the brain in an entirely different way than viewing images does. When you read you interpret meaning from text and construct a mental model of what's being described.
- brujoand 7y ago
  You can’t passively consume anything. You say you have to interpret meaning from words. Sure, but.. What about faces? Tone of voice? Body language?
  - monkeycantype 7y ago
    You’re correct. It seems though that there’s something about the level of - I can’t think of a less ridiculous phrase than - adaptive engagement you marshall while performing tasks that’s important. a director watching a cut of a movie, weighs every detail with a focus that is quite unlike the mental state of the public audience. I think that changes the way they watch all films, always dissecting. So I’m assuming the importance of television isn’t that it’s television, but that it’s minimally stimulating activity, so easily within your cognitive capacity as to require neither physical nor mental discipline nor adaptation, requiring just enough from you to displace sleep. I don’t watch a lot of tv, but I choose to take this as a warning I need to do less scrolling Edit: one thing in particular that stands out is the discussion of television being fast paced, fleeting information, I wonder if I’m viewing adaptation incorrectly here, what if it’s that we are exhausting our adaptive capacity, training ourselves on static?
    - cgriswald 7y ago

Erlich_Bachman 7y ago

"Watching television for more than 3.5 hours per day is associated with a dose-response decline in verbal memory over the following six years, independent of confounding variables." associated Not "caused". It is still an interesting study, but this should be the first thing to recognize, whether it claims association or causation.

prox 7y ago
I also wonder if the type of programming matters : if watching quiz shows that jog memory and recall are different from watching soap opera, or sports, or learning programs for instance.
- Lerc 7y ago
  It might not be that simple. I think intellectual effort of these shows varies more within type than across. Tipping Point and Only Connect are both quiz shows but the first has questions like How many degrees are there in a circle? The latter has questions like; What can come fourth in this sequence? All this happened more or less. Sherlock Homes took his bottle from the corner... There were four of us - George and William Samuel Harris...
  - petepete 7y ago
    To summarise; BBC4 - good, ITV - not so much.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
      Maybe there’s a progression though? I have no idea what came fourth in the sequence, does that mean I should expect rapid age-related cognitive-decline? I’m probably going to blame that on all the hard drugs I’ve abused, rather then my lack in other areas.
  - yrro 7y ago
    It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

thundergolfer 7y ago

I am surprised that 3.5 hours a day is the threshold where decreased performance begins, as in my little life bubble that seems like an abnormally large amount of TV watching. However Wikipedia[1] tells me the average USA "consumer" is watching 4 hours a day! Yikes. To a layman like me this seems like great research. A lot of effort was put in to draw a rigorous conclusion about the effects of TV watching on some aspect of mental performance. I just read Amusing Ourselves to Death though, and I find myself compelled to be a lot more dramatic about the negatives of TV watching, on the late author's behalf. Yes it's pretty bad that (excessive) TV watching literally damages your cognitive ability to some degree, but I would say (and please point me to research) that before that damage starts to show it's already near devastated your personal 'knowledge-base'. To try and paraphrase Postman, the content on TV is either trivial or non-trivial but delivered in such a way as to keep you from holding onto any significance, meaning, or theory. TV as a medium is terribly fractured (commercial breaks, 'Now..This' segues) and fundamentally visual (rather than typographic). Human minds thrive in connectivity, interrelation, and continuity. Our minds thrive in the typographic world. At his most polemic, Postman argues that TV at is worst is totally incoherent, conferring basically no knowledge whatsoever. A person's mind might still performance just fine in tests, but having been starved of knowledge it is practically unintelligent. Think also of the opportunity cost. At an average of 4 hours a day, as USA 'consumer' watches 1460 hours of TV a year. An average person reads 200-250 words per minute. Taking the upper bound, and the average non-fiction book as 50,000 words. They could finish that average non-fiction book in 4.16 hours. So, they could be reading almost 1 book a day for a whole year instead. Now, that napkin-math result seems implausible to me, but imagine if I was off by an order of magnitude. Say this person could read 35 non-fiction books in a year if that wholesale swapped TV for reading non-fiction. 35 non-fiction books at ~42 hours per book. They would be enormously enriched by this alternative behaviour. As an extreme (but unfortunately not uncommon) example, instead of getting all red in the face hearing about Socialism coming to the USA from Fox news, our dear average USA 'consumer' could have read Das Kapital, and The Soul of Man Under Socialism, and The Road to Wigan Pier, and Capitalism and Freedom, and On Liberty, and... etc etc. You get the point. So yeah, I'm really onboard with the thesis of Amusing Ourselves To Death. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_consumption

7y ago

uberduber 7y ago

I know a ton of these older adults. I think the true problem is that they are not socializing enough which is the cause of the mental decline and often paranoia. Some of them have moved somewhere cheaper to retire where they don’t have many friends, but most of the ones I know just watch tv instead of calling a friend to do something. The friend is the same even though they would love to hang out. I’ve tried nudging them with no success.

criddell 7y ago
My grandmother fought against leaving her house for a retirement home for a long time. When she was about 85 she finally gave in and was surprised to find out she loved it there. In her home she mostly passed the time watching TV and knitting. In the retirement home, she joined a choir, she ate with friends every day, she took advantage of regular trips to restaurants and shopping malls, and she was constantly playing cards. Having friends around and things to do with them was huge for her happiness.

subroutine 7y ago

The amount of TV watched might be correlated with cognitive decline, but is certainly not the cause. I doubt there is any activity that can accelerate the rate of decline apart from the things we put in our bodies (food & drugs). It's better to think of cognitive decline proceeding at some baseline rate and the mental and physical activities we engage in act to buffer this pace. Watching TV happens to be a poor buffer, especially over such long stretches of such passive stimulation (requires little mental or physical exertion). You would get the same low buffer effect staring at a wall, flipping through a picture book, or knitting a scarf for 3.5 hours. This might be obvious but TV isn't causing decline, it's just not helping to prevent it.

Cougher 7y ago
"is certainly not" What do you base your certainty on? It's certainly not fact. "I doubt there is any activity that can accelerate the rate of decline apart from the things we put in our bodies (food & drugs)." You missed oxygenation.
- subroutine 7y ago
  Yes, oxygen goes inside our bodies. Also liquids. I base this certainty partially on my expertise in the field of cognitive decline, but mostly common sense principles. Cognitive decline is a natural part of aging. It happens to everyone regardless of how much TV one watches; even people who watch no TV whatsoever cannot avoid cognitive decline. Thus our best estimate of what causes cognitive decline points towards the aging of the underlying biological apparatus that supports cognition. Furthermore, there are likely to be infants and young children who watch as much TV, and view programming geared towards learning; and as they mature will see gains in cognitive abilities. How is that explained it TV causes cognitive decline.

littlestymaar 7y ago

I wonder were the effect comes from: - is that the medium itself (and the fact we watch it passively)? - is that the fact that it replaces other activities? - is that the retarded content it shows? - is that the stressful content that appears in the news all the time (crimes, natural catastrophes, war, terror attack, etc.)? - is that the way it's shot (with non-stop movement, even when nothing happens,just to keep us watching)?

glaberficken 7y ago

Anedoctal evidence. Source: My own grandmother (80yo in 2019) I have observed in my grandmother that she displays markedly lower cognitive decline when compared to her peers (friends and family around the same age). Here are some (maybe biased) observations. In the early 80s (at 40+yo) my grandmother was working as a secretary in a small office and went through the change from mechanical typewriters to electronic ones. While she was doing this the majority of her friends where 100% house wives. In the early 90s(at 50+yo) my grandmother learned to use a T9 mobile phone by herself. Her friends didn't have a mobile phone for years, and even myself would only have a mobile phone much later than her. (in fact i remember her teaching me how to navigate a Nokia that she gave me when she upgraded) In the early 2000's (at 60+yo) my grandmother bought a Windows XP PC, learned how to use it from scratch (had never used a computer in her life) and started to browse the internet, write emails, copy photos from digital cameras on to the computer etc. At the same time, her friends had no clue how to use a computer. In the 2010's my grandmother quickly transitioned to iPad to browse the web / iPhone to keep up with grandchildren on social media. Her friends would only come to have a smartphone and join the social media revolution in the mid 2010s.

cj 7y ago
How much television does she watch?
- glaberficken 7y ago
  A lot! Mostly football (not the US sport), any sport that is on TV really, news and hollywood movies. Also she is a chronic late sleeper (as in going to bed late and waking up late) which both me and my mom seem to have inherited.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
    There’s always outliers. Some tiny percent of the population can smoke and drink non-stop, never exercise, eat shit constantly, and die by getting hit by a bus while jogging at 02:30. Still not real helpful for us who didn’t win the genetic lottery.

sitkack 7y ago

The brain thrives on two things, movement and questions. Passively letting an uncritical experience wash over the mind wipes the chalk from the slate. Having active shared experiences with other people while asking and answering questions is what keeps us us.

nkozyra 7y ago
> Passively letting an uncritical experience wash over the mind I don't watch much television but I think that consuming and processing narrative is not entirely passive. Your brain is still doing work to connect dots in stories, you're building internal networks of events and characters. I think there's a lot more interaction on the receiving end there than you're giving credit. Truthfully what television removes (though not entirely) from story processing versus reading is a huge chunk of imaginative work and some memory requirements.
- naringas 7y ago
  > consuming and processing narrative is not entirely passive. while I agree with this, modern television requires far less "interaction on the receiving end" than you give it credit for. It lacks novelty.
  - gruez 7y ago
    > modern television [...] lacks novelty. Can you elaborate on what you mean by “modern”? We’re in a golden age of television, according to some. I can think of at least a dozen shows released in the past few years that have deep and complex storylines.
    - robryan 7y ago
      I think it works both ways, we have some much choice now that you can easily seek out both ends of the spectrum. There is no shortage of mindless TV for people to watch if that is what they are after.
    - 7y ago

Merrill 7y ago

>Immediate and delayed verbal verbal memory were assessed using a word learning task in which participants were presented with 10 common words by a taped voice, one every 2 seconds. Participants had to recall as many words as possible immediately and after a short delay during which they completed other cognitive tests. This is the measure that declined in heavy television watchers. It is also a task that television watching doesn't require, since recall of previous spoken words is rarely needed to understand the next video sequence. It's also a task that I don't do well on. I do much better if the words are presented in writing. I can watch a TV show and not remember a thing about it later. It may be a way the brain has of protecting memory from being overwritten by nonsense.

rightbyte 7y ago
If your health is bad you probably watch more TV and listens to radio, though, since you can't go out as easily.
- Merrill 7y ago
  True, although I know people who neither watch much TV nor have lots of social interactions with people. There engage in other passive activities like reading or they have a variety of hobbies, sports, etc. Some people have little need to listen to chatter, either from a box or face-to-face.
  - mlyle 7y ago
    The question is what causes what. We know that TV and cognitive decline in this population are associated. Does television watching cause cognitive decline? Does cognitive decline cause television watching? Does some other factor cause both television watching and cognitive decline? Knowing some people are inactive and read books doesn't help much in probing this. Because we're not asserting cognitive decline always causes television watching, or whatever.
jperiasw 7y ago
What if you are from a developing country and have to rely on subtitles to understand the sequence, and also you cant read fast enough and hence you need to rewind sometimes to retain the sequence. Is this good or bad?

gingerlime 7y ago

Interesting that the threshold is at 3.5. 3 hours or less is fine. I wonder if there’s a way to have TVs with watch timers. For better self-control. I notice at my parents house that the TV is almost always on. It personally drives me insane. I think they want to curb it down, but it’s a habit that’s hard to break... so maybe a screen-time app for the TV can help??

wj 7y ago
TVs have sleep timers where they turn off after the set amount of time. Or at least they used to. You might be able to use an Alexa plug between the TV and the wall to the same effect.
- gingerlime 7y ago
  Yeah, but it's something you actively need to activate every time, and it doesn't count accumulated time over a 24 hour hour period... anyway, was just toying with the idea. (inspired by the iPhone screentime)
  - matwood 7y ago
    The streaming services will present a dialog asking if someone is still watching after a period of time. If I do not respond to that dialog, my ATV will eventually turn off which turns off my TV.
    - gingerlime 7y ago
      That sounds like a variation of a sleep timer. I'm talking about measuring (and maybe even alerting/stopping) excessive watch time. i.e. if someone is actively flipping channels for 5 hours a day, that's not healthy (according to this research)... Streaming services sadly have the reverse incentive in this case, to actually make you watch more.

JohnJamesRambo 7y ago

I don’t know enough to know the answer to this, but does the paper address the chance that people that have a cognitive decline watch more tv and it is an effect not a cause?

paufernandez 7y ago
That's exactly what I was thinking. The assumption that the TV is the culprit is so powerful that is not even questioned.
thundergolfer 7y ago
They say in the study that they looked for reverse causality, and that they checked for study participants that acquired a medical diagnosis of cognitive decline (eg. dementia) during the study period.

deleted 7y ago

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papito 7y ago

It's like when they say "wine is good for your heart". And then a study analyzed over three million grocery receipts.. "The people who bought wine were more likely to place olives, low-fat cheese, fruits and vegetables, low-fat meat, spices, and tea in their carts. Beer drinkers, on the other hand, were more likely to reach for the chips, ketchup, margarine, sugar, ready-cooked meals, and soft drinks." Schatzker, Mark. The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor (p. 155). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. EDIT: What I am saying is - yes, television shuts off the thinking part of your brain, but then you also don't move, don't exercise. Causation here is VERY flaky.

300IQGAMER 7y ago
They did also mention that video games were better for cognition, so it could be that passive activities are worse than active. Not necessarily to do with exercise.
- papito 7y ago
  It totally makes sense that video games are good for cognition - reaction training, problem solving. BUT, when you are younger, your body can take a hit if you abuse it. Younger people binge-drink and watch Netlfix for hours, and can still be sharp and fit. But then activities become much more important after 30, as you've drained the gift of genes and youth. I bet there is not a lot of info on the results of 70-year-olds playing half-life :) Either way, I always skeptically view these studies that take two random things and tell you that they somehow directly relate to each other. Especially with humans, where the number of variables at play is nearly infinite.
Spooky23 7y ago
Maybe. What are old people watching? If it’s anything like what I see at my relatives and at assisted living facilities, it’s also of cable news and weather. Staring at repetitive, content free crap cannot be good for your brain.
- papito 7y ago

fortran77 7y ago

Wow! I'm 57 years old so I'm already into the sample set (they started at age 50). I wonder if my Sunday Afternoon TiVo binges of "Dr. Pimple Popper," "Below Deck," and an occasional "Judge Judy" are making me dumb!? I hope not. Oh, and I tried the new podiatric reality show: "My Feet Are Killing Me." I think I'm smarter because of it. Granted, I watch about 4-5 hours of TV a week, not 3.5 hours/day. But only because I don't have enough hours in the day. I enjoy television, and look forward to my Sunday binges.

kylek 7y ago

Ma was right, it’ll rot your brain!

NPMaxwell 7y ago

A randomized controlled experiment: Find a collection of 200 people who you will be able to test 5 years from now. Send copies of this report to a random selection of 100 of them. Send a similar article not about television to the other 100. Test after 5 years.

viburnum 7y ago

What else are you going to do but watch tv when your brain starts to go?

yalogin 7y ago

Instead of watching TV what if i browse reddit or HN and keep commenting? How is that any different? Sure I am not using my brain when watching tv but I am not really turning it off. I am still trying to process the visuals and in some cases trying to understand or predict what might happen. How different is that from mindless browsing?

finneganscat 7y ago

This study does not look at the content of the television watching. Would watching history documentaries result in the same decline as watching reality TV?

originalbryan2 7y ago

Me watch many tv and have great word speaking.

samantohermes 7y ago

It's probably because overload of long-term memory is related to Alzheimer's and other dementia: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12269167_Does_longer-term_memory_storage_never_become_overloaded_and_would_such_overload_cause_Alzheimer's_disease_and_other_dementia https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12269167_Does_longe...

vorotato 7y ago

Of course, cognitive decline could also cause television.