Teenagers today are spending more and more time slouched on a couch in front of the electronic box - although nowadays it's rather too flat to really be called a box anymore - called a television. And a recent University of Pittsburg and Harvard Medical School study has found that TV time for teens could elevate their risk of becoming depressed adults.
Details and Findings of Study
The study was published in the Archives of General Psychology and the research team had looked at the lifestyle habits of 4,142 healthy adolescents, obtained from data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. That study had covered a nationally representative sample of teens in the US for a period of 7 years.
The initial survey had taken place in 1995 and the subjects, then in junior high and high school, watched a mean of 2.3 hours of TV per day. Each day, they also spent an average of 37 minutes watching videocassettes, 2.3 hours tuning in to the radio, as well as 25 minutes on computer games.
7 years later, in 2002, a follow-up survey was carried out. It was discovered that 308 of the subjects, now young adults in their 20s, had met the criteria for depression. It was found that these persons had watched an average of 22 minutes more TV each day than their non-depressed counterparts. The researchers calculated that each additional hour spent watching TV each day translated to an increase of 8% in depression risk.
Interestingly, such a link was only observed for television, whereas computer games and videos were not associated with higher chances of being depressed.
Details and Findings of Study
The study was published in the Archives of General Psychology and the research team had looked at the lifestyle habits of 4,142 healthy adolescents, obtained from data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. That study had covered a nationally representative sample of teens in the US for a period of 7 years.
The initial survey had taken place in 1995 and the subjects, then in junior high and high school, watched a mean of 2.3 hours of TV per day. Each day, they also spent an average of 37 minutes watching videocassettes, 2.3 hours tuning in to the radio, as well as 25 minutes on computer games.
7 years later, in 2002, a follow-up survey was carried out. It was discovered that 308 of the subjects, now young adults in their 20s, had met the criteria for depression. It was found that these persons had watched an average of 22 minutes more TV each day than their non-depressed counterparts. The researchers calculated that each additional hour spent watching TV each day translated to an increase of 8% in depression risk.
Interestingly, such a link was only observed for television, whereas computer games and videos were not associated with higher chances of being depressed.
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