Lengthy television viewing in adolescence may raise the risk for depression in young adulthood, according to a new report.
The study, in the February issue of The Archives of General Psychiatry, published by the American Medical Association, found a rising risk of depressive symptoms with increasing hours spent watching television.
There was no association of depression with exposure to computer games, videocassettes or radio.
RULE in our house for TV time as our two kids were making there way through highschool:
Thou art allowed ONE favorite program to watch. The remaining evening time is devoted to study.
COROLLARY (1):You may have a desire to watch a different
program-fine. [this worked out fine since they each had their own room with access to a different TV].
COROLLARY (2): In the event you claim no homework was assigned then all is well until we get a note from the teacher saying you were not doing your assignment [this did occur a time or two]. This could lead to no TV at all for a few days.
Rule in our house is we do not have a TV set.
We do have access to videotapes, and to a small selection of the cleaner computer games (donkey kong, guitar hero etc).
But mostly we kick them out to play outside after homework has been done.
Clueless,
You do not have a TV set.
You do have videotapes.
How, then, do you watch the videotapes?
Just curious how that works…. 🙂 Do you just… sort of… stare at the videotape itself?
The conclusion arrived at does sound like the kind of research that proves the blindingly obvious. Kids who watch too much TV will miss out on socialising, games, scouts, sports, any number of things which link them to others. Not surprisingly they will have associative difficulties in adult life and associated depression.
No TV here either!
We don’t have a TV either, and I don’t know about VHS tapes, if that is what clueless was referring to, but in the case of DVDs we can certainly watch them on our computer.
We have a monitor. Works fine.
We have a TV, and limited cable, but the TV is rarely ever on during the week, with some PBS kids or nature programming being the norm. On the weekends, the kids get to watch a, one, singular DVD from our library of approved movies, or something we got from the public library. That’s all.
When they go to other kids’ houses to play, the rule is no TV or video games. First violation is a warning, and a reiteration to the other kids’ parents, second violation (if we ever get one) will be not playing at that child’s house.
While we don’t let our own kids watch much TV, TV’s influences still pervade in their social interactions at school. Not much we can do about that, but to reinforce the values we teach at home.
I knew I shouldn’t have watched so much [i]Gilligan’s Island[/i] when I was young. I’m paying for it now.
[i] I knew I shouldn’t have watched so much Gilligan’s Island when I was young. I’m paying for it now [/i]
Jim [#9]: At least you didn’t have to pay until now. Gilligan’s Island depressed me even then.
Actually most kids have now simply replaced the TV with the internet. There isn’t much on TV, people watch youtube, hang out on facebook, chat and play games. Social networking is huge on-line. I wonder what effect that will have on the next generation.
#10–Watching [i]Gilligan’s Island[/i] was one of the high points of my misspent youth, along with the [i]Three Stooges[/i].