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

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

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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

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?

Lack of exercise results in smaller muscles, too.

Maybe smaller brain structures watch more tv?

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

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

Use it or lose it

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.

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

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?

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.

“[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.

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

Next up: Heavy AI usage.

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

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

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