A recent observational study performed over the course of 25 years suggests that a routine that favors watching TV rather than physical exercise may actually provide consequences that go beyond the realm of mere physical health. Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco kept tabs upon 3,247 individuals–at the time of the initiation of the study these individuals were young adults–and found that over the course of 25 years, those that got little exercise of watched a minimum of 3 hours of TV per day performed comparably worse on the examinations than those that lived a healthier lifestyle.

I don’t really find these discoveries to edge on the side of controversial. Rather, I am more interested in the mechanism through which prolonged exposure to an unhealthy routine of vegging out and watching TV can contribute towards a weakening of cognitive capacity? Reverse causation, that is, the idea that a relatively diminished ability to perform well on cognitive tests impacting one’s daily routine, doesn’t necessarily sound very convincing to me. Of course, if an individual is unable to think clearly and think without severe handicaps, then there is a strong likelihood that their physical lives may not be the healthiest. However, the demographic that I am interested in concerning a study such as this one would be those not afflicted by crippling mental illnesses. The level of analysis in regards of cognitive ability should be somewhat moderate when discussing an issue such as this one.

Or is more a specific ingredient of the screen that contributes to a decrease in cognitive ability than it is a general lack of physical activity? There is a wide variety of media out there for people to consume–can we really write it all off as being something that will eventually be the undoing of your mind? There are plenty of programs available to individuals that fall under the category of being cognitively stimulating. Informational documentaries, programs that outline political policy, and others. Likewise, there is also a staggering amount of mind-numbing programming such as the Bachelor, the Kardashians, and shows such as the Apprentice. The issue with this particular study was its inability to distinguish between the various camps of subjects. Rather than creating various groups, only two groups were created. Those individuals that consumed media over a certain threshold were all lumped into one big category, while those who were under the threshold were categorized likewise.

At this point, I am under the impression that the mechanism responsible for depleting the cognitive ability of an individual to score well on a test lies more in an unbalanced daily routine rather than some sort of toxin transmitted by watching a particular show. Furthermore, the observational study performed within the article listed is unsatisfactory in a number of ways. The inability of the researchers to provide a number of groups is my primary problem. There is simply no ethical way to create consistent groups of individuals with consistent routines–some of which may be detrimental to the health of the subjects. Overall, I found the study listed within the article to be unsatisfactory in the pursuit to explain and discover a mechanism of depletion.

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/12/02/458071139/too-much-tv-and-chill-could-reduce-brain-power-over-time