I guess that means we are lucky that TVs weigh so much less now.
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.
Use it or lose it
Correlation or causation? The article doesn't specify whether the subjects' brain sizes were measured prior to the study.
The linked paper suggests brain sizes were only measured once at visit 5.
I understand the difference, but in this case it’s not a good look for TV viewing regardless
What does that even mean? If people with cognitive deficits have a powerful idiosyncratic preference for pineapple juice, that's not a bad look for pineapple juice.
Now I'm curious if it matters what you watch.
Yeah... like, does watching an Attenborough documentary or two offset many hours of marvel movies? Asking for a friend.
probably not as much as doing anything non sedentary
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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 =)
it isn't the obvious idiocy that you've got to worry about, it's the not-obvious idiocy
Why not both?
because the not-obvious is harder to see.