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Teens, television and depression

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

A new study suggests that the more teenagers watch television, the more
likely they are to develop depression as young adults. But the extent to which
TV may or may not be to blame is a question that the study leaves
unanswered. The researchers used a national long-term survey of adolescent
health to investigate the relationship between media use and depression.
They based their findings on more than four thousand adolescents who were
not depressed when the survey began in nineteen ninety-five. As part of the
survey, the young people were asked how many hours of television or videos
they watched daily. They were also asked how often they played computer
games and listened to the radio. Media use totaled an average of five and
one-half hours a day. More than two hours of that was spent watching TV.
Seven years later, in two thousand two, more than seven percent of the young
people had signs of depression. The average age at that time was twenty-one.
Brian Primack at the University of Pittsburgh medical school was the lead
author of the new study. He says every extra hour of television meant an
eight percent increase in the chances of developing signs of depression. The
researchers say they did not find any such relationship with the use of other
media such as movies, video games or radio. But the study did find that young
men were more likely than young women to develop depression given the
same amount of media use. Doctor Primack says the study did not explore if
watching TV causes depression. But one possibility, he says, is that it may
take time away from activities that could help prevent depression, like sports
and socializing. It might also interfere with sleep, he says, and that could have
an influence. The study was just published in the Archives of General
Psychiatry. In December, the journal Social Indicators Research published a
study of activities that help lead to happy lives. Sociologists from the
University of Maryland found that people who describe themselves as happy
spend less time watching television than unhappy people. The study found
that happy people are more likely to be socially active, to read, attend
religious services and to vote.

And that's the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Caty Weaver. For
archives of our reports, go to voaspecialenglish.com.

Today, video games, television, especially social networks, harm youth. This is because some people spend more
time playing video games, checking the social networks and they don’t see beyond their surroundings.
Social networks became detrimental for society. Young people no longer interact with their families, they don’t
socialize with people, on the contrary they ignore them. Little by little they lose interest in learning things.

There are people who get depressed because of these things, by not interacting with people, they cannot let off
steam. Then they suffer from depression, since this is slowly killing their social and family relationships.
Nowadays technology is changing people, there are no family gatherings, everything is through Whatsapp groups
and interaction is no longer possible in person.

Do you think social networks and television are completely negative? Are there any positive aspects about
them?

More or less, because today there are people who spend it on social networks or on television watching cartoons
and don’t know whats happening around them. On the other hand, there are people who are cultured watching
science programs, animals, discoveries, etc.

It’s worth mentioning that today's society, prefer to give a cell phone to a child to be entertained with that, instead
of spending time with his son, play with him, see what things he likes. This really only hurts children, because they
get used to it only. Society now, no longer cares about researching things, they directly search the internet for what
they need and settle for it, instead of researching more on a topic.

The only positive aspect that I see him is to entertain himself in a moment of leisure