Does TV Watching Increase the Risk of Depression in Teenagers?

A study published in the February 2009 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry found that those teenagers who watched more than 9 hours a day of television where more likely to become depressed as young adults.

The researchers used data from a larger study of 4,142 adolescents who were initially not depressed. After seven years of followup, more than 7 percent had symptoms of depression.

But only 6 percent of the children who watched less than three hours a day of TV became depressed, while more than 17 percent of those who watched 9 or more hours a day became depressed.

Interestingly, there was no association with playing video games, or listening to music, or watching videos. The association of TV and depression was stronger for boys than girls, and was constant after the researchers adjusted for age, race, wealth, and educational level.

So what does this mean? First of all, it’s important to put this into context. Nine hours of TV watching is a lot!!!! It means that these kids came home from school at 3pm, and turned on the TV, and kept it on until midnight! Or it means that they spent the entire weekend watching television. So these findings are not so surprising. Basically television was their entire life, and that means that they had no hobbies, no friends, and no sports or extra-curricular activities. All these are a prescription for depression. The kids who watched less than 3 hours of television a day had lives, which is probably why fewer of them got depressed.

So the moral of the story is make sure your children have balanced lives, and limit screen time (which includes video gaming) to 2 or 3 hours a day, or less. One good way to control television time is not to have television sets in children’s bedrooms. Have a main television in the living room, and that allows you to know when and what your children are watching.

Okay, now I am off to watch no more than two hours of my favorite television shows…

Copyright © 2009 Andrew Gottlieb, Ph.D. /The Psychology Lounge/TPL Productions