Spending more hours watching television or playing video games may lead to depression in teenagers, according to a study published on Monday
Spending more hours watching television or playing video games may lead to depression in teenagers, according to a study published on Monday.
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Researchers looked at the exposure to electronic media of 4,142 adolescents who were not depressed when the study began in 1995, before DVDs and the Internet were widely used.
The teens reported an average of 5.68 hours of media exposure per day, including 2.3 hours of watching television, 2.34 hours of radio, 0.62 hours of videocassettes and 0.41 hours of playing computer games.
Seven years later, when the participants were an average of 21.8 years old, 308 of them (7.4 percent) had developed symptoms consistent with depression.
Young women were found to be less likely to develop symptoms of depression than young men when exposed to the same amount of electronic media, said the study, led by Brian Primack of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
Depression, the leading cause of non-fatal disability worldwide, commonly begins in adolescence or young adulthood, the article explained.
The authors noted that time spent on watching television, playing video games and engaging in other electronic media may replace time that could be spent on social, athletic or intellectual activities that could guard against depression.
Messages transmitted through electronic media may encourage aggression, inspire fear or anxiety and hamper identity development, they added. Being exposed to media at night may also disrupt sleep important for emotional and cognitive development.
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