TV Depresses Teens

As a society we are pretty much addicted to television, we are all familiar with the “couch potato” image of the overweight beer drinking slob sat for endless hours in front of the TV and by doing so ruining his health.

According to a new study TV can have other unpleasant side-effects.

Scientists working at the highly respected Harvard Medical School examined the viewing habits of over 4000 teenagers.

They studied the results and concluded that each and every hour that they watched television in one day increases the chances of them becoming depressed in by a massive 8%.

Conversely they also discovered that watching movies, playing hours of computer games did not have a depressing effect on the adolescents.

Pointing to the obvious conclusion that there is something in particular about watching TV that tends to depress young people.

Researchers believe that the types of programs that teens tend to enjoy also produce images that make them feel inadequate or not “normal”.

They point in particular to young girls watching images of wafer thin actresses with unattainable body shapes.

Young males tended towards high levels of anxiety, stress and inadequacy by not living up to many macho images and scenarios played out each day on TV.