Netflix and chill doesn’t do you any favors. (Stocksy)
You’ve heard the mantra before: “TV rots your brain.” But new research has found it might actually be legitimate.
According to a study published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, binge-watching TV in your 20s is linked to cognitive decline 25 years down the road.
For
the sweeping study, researchers asked 3,257 people between the age of
18 and 30 to answer questions about their TV and exercise habits during
regular check-ins over 25 years. At the end of the 25 years, scientists
evaluated participants’ cognitive function via tests that measured
processing speed, executive function, and verbal memory.
Here’s what they found:
- 10 percent of people watched three or more hours of TV each day (for at least two-thirds of the check-ins). They were significantly more likely to do poorly on the tests.
- People who did the least amount of physical activity (less than 2.5 hours a week) also performed poorly on some of the tests.
- People who showed the most cognitive decline were heavy TV viewers that didn’t exercise much or at all — they were more than twice as likely to perform badly on the tests.
That’s startling news, given that the average American watched five hours of TV a day in 2014, according to Nielsen data.
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