Saturday 22 May 2021
Maybe the BBC does cause brain rot
DALLAS — There’s an old saying which warns that “television will rot your brain.” Several new studies find it might be true. Researchers find that watching more TV each day throughout adulthood and middle age can age the brain faster and put viewers at greater risk for cognitive decline later in life.
Study authors also discovered moderate-to-high TV viewing during midlife also has a connection to lower grey matter volumes. However, sedentary behaviors which stimulate the brain such as reading did not have the same negative effects.
Grey matter is the darker tissue of the brain and spinal cord. It helps to coordinate muscle control, seeing, hearing, decision-making, and other important brain functions. The higher a person’s volume of brain grey matter, the better cognitive skills they typically have.
Researchers presented their findings in a series of studies at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology, Prevention, Lifestyle & Cardiometabolic Health Conference 2021.
Of course if you don't watch much TV you'll know this already.
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6 comments:
Is it the medium or the message?
Allowing any of the BBC's (or the other government-controlled media's) ghastly output into your mind will surely cause brain rot, whether via TV, radio or t' net.
But using a screen, TV or PC, sensibly to self-educate is beneficial.
The UK Yellow Card reporting system (which only approx 10% bother to use) shows (to 10th May):
Reports 235,223
Reactions 822,845
Deaths 1180
Happy jabbing if you're unaware (i.e., 'Woke')
@Ed P
What are you trying to say? Certainly people have died after receiving a vaccination but in many cases the deaths were coincidental. I expect more accurate figures will eventually emerge in time.
A quote "Based on age-stratified all-cause mortality in England and Wales taken from the Office for National Statistics death registrations, several thousand deaths are expected to have occurred, naturally, within 7 days of the many millions of doses of vaccines administered so far, mostly in the elderly." https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-adverse-reactions/coronavirus-vaccine-summary-of-yellow-card-reporting
Given that there is some mental function when watching TV - following plots, experiencing emotions, etc. - I wonder why it has that effect. It might be because the content is simply so depressing. Programme makers have worked out a formula for keeping people watching, but it happens to be harmful.
DJ - it's unlikely more accurate figures re causes of death will emerge, as the reporting systems are structured to make this unlikely.
The figures I stated above are undoubtedly lower than the reality, as the yellow card system is not used consistently by medics throughout the UK - some estimate it only reports 10% of reactions (as after their jabs, people go home and suffer side effects, but do not report them to their GPs).
The propaganda has been so effective that most people think covid was the major cause of deaths in the UK in 2020, when the official figures show approx 50,000 covid deaths out of a yearly total of approx 500,000, i.e., covid 10%, other causes 90%.
The report from which I obtained the figures may be found at https://www.ukcolumn.org/
@Ed P
The https://www.ukcolumn.org/ site may be interesting but it is a secondary source of data. It is written to attract those who want to read the news with a particular bias. Yes, it quotes the MHRA figures, but it also bypasses the nuance of the original report. To restate the nuance again; not everybody who died after receiving a vaccination died because of that vaccination. The Yellow Card process is designed to capture reports of adverse reactions - and then investigate any causative link.
Accurate figures will one day be available as there will be many scientists working on huge amounts of global data, correcting for local interpretations as necessary. It might take several years though.
Ed - yes, using a screen to self-educate is very beneficial, although I find the amount of information out there is daunting. Sometimes this makes the politics more interesting because this is where the drivers and money are. As for vaccination, it seems to be a personal issue where we have to make a guess and go one way or the other. I don't see any good answers to this one out there.
Sam - we seem to have evolved towards bread and circuses generally. That seems to be a big weakness in the mass media in that it isn't enough to be interesting or informative because the audience would be much more fragmented. The internet caters for fragmented particularly well and TV in particular can't hope to get anywhere near emulating that.
DJ - I agree, good data should be available eventually, but it might take several years and meanwhile we have to jump one way or the other. A highly personal take on it seems to be the best we can do at the moment.
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