I had a great day today. I slept until 1, got a late lunch with friends, then lounged around watching TV for the next few hours. It was, in a word, sublime, especially compared to the past week of two midterms and an essay that I had just barely survived. Of course, though, in the face of all that relaxing, my pessimistic mind started reminding me of all those old mantras from my childhood: "TV will rot your brain!" So I decided to investigate if this was actually true.

An article published by Scientific American in January 2016 addresses exactly this question. Up until recently, studies have consistently associated watching television with increased size of the visual cortex, lower IQ and language skills, as well as antisocial behavior and obesity in children. Whether TV is the cause or effect of these processes, they are highly linked, so it seems safe to say that keeping children away from TV and outside as much as possible is a good practice. Other studies have shown that with each additional hour to two hours of television watched in childhood, the odds of developing depression, of being convicted of a crime, and of developing type 2 diabetes, increase. These may simply be the result of the antisocial nature of watching TV, and not the TV itself, but it is certainly not beneficial to children, or any of us, for that matter. Cause and effect is always a problem for researchers, though. Just look at the popular website "Spurious correlations" by Tyler Vigen, which I remember well from my middle school days. It shows highly correlated data that in all likelihood are not linked in any way. According to the website, per capita cheese consumption has a 94.71% correlation with "the number of people who died by becoming tangled in their bedsheets." Despite all the studies linking TV watching to various negative consequences, they may be just that: linked. TV watching may not actually be the cause at all, great news for slovenly college students like me. So says a recent study conducted by two criminologists, who when analyzing TV watching and incarceration, also looked at sibling pairs. Relatedness statistically accounted for all negative behavior, and not TV watching. The authors hypothesize that genetics, which shapes our brains and therefore our behaviors, dictate factors such as how many hours of TV children want to watch, and, in turn, how their brains respond. This research suggests that genetics accounts for half the risk of antisocial behavior (such as that previously associated with TV watching), and the rest can be explained by environmental factors. So, at the very least, we can conclude that watching TV probably doesn't directly turn us into serial killers.

I'm so excited by this news, I think I'll go watch some more old episodes of The Office. At least, until I next research this topic and am scared out of my wits again. Happy Halloween, everyone.