Turn Off the TV!

April 20-26 marks this year’s TV Turn-Off Week– a 14-year-old national effort to get people to forego television for one week and instead spend the time reading, playing games, pursuing hobbies, playing outdoors, or just being together. This year, more research is out to bolster the argument that too much TV is unhealthy.

A recent report in the Archives of General Psychiatry finds that spending hours in front of the TV in adolescence could increase the odds of depression in young adults. For seven years, researchers followed the TV-viewing habits of 4,142 adolescents who were not depressed when the study began. Researchers found that the more hours of TV watching the adolescents did, the greater their odds of developing depression as young adults. Young men were particularly vulnerable. Interestingly, the study did not find a relationship between depression and the use of videocassettes, computer games or radio.

More about Kids & TV

With kids now watching an average of four hours of TV each day, parents have their work cut out for them if they want to minimize the influence of inappropriate content, especially violence, on their kids' behavior. Learn more in our 4-part series on Kids & TV:

TV-Turnoff Network: Find tips for limiting TV watching in your home.

Cutting the Cord: Living TV-Free

Tips for Snipping the TV Cord