to the radio.
Here was the result. The young people spent five and a half hours a day using media and more than 2 hours of that was spent watching TV.
Seven years later, in 2001, more than 7% of the young people had signs of depression. The average age at that time was 21. Brian Primack at the University of Pittsburgh medical school was the lead authorof the new study. He says every extra hour of television meant an 8% increase in the chances of developingsigns of depression.
The researchers say they did not find any such relationship with the use of othermedia such as movies,video games or radio. But the study did find that young men were more likely than young women to developdepression given the same amount of media use.
Doctor Primack says the study did not find out if watching TV causes depression directly. But one possibility, he says, is that it may take time away from activities that could help prevent depression, like sports and social activities. It might also prevent a person from sleeping well, he says, and that could have an influence.
The study was just published in the Archives of General