Firstly, please excuse my bad English and unstructured format.

So I am super interested in mental health and have read some books + doing it at university. No expert but I am theorycrafting... Honestly this is a massive area for discussion with lots of evidence and examples and experiences in everyone everywhere.
Environmental factors coincides with the genetics of course... but I want to look at environment.

So here is an initial question:

First I want to look at the emergence of tv, media, films education childrens shows ect... and the question 'how will these affect the person in adulthood'?

Also I have developed a hypothesis:

'Childrens tv will effect the occurrence of mental ilness'

I think this is 'new' and unprovable atm as there needs to be observation/data and childrens tv is a recent emergence... But when a child watches tv, a particularly fun, colourful show, dopamine/serotinin will fluctuate heavily,,, a child can get addicted to these feelings, the regularity/routine of watching can develop a habitual clock inside the brain/mind of these different chemicals. The imagary can strike/stimulate parts of the brain which is responsible for imagination (ans so hallucination?).

So can this up/downess of the brains activity increase the likelyhood of a mental disorder such as bipolar?

There are studies which show how meditation stabilises the mind, improves mental health, ect, are childrens tv shows, when highly stimulating/colourful and when watched for long periods- is this essentially the opposite of such process?

Is doing some kind of un-interactive 'watching' of tv, akin ot being the opposite of problem solving (i.e chess or crosswords reducing the risk of parkinsons ect) and so can increase the mental illness occurrence?

I predict, a very large increase in mental ilness in the next generations, (not just diagnosis freq but % of pop freq)- if so what factors can this be attributed to?

I do not know much in this field, but I do agree that over-stimulation is the result of the technologies that we have today. Many of us young people have grown up watching a lot of tv, and have had a ton of exposure to new forms of entertainment and communication with emergence of modern pcs and smartphones. I would say these things are beneficial but can be very distracting and overwhelming. I do not know if it leads to an increase in mental issues, but I do believe ADD is much more prevalent in people within my age group.

keep in mind other factors that may affect whether a person watches colorful tv shows. easiest one i can think of is lack of stimulation from other sources like friends and family. when going through the literature i think you need to keep in mind that just because a kid watches tv, mental issues associated with it, may result from something that contributed to the watching of tv and not tv itself.

course if you're doing your own study, you can control for that

Keep in mind that most moralistic references in an individual are more or less fixed by 48 months. All phobias can be traced back to the 24-48 month old span of a human child.

The rest follows.

wrong

I never am. Good luck catching up.

I think you'd need to support the first bolded claim with some evidence.

Regardless, there's a lot going on in your theory...neurotransmitters, addiction, hallucinations, bipolar...I don't think it makes much sense. For instance, in the second bolded sentence, are you suggesting that TV can cause hallucinations? I doubt that's very likely.

Why would TV cause more dopamine/serotonin fluctuations than anything else that kids enjoys?

If anything, what I thought was true is that TV doesn't stimulate brain activity as much as other activities. It just acts to dull the watcher, not to offer much real stimulation overall.

There are so many assumptions in your theory that I doubt are accurate. And the leaps between what are essentially your guesses are posed as nothing more than slight possibilities. I doubt bridging the gaps would be successful although I doubt it's testable.

You've started from vague assertions and non sequiturs to get to a completely unsubstantiated theory that TV would increase the likelihood of bipolar disorder. There is no evidence to suggest that the conclusion is true, never mind that your reason is valid.

Funology,

What neurochem distinction exactly is there between bipolar disorder and epilepsy? 'cause certain cartoon patterns have triggered seizures in prepubescents.

You expand on that answer, you will find that yes, digital mediums do affect neurodevelopment and neurochemistry.

I don't really know where to get evidence, I said I was just theory crafting. I'm no scientist. If you have ever seen a child happy, excited, laughing whilst watching a tv programme, is it wrong to assume these chemicals are the cause- and the programme the cause of this? The process seems pretty similar to drug induced manic highs, if it were an adult it would be considered weird or strange. I probably just see it in a dark light but a kid infront of tv and behaving ecstatically gives some kind of image of a 'drug hypnotism' and I imagine the brain going hyper with all the stimulation.

Not directly cause hallucinations but cause parts of the brain responsible for imagination and creativity to grow more than normal. Which would/could be a postive thing but maybe not with dopamine and serotonin stimulation.

I know it is complex, another hypothesis is that if there are periods of child abuse along with the tv show routine then this would strengthen further imbalance.

I think an experience and knowledge of meditation is needed to have some understanding of what is essentially a polarised process of stimulation:mindfulness

Can meditation cure or lessen mental ilness? Everyone experiences poor mental health in their lifetime and meditation offers therapy, can it prevent such things becoming a disorder? I am going to be reading up on meditation and the brain but studies are very recent in this... event though the concept has been around for ages. Interestingly thai chi which is a form of meditation has been shown to cause an increase in mental health disorder for some people.

It wouldn't, but tv is a more frequent and easier activity in a modern world. Also define enjoyment, a child enjoys eating but it is unlikely to have the same effects in the brain as watching a favourite tv show or being tickled.

I suppose it varies child to child and show to show, but shows nowadays are designed to stimulate childs brains, with colours and visuals and fantasy. It is not reality like playing a game would be reality, it is not particularly interactive like a game would be. So I argue that it stimulates different parts of the brain, particularly more visual and imagination parts. I would not say a child is dulled when watching a tv show he/she enjoys, this is more true for adults watching something other than porn

THe disucssion is more tailored to environmental effects on childs emotions effecting the occurrence of disorder as a whole, I just gave this as a start. Regardless I do believe that the 1-2% people who become skitzo or bipolar will increase in 50 years and I tihnk childrens tv will be a contributing factor. Indeed it is assumption and untestable... but is it an illogical conclusion? Is there anything else we can test? There has to be a reason other than genetics to cause mental disorder, what are the variables? Brain function in childhood has to be a huge factor and possibly the largest along with genetics.

#10: Interactive mediums. As long as there are actual social cultures, i.e. creches, team sports, educational subgroups with common interests, it's perfectly acceptable to spend a few hours a day interacting with your own machine dreams.

Again, Jungian collective neurodevelopment. Hope that helps.

Thanks, Ron. That's what that PSYC1010 stuff was about. Enjoy.

this is what needs thoery/evidence.

A young infant with a developing brain may not be just as healthy for spending a few hours a day with kids tv, maybe it even changes with 'distance of head from tv'. I am very confident it is not the case. How do you conclude this is wrong? You are suggesting there needs to be some kind of counter balance to the tv? So the tv is a problem? If not I cannot see why you would mention 'As long as'

Well, it's really up to you to figure out precisely how you think TV causes different brain activity to anything else, and why that might be a bad thing.

Again, it seems like it's up to you to actually demonstrate or provide good reason for this rather than just to contend that it does.

Yes it's an illogical conclusion. You haven't really explained why you think (other than that it has bright colours and fun noise or something) TV effects the brain of a child differently to anything else. If it does effect the brain differently, you haven't explained why it's bad. If it is bad, you haven't explained why that would cause schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

There's no real link between you premise and conclusion other than speculation and vague assertion.

Honestly I am just interested in mental health and reading stuff about it, so I made a thread and a hypothesis, I'm expecting others to prove/disprove, I'm not so knowledgeable of evidence and I doubt much studying has been done on it yet.



I don't think its illogical. Overproduction of dopamine/seretonin is related to mental disorders. Kids tv makes an infant/child produces these hormones as suggested in the behaviour. Some children get over stimulated and 'high' from tv, some get addicted, a clear polarisation in mood can be observed between a child when he is 'grounded' and when he is allowed to watch tv for two hours, is this not down to brain state? Aren't all emotions? ect. Also the topic is about child emotion in general, tv is just an initial question or hypothesis. A clear common knowledge is that child abuse causes mental disorder in later life. Why does an unnatural amount of bad emotion cause a problem but it is illogical for an unatural amount of positive emotion? A link from this to an increase in adult mental disorder is not illogical, just not shown. I did explain theories as to why it could cause skitz or bi polar. (i.e parts of brain grow more- habitual chemical imbalance- de-stressing effect of meditation)

I'm no scientist, I typed alot, and could have typed alot more but I feel it is best to write small amount and then see the response, particularly with my lack of English/format skill.