WB Rants: Don’t Believe Everything You Read On The Internet

The latest episode of "Everything Is Bad For You" is on. I frankly don't believe the results of this study.

According to a study published yesterday in JAMA Psychiatry, binge-watching TV in your twenties leads to premature brain decline.

In the 25-year study of 3,200 18-to-30-year-olds, those who reported watching more than three hours of TV a day and engaging in less than two-and-a-half hours of physical activity a week were more than twice as likely to score poorly on brain-performance tests, and at an even earlier age than researchers predicted.

Researchers also note that brain impairment for today's millennials may be even more dire, since Netflix, video games and smartphones didn't exist when the study began.

So, this is bad, right? This is where "Radio Will" goes into his "TV sucks and you need to listen to more radio instead" sales pitch, right?

I can't. Even though you should listen to Q92.3 every waking moment, I know people need visual entertainment too.

I haven't had a good rant in a while. Here's why these findings are wrong:

1. They're testing young people. Teens and 20-somethings hate tests.
2. Their brains aren't fully developed. Everyone knows that the human brain isn't at its peak until your early 30s.
3. Have you seen the standard behavior exhibited by people between the ages of 18 and 30? Return to #2. I know Q92.3's target audience is women 18-34, so I apologize for telling you the brutal truth, but young people fail brain-performance tests every day based on the dumb stuff they say and do. The smartest thing 18-30 year old people do in the Cedar Valley is listen to Q92.3.
4. They are incorrectly defining bingewatching. Bingewatching is a conscious choice by someone to follow along with episodes in their designated order. This is no different than reading a book, which nobody considers to be dumb. It takes intelligence to bingewatch a show and process all the storyline information and retain it. They are defining bingewatching as "having the TV on for three-plus hours and watching whatever".
5. The quality of the TV being seen is not taken into account. First off, if someone in the Cedar Valley is watching the Hawkeyes play in the Big Ten championship game, according to the study that is considered "bingewatching". Any sporting event will have you at your limit for the day. Some people watch educational television. Some people watch reality dreck.
6. The physical activity part completely skews the findings. Less than 2.5 hours of physical activity in a week? You have to actively try really hard to not exercise that much. There are three kinds of people who really fit in this category: people who have serious physical ailments that prevent them from doing physical activity (which would affect their mental capacity to the point they'd likely fail a brain-performance test), stoners (who would fail any kind of test), and people who are world-class lazy (and would not have the motivation to even try to pass any test).
7. The researchers are mean. They fry young people's brains with multiple hours of TV in a row, and then give them questions like this:

I mean, really. Who the hell can figure this out?
8. Brain-performance tests are nothing but trick questions. You have to be sharp and alert and be a grad student at UNI to even have a chance of passing these anyway.

You're just fine, 18-30 year olds enjoying Q923.net! Watch as much TV (and listen to as much Q92.3) as you wonderful people want to.