television

Troubling research findings reported by AFP: TV and video games increase teen depression risk.

Key points:

"Time spent engaging with electronic media may replace time that could be spent on social, athletic or intellectual activities that could guard against depression. ... Being exposed to media at night may also disrupt sleep important for emotional and cognitive development."

I'm not one of those people who believes today's young people have been dumbed down or made unproductive by media saturation, or spoiled by common access to privileges we considered unattainable in my middle-class, small-town childhood. Young people today are smarter and more worldly than we were.