The Negative Impact of Watching TV on Memory and Learning Ability

Introduction

Ever wonder what effect watching TV and playing video games has on your brain? Like most people, you might assume that spending time watching TV and playing videogames is not beneficial. However, you may be surprised to find out just how bad this activity really is for your brain! In this article, we’ll detail the different ways in which watching TV affects your memory and learning ability.

Reduced Brain Activity

Watching TV can also lead to reduced brain activity. When you’re watching TV, your brain is not actively engaged in the same way as if you were reading or listening to music or talking with a friend. When scientists studied this phenomenon, they found that people who watched more than four hours of television per day had lower cognitive function (which includes memory and learning abilities) than those who watched less than two hours per day.

This makes sense when you consider how the human brain works: it’s designed for survival, so it doesn’t want to spend all its resources on one task at a time when there are many other things going on around us that could mean danger or opportunity—like noises coming from outside our window, smells from our kitchen, or aches and pains from working hard at something new in our lives such as exercise! This means that when we’re not actively engaged with something (like reading), our brains will automatically search for new stimuli–like an ad on TV–to keep them busy until we’re ready again!

Poor Learning and Memory Skills

Watching TV is a passive activity that doesn’t require much mental activity. This can be good or bad, depending on what you’re looking for in your free time. If you want to relax and do nothing, then watching TV is great! But if you want to learn or memorize anything new, then it’s not very helpful.

• A study from Stanford University found that students who watched more than three hours of television per day had lower grades than their peers who didn’t watch as much television (1).
• In another study by UCLA researchers, participants were asked to learn certain information from a screen and then test themselves later without the aid of a screen (2). The results showed that those who’d been able to use screens during the learning stage had better recall after the test than those who hadn’t used screens at all during learning (2). So even though using screens may not be ideal for long-term processes like learning languages or absorbing data within an article or textbook, they can still be helpful in short-term situations where we need quick access to information and don’t want our brains getting tired out by reading lines upon lines of text

Reduces Concentration

A major drawback of watching TV is that it can be addictive. When children are exposed to a lot of television and videogaming, their concentration span decreases. They start to prefer passive activities like watching TV or playing games over active ones such as reading books or playing outdoors. This makes them less likely to develop good learning habits as they grow older.

Another problem with TV is that it can be a waste of time because most shows are not educational enough for kids who want more than just entertainment from their screen time. In addition, some shows may be inappropriate for young children because they might contain violence or objectionable language which could lead them into bad behavior as they imitate what they see on television.

Hinders Internal Reflection

Watching TV is like watching a movie. It’s a passive activity, and one that doesn’t help you learn new things. It doesn’t help you learn how to think, or reflect on what you’ve just seen or heard. Instead of learning anything worthwhile from it (like how to analyze situations or ask questions), all that happens is that the brain starts storing information in long-term memory without really knowing why or how it can be used later on—a process known as “incidental learning.”

The brain stores incidental information by bundling it together with other similar items so they’re easier to retrieve later on when needed. This may seem like a good thing at first glance because there’s no need for us to spend time thinking about something before we can access it—but this kind of automatic retrieval isn’t always ideal when we need more abstract concepts stored away in our brains for future use!

Deadens the Mind

Your brain has a limited capacity for storing new information. A 2008 study from the University of California, Irvine found that when participants were given a list of words and asked to recall them after an hour, those who had been asked to perform another task during that time struggled to remember as many words than those who had simply rested.

This is because passive activities like watching TV can reduce brain activity—in this case, your mind’s ability to process images and sounds quickly enough for you to follow along with the program or even take notes if necessary. When you’re not actively engaged in a task or concentrating on something else, your mind slows down in order to conserve energy; this means it has less power available for memorizing what’s going on around you at any given moment.

Watching TV and playing videogames are passive activities that can lead to lifelong disadvantages.

Conclusion

I hope that this blog post has given you some insight into the negative effects of watching TV. I know that it can be fun, and it’s always tempting to sit down and watch your favorite show after a long day at school or work. However, I think the research makes it clear that all of us would be better off if we reduced our screen time. There are many ways to accomplish this goal, such as by setting timers on our devices (to limit how much time we spend scrolling through social media), putting our phones away during family meals (so we can focus on each other), or even just turning off the TV when there’s nothing interesting on. All in all, spending less time in front of a screen and more time enjoying life with friends and family is always going to lead us toward happiness!