# Television rot brain **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 2, 2011, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-rot-brain/601630 "2011-11-02T15:23:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![anon11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@anon11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anon11)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2011, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-rot-brain/601630/1 "2011-11-02T15:23:56Z")
Is this true? Is it stil relevant in today’s society of digital television and HD televisions? I have read that this phenomenom was related to CRT tv’s, and isn’t relevant with today’s lcd and plasma televisions. I read an article about flicker and refresh rate, relevant to the thread, but I can’t find it for the life of me. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2011, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-rot-brain/601630/2 "2011-11-02T15:30:45Z")
Television never “rotted” anyone’s brains, at least not in a physical sense. It’s just what your mother used to tell you to stop you watching quite so much rubbish. Sit through a few back-to-back episodes of _Jersey Shore_, though, and I offer no guarantees that brain mush will not start seeping from your ears. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2011, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-rot-brain/601630/3 "2011-11-02T15:36:03Z")
The only serious health effect of televisions that I am aware of was the radiation risk. Back in the 1960s there were several batches of televisions made by GE with a misaligned shield over a certain vacuum tube inside the set. Because of this misaligned shield, these sets radiated excessive (even by 1960’s standards) amounts of X-rays, directed mostly downward at an angle. If you were sitting across the room, you were safe, but children sitting in front of the sets would definitely be exposed to high levels of X-ray radiation. The sets were all recalled, though quite a few were never found. This whole affair was widely publicized, and led to new safety rules and regulations being passed. This is where the old “color TVs are bad for you” idea mostly comes from. Even though the problem was fixed, many people still had the idea that TVs were dangerous, and to be fair, CRT style TVs did used to emit X-rays. Improvements in tube designs cut down the amount of X-rays emitted by the CRT in the mid to late 1970s, though later CRTs did still emit some levels of X-rays. Modern flat panel TVs do not put out any significant levels of X-rays or other radiation. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2011, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-rot-brain/601630/4 "2011-11-02T15:36:29Z")
[QUOTE=your mom] When I was your age, we had these things called books that actually stretched your imagination. That TV is going to make you turn out an uneducated dimwit. [/QUOTE] Fair enough. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2011, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-rot-brain/601630/5 "2011-11-02T17:07:06Z")
> [@anon11](#): > > Is this true? [Depends on what’s being watched.](http://www.examiner.com/healthy-relationships-in-miami/spongebob-sucks-preschooler-intelligence-away) ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2011, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-rot-brain/601630/6 "2011-11-02T19:22:40Z")
The notion of TV rotting the brain has nothing to do with CRTs (or any other particular technology). It is a metaphor for the notion that your curiosity, your ability to think critically, and your motivation will all be degraded if you spend too much of your time passively absorbing intellectually vapid entertainment. Is it a legitimate concern? Maybe, although people these days seem to be inclined to raise essentially the same concerns over the possible negative effects of much less mentally passive modes of entertainment that are now popular, such as surfing the web, posting on Facebook, or, playing video games. I am sure they used to say the same thing about reading novels. _Plus ca change._ ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2011, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-rot-brain/601630/7 "2011-11-02T19:58:08Z")
Back in the old days, people knew [novels would rot your brain](http://www.merrycoz.org/books/CONFESSN.HTM): > [@](#): > > At an early age I acquired a taste for novel reading, and indulged it to such an excess, that my mind was enervated, and its relish destroyed for higher and more solid attainments. I feel that I had a capacity for better things; but, under the ascendancy of this idle habit, it sunk into a fatal lethargy, from which neither shame nor ambition could awaken it. The drunkard, in the intervals of sobriety, feels most keenly the evils of intoxication, and, if self love allowed him to be candid, could a tale unfold of disease, of mental and bodily suffering, that would do more for the cause of temperance than all the societies in the world have ever accomplished. The excitement of novel reading is akin to intoxication. When it subsides, it leaves the mind collapsed and imbecile, without the capacity or the inclination for active exertion. Those books will make your brains liquefy and pour our your ears, kid! ---
**Author:** ![anon11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@anon11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anon11)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2011, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-rot-brain/601630/8 "2011-11-02T21:36:48Z")
Does resolution, flicker and refresh rate influence the brain, while watching? Do cut’s and pans trigger the orienting response? Does this create an unfocused mind? [Here](http://www.tvsmarter.com/documents/brainwaves.html) is the source article for these claims. I don’t know if the website is nonsense or not. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2011, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-rot-brain/601630/9 "2011-11-02T21:47:01Z")
> [@anon11](#): > > Does resolution, flicker and refresh rate influence the brain, while watching? It might give you a headache if you’re sensitive to that and the refresh rate is too low (60 Hz), but this is more of a problem with computer monitors). If you watch the wrong thing and have photosensitive epilepsy, you might get a seizure. That’s about it. > [@](#): > > Do cut’s and pans trigger the orienting response? Does this create an unfocused mind? It mentions gamma waves when it tries to make this case, but [we really don’t really know what gamma waves correlate with in the brain or our consciousness.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_wave) I’d say it’s most likely nonsense. > [@](#): > > [Here](http://www.tvsmarter.com/documents/brainwaves.html) is the source article for these claims. I don’t know if the website is nonsense or not. It sounds like nonsense.