Maybe. What are old people watching? If it’s anything like what I see at my relatives and at assisted living facilities, it’s also of cable news and weather.
Staring at repetitive, content free crap cannot be good for your brain.
Staring at repetitive, content free crap cannot be good for your brain.
I would wager it's more of a vicious cycle, with other factors at play.
The thing that bugs me about these genres of dumb TV is that the constant attention grabbing and little dopamine hits of whatever the crisis de jure is has to have some impact.
My in-laws called me this summer genuinely concerned about thunderstorms approaching some place in Alabama. We live like 1500 miles away.
And stopped criticizing parental units over holidays for watching too many old westerns/noirs. There was an ancient Audie Murphy movie on that could be plopped into modern day anti-corporate/rich messaging but the plot was so complex it would never get made today.
"Good for your brain" is an incredibly loose criteria. I think for many definitions of that statement there's no clear evidence to to support it.
Furthermore there's a huge cultural bias towards believing that statement - which makes me even more wary of accepting it unconditionally.
News isn’t that, but where does it lie on the spectrum? I’m not saying I have proof, just presenting conjecture, and I’d love to read about research in this area.