Copious amounts of research indicate that cognitively active leisure-time activities, even if they’re sedentary, can help defend us from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. A 14-year study of almost 2,000 people indicated that reading, especially, can prevent cognitive decline. In fact, reading is among the activities that can actually improve cognitive function. Reading, writing, solving puzzles, even office work on the computer have been shown to actively engage the mind and help stave off mental decline in old age.
Television watching, I’m sorry to report, is positively associated with cognitive decline — no surprise, since it’s a very passive activity. In a recently published study, people who said they watched television “very often” — vs. those who said “seldom” or “never” — in midlife showed reduced volume in some critical brain regions 20 later; brain areas associated with early Alzheimer’s disease and that affect executive function, planning, attention, and visual processing.
“Well, I don’t watch TV,” you might be thinking, but let’s not limit TV watching to traditional live, satellite, and cable TV consumption. We should include all forms of streaming and on-demand video, including YouTube videos, short-form content, and passive social media activities such as doomscrolling. “Television watching” is simply shorthand for all forms of passive, “lean-back” audiovisual media viewing.
(Video games, btw, are cognitively active, “lean-forward” pastimes; the mental problems they are linked with, especially in young adolescents, are of a different sort. That said, playing video games might be beneficial to adults in their 70s and above.)
A lot of us would love to take a pill that would protect us from dementia, Alzheimer’s, and other forms of cognitive decline. But until we get one, it seems like one of the best things you can do for your brain is to read a book.