Do the psychosocial risks associated with television viewing increase mortality? Evidence from the 2008 General Social Survey-National Death Index dataset.

BACKGROUND

Television viewing is associated with an increased risk of mortality, which could be caused by a sedentary lifestyle, the content of television programming (e.g., cigarette product placement or stress-inducing content), or both.

METHODS

We examined the relationship between self-reported hours of television viewing and mortality risk over 30 years in a representative sample of the American adult population using the 2008 General Social Survey-National Death Index dataset. We also explored the intervening variable effect of various emotional states (e.g., happiness) and beliefs (e.g., trust in government) of the relationship between television viewing and mortality.

RESULTS

We find that, for each additional hour of viewing, mortality risks increased 4%. Given the mean duration of television viewing in our sample, this amounted to about 1.2 years of life expectancy in the United States. This association was tempered by a number of potential psychosocial mediators, including self-reported measures of happiness, social capital, or confidence in institutions. Although none of these were clinically significant, the combined mediation power was statistically significant (P < .001).

CONCLUSIONS

Television viewing among healthy adults is correlated with premature mortality in a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults, and this association may be partially mediated by programming content related to beliefs or affective states. However, this mediation effect is the result of many small changes in psychosocial states rather than large effects from a few factors.