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“Post-traumatic stress disorder has been on psychiatry’s books for just 23 years, and before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, no one ever entertained the possibility that watching disturbing images of trauma on TV could give rise to the disorder.
The notion remains controversial, but new research suggests that PTSD might indeed be transmitted over the airwaves. The study finds that those who spent more than six hours a day watching media coverage of the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath suffered more powerful stress reactions than did people who were directly involved but watched less news coverage of the events.
The study was published Monday in the journal PNAS.”* The Young Turks hosts Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian break it down.
*Read more here from Melissa Healy / LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-media-coverage-trauma-stress-20131209,0,5260119.story#ixzz2oLexh9yp
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Comments
First of all a “stress reaction” is not PTSD.
Can watching hours and hours of news coverage stress you out and give you the impression that the world is a dangerous place? Absolutely. Can it even give you nightmares and increase your startle response . . . possibly. Can it create clinically significant distress that lasts more than a month? Highly doubtful. I work with Veteran’s with PTSD and individuals with this disorder have a lot more going on with them than just feeling a little stressed out. They often struggle to get more than 3 hours of sleep a night often due to vivid and distressing nightmares, have difficulty going out in public, and struggle in relationships. I doubt all of this can be created just by watching a couple of hours of news programming. Could doing that increase your anxiety level? Absolutely. But it won’t “give you PTSD.” I have not read the study but my guess is the news headline vastly overstates the conclusions of the researchers.