Does watching television trigger autism? (2007) • Hacker News Board

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#31

Post by thinkingemote » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 5:15 AM UTC

metamuas wrote: post #10

dqpb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think white noise causes autism?

Basically, humans are pattern seeking creatures, and children exposed to white noise will try to find patterns in white noise, when there are none, thus leading to the brain maladapting to random patterns. My theory, but I couldn't find a good definition of traffic noise being related to white noise or classified in particular, but who knows.

I used to share a room with someone who would fall asleep to TV. In the UK after the last show of the night there would be beep tone for a long time and then it would just be static, no signal.

This lead to me having a recurring nightmare which I also got for a long time into adulthood, seeing the tone as 1/2D line, flowing along nicely, and then the static would screw it up and turn it to knots and I would be unsuccessful in making it turn back to a line.

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#32

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 5:17 AM UTC

sascha_sl wrote: post #22

metamuas wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Diagnoses of autism have risen dramatically over the past few decades, from an estimated one in 2500 children thirty years ago to one in 150 today." is one of the first lines of the article. If you are so smart, and only you are so smart, what environmental factor has increased that rapidly?

Maybe because it's easier to get a diagnosis now and parents are more inclined to get their children checked? The medical system is not unchanging over the years. This is the same kind of thoughtful question as "why are there so many more left-handed/gay/trans people than x years ago" - because social factors have changed visibility of these traits, not because they didn't exist.

[deleted]

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#33

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 5:18 AM UTC

xypage wrote: post #12

kstenerud wrote: post #6

If you're going to post joke research, please don't do it about autism. It's already bad enough as it is with all the quackery going around.

I don't think it's joke research, I think they chose an effect that might have positive correlation and proved that, then showed at least one environmental factor that could explain it and how you could find correlation there too. They say themselves at the end that they aren't trying to say it's conclusive evidence in any direction, I believe they're just trying to generally indicate that there does seem to be some…

> I don't think it's joke research

Perhaps not consciously, but I take NBER research on causes of autism as seriously as NIH research on causes of recessions.

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#34

Post by silisili » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 5:18 AM UTC

metamuas wrote: post #2

Proximity to freeways increases autism risk, study finds [0]. Having a mother who lived within 1,000 feet of a freeway while pregnant doubles a child's odds of having autism [1]. Basically, white noise can cause autism. People are screwing up their kids at an exponential rate [2]. [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20210609042055/https://www.latim... [1]: https://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/20101217/fast-lane-t...…

I did a -lot- of research on a house about 1500 feet of a freeway.

It seemed to me nearly all of it was correlative. Which is fine, as it may be true.

But very few corrected for the fact freeways often run through the worst areas in town, which could mean nutrition, drugs, alcohol, lead paint, asbestos, heck about anything else bad about living in older, run down areas.

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#35

Post by labster » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 5:21 AM UTC

sascha_sl wrote: post #25

melony wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More likely would be tire particulates.

Don't underestimate noise pollution. It's a very real stressor. Though, what's more likely is that a child with mild ASD is more obviously autistic under stress, which leads to diagnosis earlier.

Don’t underestimate particulate matter and ozone. Kills millions every year.

But the same theory could apply, as health-induced stress instead of distraction stress. Or both.

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#36

Post by danamit » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 5:26 AM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #26

danamit wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it can be argued for other things like ADHD, I doubt it can be argued for cases of severe autism.

1. The quote says "diagnoses of autism" not "diagnoses of severe autism" so if the definition of autism has expanded over time due to improvements in our understanding of autism (which it has) the diagnosis argument is far more effective. 2. It is easier for children of poorer people to get an autism diagnosis now than it was 50 years ago, so even severe cases might not have shown up in the stats if the child was bor…

I meant it could explain some of it, but not the full 16x times.

I am talking under the presumption that researchers today are aware are correcting for that fact that there is some selection bias (if that's what I can called) in stats.

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#37

Post by metamuas » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 5:26 AM UTC

Trouble_007 wrote: post #7

metamuas wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corrected, thanks.

Correlation does not Imply Causation : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_cau... Edit: Add; White Noise : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_noise Pink Noise : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_noise Red (Brownian) Noise : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_noise Purple Noise : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_noise Grey Noise : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_noise

If you have the time, please find out what traffic noise is closest to. I tried to find out but couldn't get any further than this wikipedia page[0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadway_noise

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#38

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 5:28 AM UTC

> The authors reason that children are likely to watch more television if they live in an area that gets more precipitation

Growing up in part of the California Central Valley where it is intolerably hot outside for a large portion of the year and has near-desert levels of precipitation, and then moving to the Bay Area which has more precipitation and less intolerable heat, I found the reverse to be the case, which given where the research was conducted...

> If that is the case, then a finding that areas with higher levels of precipitation have higher autism rates would be strongly suggestive of a role for television watching as an autism trigger,

“Strongly suggestive” ludicrously overstates the case.

I mean, there's a lot of things more strongly associated with precipitation than television watching.

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#39

Post by metamuas » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 5:29 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #33

xypage wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's joke research, I think they chose an effect that might have positive correlation and proved that, then showed at least one environmental factor that could explain it and how you could find correlation there too. They say themselves at the end that they aren't trying to say it's conclusive evidence in any direction, I believe they're just trying to generally indicate that there does seem to be some…

> I don't think it's joke research Perhaps not consciously, but I take NBER research on causes of autism as seriously as NIH research on causes of recessions.

Well the stock market succeeding depends on people having irrational faith in the stocks like Tesla, despite making most of their money from Bitcoin than selling cars[0], so that isn't really a valid counterfactual point, since market opinions are based on psychological beliefs.

[0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20210427112905/https://www.wsj.c...

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#40

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 5:30 AM UTC

sascha_sl wrote: post #14

metamuas wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precipitation means the kids stay inside and are more likely to watch television[0]. This was influenced by another paper about the link between precipitation and autism[1]. Why do you think it is joke research? Why did you criticize before looking into it? [0]: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=989648 [1]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/articlepdf/3...

They're both written by the same people, econ professors that are helplessly out of their field. They're assuming a lot of things here: * Rain means children watch televsion, no rain means they do not. This is a harsh oversimplification of how parents work. * Cable TV was correlated to increased autism diagnosis. But what else is correlated to Cable TV? Wealth. And what's correlated to wealth? Getting your kid diagno…

> And what's correlated to wealth?

Delayed family starts.

And what's a well-established contributor to autism?

Paternal age at conception.