Unhappy People Watch More TV

Hugh Pickens writes "A new study by sociologists at the University of Maryland concludes that unhappy people watch more TV, while people who describe themselves as 'very happy' spend more time reading and socializing. 'TV doesn't really seem to satisfy people over the long haul the way that social involvement or reading a newspaper does,' says researcher John P. Robinson. 'It's more passive and may provide escape — especially when the news is as depressing as the economy itself. The data suggest to us that the TV habit may offer short-run pleasure at the expense of long-term malaise.' Unhappy people also liked their TV more: 'What viewers seem to be saying is that while TV in general is a waste of time and not particularly enjoyable, "the shows I saw tonight were pretty good."' The researchers analyzed two sets of data spanning nearly 30 years (PDF), gathered from nearly 30,000 adults, and found that unhappy people watch an estimated 20 percent more television than very happy people, after taking into account their education, income, age, and marital status — as well as other demographic predictors of both viewing and happiness. 'TV can become a kind of opiate in a way. It's habitual, and tuning in can be an easy way of tuning out.'"

Comments

Related Studies

[Savione]

The data suggest to us that the TV habit may offer short-run pleasure at the expense of long-term malaise.

Even those who aren't actively watching television tend to show negative side-effects if a TV is on in the same room. I recall this one study about background TV causing abnormal development in attention spans.

Re:Related Studies

[Lijemo]

Even those who aren't actively watching television tend to show negative side-effects if a TV is on in the same room. I recall this one study about background TV causing abnormal development in attention spans.

This doesn't surprise me. I grew up constantly bombarded by TV and I hated it.

I also found it mesmerizing and addictive. Which only made me hate it more. And even if it was a show I hated, I often couldn't get away from it, because I could hear it from my bedroom-- or, when visiting my dad's house, my "bedroom" was the livingroom with the TV in it, so there was nowhere I could go to escape when the damn thing was on. And I couldn't even go to bed until everyone else in the house was done watching TV for the night.

Yes, I know there are a lot of good shows that I miss out on by not having a TV. But having finally, finally escaped it's tyranny, I have never in my adult life been able to bring myself to set one up in my house.

I wasted enough hours in front of the TV growing up-- sometimes willingly, sometimes not-- to last a lifetime. I'm DONE.

You think 20% is small?

[Valdrax]

The average American watches an average of 4.5 hours of television every day, according to Nielsen. I don't know what percentage of viewers break down into the "happy" v. "unhappy" camps, but 20% of that is close to another hour of TV -- every day.

To put that in perspective, consider two things:

1) Most people spend 8 hrs/weekday at work and 8 hrs/day asleep. That's over half of the rest of one's day used for meals, grooming, chores, travel time, etc. For many people, TV is how they spend all of their free time during the week.

2) 4.5 hrs/day = 31.5 hrs/week. 20% of that is over 6 hours. That's not a trivial time investment.

Lastly, note that the above 4:35 quote is for adult men. Women watch about 40 minutes more TV per day. (The good news is that teens and children watch less.)