Apparently, people who are unhappy watch 30% more television than those people who are happy. The study shows that television is a safe place for people who are unhappy or have bad social skills because the television doesn't talk back or ignore their phone calls or stand them up on dates... or something.
Here's an clip from the full piece:
While happy people reported watching an average of 19 hours of television per week, unhappy people reported 25 hours a week. The results held even after taking into account education, income, age and marital status.
In addition, happy individuals were more socially active, attended more religious services, voted more and read a newspaper more often than their less-chipper counterparts.
The researchers are not sure, though, whether unhappiness leads to more television-watching or more viewing leads to unhappiness.
In fact, people say they like watching television: Past research has shown that when people watch television they enjoy it. In these studies, participants reported that on a scale from 0 (dislike) to 10 (greatly enjoy), TV-watching was nearly an 8.
But perhaps the high from watching television doesn't last.
"These conflicting data suggest that TV may provide viewers with short-run pleasure, but at the expense of long-term malaise," said researcher John Robinson, a sociologist at the University of Maryland, College Park.
In this scenario, even the happiest campers could turn into Debbie-downers if they continue to stare at the boob-tube. The researchers suggest that over time, television-viewing could push out other activities that do have more lasting benefits. Exercise and sex come to mind, as do parties and other forms of socialization known to have psychological benefits.
I mean... I'm not sure how I feel about this. WHAT IF YOU JUST REALLY LIKE TELEVISION? I will say that I may or may not have scheduled some social activities around the nightly TV lineup (what, am I going to not watch Top Model?) but I don't think that I'm an unhappy person! I just like TV.
What do you think about this? I find it very interesting.
[thanks, carolyn]
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