Unhappy people watch TV, happy people read/socialize
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. The study appears in the December issue of the journal Social Indicators Research.
Analyzing 30-years worth of national data from time-use studies and a continuing series of social attitude surveys, the Maryland researchers report that spending time watching television may contribute to viewers' happiness in the moment, with less positive effects in the long run.
"TV doesn't really seem to satisfy people over the long haul the way that social involvement or reading a newspaper does," says University of Maryland sociologist John P. Robinson, the study co-author and a pioneer in time-use studies. "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."
TV VIEWING DURING A FINANCIAL CRISIS
Based on data from time use surveys, Robinson projects that TV viewing might increase significantly as the economy worsens in the next few months and years.
"Through good and bad economic times, our diary studies, have consistently found that work is the major activity correlate of higher TV viewing hours," Robinson says. "As people have progressively more time on their hands, viewing hours increase."
But Robinson cautions that some of that extra time also might be spent sleeping. "As working and viewing hours increase, so do sleep hours," he says. "Sleep could be the second major beneficiary of job loss or reduced working hours."
STUDY FINDINGS AND DATA
In their new study, Robinson and his co-author, University of Maryland sociologist Steven Martin, set out to learn more about the activities that contributed to happiness in people's lives. They analyzed two sets of data spanning nearly 30 years (1975-2006) gathered from nearly 30,000 adults:
A series of time-use studies that asked people to fill out diaries for a 24-hour period and to indicate how pleasurable they found each activity;
General Social Survey attitude studies, which Robinson calls the national premier source for monitoring changes in public attitudes – in-depth surveys that over the years consistently asked subjects how happy they feel, how they spend their time among a number of other questions.
UNHAPPY PEOPLE VIEW SIGNIFICANTLY MORE
Robinson and Martin found that the two sets of data largely coincided for most activities – with the exception of television.
From the General Social Survey, the researchers found that self-described happy people were more socially active, attended more religious services, voted more and read more newspapers. By contrast, unhappy people watched significantly more television in their spare time.
According to the study's findings, 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.
UNHAPPY PEOPLE ARE HAPPY WITH TV
Data from time-diaries told a somewhat different story. Responding in "real time," much closer to daily events, survey respondents tended to rate television viewing more highly as a daily activity.
"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,' " Robinson says.
The data also suggested to Robinson and Martin that TV viewing was "easy." Viewers don't have to go anywhere, dress up, find company, plan ahead, expend energy, do any work or spend money in order to view. Combine these advantages with the immediate gratification offered by television, and you can understand why Americans spend more than half their free time as TV viewers, the researchers say.
Unhappy people were also more likely to feel they have unwanted extra time on their hands (51 percent) compared to very happy people (19 percent) and to feel rushed for time (35 percent vs. 23 percent). Having too much time and no clear way to fill it was the bigger burden of the two.
AN ADDICT'S FIX
Martin likens the short, temporary pleasure of television to addiction: "Addictive activities produce momentary pleasure but long-term misery and regret," he says. "People most vulnerable to addiction tend to be socially or personally disadvantaged. For this kind of person, TV can become a kind of opiate in a way. It's habitual, and tuning in can be an easy way of tuning out."
http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu
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November 14, 2008
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Comments
books
March 2, 2009 by Anonymous, 35 weeks 5 days ago
Comment id: 34988
books rock i love books but im unhappy inside lol
Yes, Instincts Do It
January 12, 2009 by Anonymous, 42 weeks 5 days ago
Comment id: 33713
(1) VALID HAPPINESS (including love, sense of beauty, symbiosis (good conscience, upholding justice, moral couraging, helping others, teaching…) bravery, etc.) must be the feeling of things being a step better for our propagation.
(2) WELL-BEING is the ongoing feeling of things going well step by step for our propagation.
(3) VALID SUFFERING must be the feeling of things being harmful to our propagation and calling us to prevent or rectify it.
(4) SOUL (including: personality, inspiration, etc.) is the computation results of both our instinct and pre-instinct data-programs in our brain.
(5) LIFE GOAL is to propagate.
All these are our instincts (ancestors’ successful experiences saved on DNA).
Right?
http://blog.sina.com.cn/happywellness
This can't possibly be applicable to Students
December 1, 2008 by Anonymous, 48 weeks 4 days ago
Comment id: 33157
I personally interact with people all day as an undergraduate. I read about 50% of the day and when I want to relax, watching a funny episode on t.v. is sometimes helpful. I personally believe that I am as happy as a growing undergraduate can be!
Sorry for the misunderstanding
November 18, 2008 by Anonymous, 50 weeks 3 days ago
Comment id: 32924
Sorry about the misunderstanding, I was commenting about some of the other comments. I did not mean that the actual article was claiming that TV was junk.
Response
November 17, 2008 by Anonymous, 50 weeks 4 days ago
Comment id: 32902
"you can't tell me that animal planet, the discovery channel, and the history channel is full of lies. Give me a break!"
Where is this claim supported in the article? The article makes no claim about the quality of television content. Nor does the article claim that "everything you watch is junk." Rather it says that people surveyed described TV as junk (except for their favorite shows). It takes further argument to move from that to the claim that "TV is junk", and the author of this study has NOT made that claim.
Hey, what about animal planet?
November 16, 2008 by Anonymous, 50 weeks 5 days ago
Comment id: 32893
Okay, I love to read and I'm not a big fan of watching TV, but saying everything you watch is junk and that only unhappy people watch TV is stretching it too far. There are plenty of extremely funny shows that leave you feeling good long after you stop watching TV, and you can't tell me that animal planet, the discovery channel, and the history channel is full of lies. Give me a break!
People actually retain
November 16, 2008 by Anonymous, 50 weeks 6 days ago
Comment id: 32890
People actually retain significantly less information from watching/hearing it on TV than reading, because reading engages the brain more.
This is discussed more in-depth here in this podcast:
http://tinyurl.com/radionihil-tv
Whether it does more harm than good is subject to debate, but I'm certainly better off without being bombarded by annoying commercials, news propaganda, and misinformation.
The people here who try to justify their time wasted in front of the TV are in denial, the same as people who play video games in excess. Isn't there something better you could be doing? Sitting idle for hours on end is unhealthy, and this applies to more than just TV viewers.
Elaboration of conclusions
November 15, 2008 by Anonymous, 50 weeks 6 days ago
Comment id: 32881
Allow me to rephrase the findings of this study in the way that I understood it. "People who sit and home at night and do nothing but stare at a box without moving or talking tend to be less excited about life than people who communicate with other humans." Am I stretching the interpretation, or will that be elaborated upon in the follow-up study?
When you do read, you must
November 15, 2008 by Anonymous, 50 weeks 6 days ago
Comment id: 32880
When you do read, you must read quite a bit of e e cummings.
Objectivity
November 15, 2008 by Anonymous, 50 weeks 6 days ago
Comment id: 32879
TV, radio, print, internet, or in person, the medium is less important than the intent of the message provider.
People are influenced by the information provided to them.
If the information is negative the impact will be negative regardless of how that information is delivered.
Individuals or groups with an agenda will use whatever medium they feel best meets their needs in swaying others.
TV news primarily hypes the negative and conflict.
TV 'documentaries' are not always fact based.
TV entertainment focuses on the feel-good factor, and keeping us fat, dumb, and happy, literally.
Those same approaches can be found in the other media and in our social interactions with family, church, workplace, and commerce.
The best antidote is to maintain a sense of skeptical objectivity.
And by skeptical I mean 'show me'; not the 'can't be' of cynicism.
TV is fake
November 15, 2008 by Anonymous, 50 weeks 6 days ago
Comment id: 32878
For all those who think information on Tv is better than reading...you got to be kidding. You really think paid for programing is teaching you anything, it teaches you to trust total strangers, who sell you man enhancment stuff, and things we don't need. It teaches you, its time to go outside. It teaches you to be a pervert, and only look at women as sex opjects. And for the lady who, says, she learned something from tv, get a book, cause everything your watching is fake, every thing is scripted, which means, its not real, the facts many times have been change and modified for the tv, very very few shows, have the facts correct, and if they did, you won't watch, cause its not entertainment, its the truth, and most of the time its in books.......get a life, I watch too much, but would never never, say I learned anything from the boob tube, thats all it is!!
correlation doesn't mean causation
November 15, 2008 by Anonymous, 50 weeks 6 days ago
Comment id: 32877
You have to be careful about interpreting studies like this. From my counseling experience being a therapist, I can usually predict which clients are happier. The sure sign is whether they have good groups of friends or family they feel that support them. Just the fact that people socialize more usually improves mood. This hightened mood removes the need for less emotional escape, in the form of passive television viewing.
I can beleive it
November 15, 2008 by Anonymous, 51 weeks 19 min ago
Comment id: 32876
This study is interesting, and I can believe it because I know from experiencing this. When I was younger I used to watch a lot of television, and while I was watching TV I felt better, but once I had stopped I was back to my miserable self again. After I moved to college I completely removed TV from my life, because I didn't have it easily accessible to me. I started to go out more, and to read more. I am also generally happier in the long run, because I am no longer being fed the garbage that is on TV. If I want to watch something I can now selectively watch what I want through websites like hulu, but even then I am more interested in picking up a book or going out and doing something.
:(
November 15, 2008 by Anonymous, 51 weeks 1 hour ago
Comment id: 32874
I like how some of the people above think because they watch tv and view themselves as happy, that this is more evidence then 30 years worth of National data. If all you rely on for information is what relates to you, good luck!
Ha!
November 15, 2008 by Anonymous, 51 weeks 1 hour ago
Comment id: 32871
TV content is driven by figures. to get the most people viewing you have to appeal to several target markets across a range. this leads to appealing to the lowest common denominator to get the most 'hits'. which leads to bland / sensational / uneducated television programmes.
my $0.02.
Can't believe happy people don't watch tv
November 15, 2008 by Anonymous, 51 weeks 2 hours ago
Comment id: 32870
i feel sorry for happy people then, cause i love tv. i gain large amounts of knowledge from my tv watching and at a much faster rate than my reading. i still read because you can't expect ruppert to spoon feed you everthing necessary for a well rounded existance, but much of research is spurred on by something i saw on tv. don't get me wrong, there is a remarkable amount of dribble on tv these days, but do you expect the people watching that to pick up a copy of war and peace if you turn off their tv. much more likely they would get a copy of the video vixen's autobiography. people feed their minds garbage because that's what they are interested in doing. but maybe i'm wrong.
USA perspective
November 15, 2008 by Anonymous, 51 weeks 6 hours ago
Comment id: 32866
And don't forget, TV in the USA is complete trash through a controlled system of distribution. The movies theaters are the exact same, disposable thin trash movies. For every good movie, there is many that are junk. The key is the controlled distribution. Hey! Let's Dumb Down the People! Somebody is winning, is rich in the trash business.
Research
November 15, 2008 by Anonymous, 51 weeks 7 hours ago
Comment id: 32864
Funny that all the hecklers here assume that they possess more knowledge than sociologists at the University of Maryland. The raw data is left out to make this Internet blog more accessible to the probable laymen audience. If you want an in-depth breakdown of a scientific study, perhaps you should-- I don't know, go read a book, not a blog.
Blah. "The data suggest to
November 15, 2008 by Anonymous, 51 weeks 11 hours ago
Comment id: 32862
Blah. "The data suggest to us that the TV habit may offer short-run pleasure at the expense of long-term malaise."
Well I will ALWAYS have long term malaise as I struggle with long-term depression and anxiety. Watching 2-3 hours of TV a week gives me at least a short-run pleasure away from life where everyday is a struggle to exist. It doesn't cause unhappiness for me - it offers a short respite from a life already darkly coloured.-Ella
:p
November 14, 2008 by Anonymous, 51 weeks 13 hours ago
Comment id: 32861
Ok, go watch TV. Maybe you will find a conclusive answer there!
Cause
November 14, 2008 by Anonymous, 51 weeks 15 hours ago
Comment id: 32859
Is the implication that watching TV causes you to be or more or less unhappy? I do not see any indication that one behavior describes is predictive of the mental state of the test subject. Too much data is omitted to reach any definitive conclusions. Let us see the raw data not the data that has been manipulated "after taking into account their education, income, age and marital status – as well as other demographic predictors of both viewing and happiness."
The conclusions clearly support their method of analyzing the data. A perfect case of making the data fit the premise of the study.
i dont think so
November 14, 2008 by Anonymous, 51 weeks 15 hours ago
Comment id: 32858
already heard about this a couple days ago from http://stuffididlastnight.com
bit of a dodgy title
November 14, 2008 by Anonymous, 51 weeks 16 hours ago
Comment id: 32857
Missed "more" a few times
"Unhappy people watch more TV, happy people read/socialize more"
The generalisation atm is too broad. Happy people still watch tv, as unhappy people also read + socialize.
Some good stuff in the article through =]
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