Unhappy people watch more TV
Unhappy people watch more TV
Unhappy people watch much more television than happy people, a study has found.
By Stephen Adams
Unhappy people watch much more television than happy people
Watching television is an easy way to find short-term pleasure : "Even the unhappiest people can click a remote and be passively entertained by a TV" Photo: Getty Images
Academics found happy people socialise more, read more newspapers and have more sex - but watch less television.
Those who are unhappy watch up to 30 per cent more television than happy people, John Robinson and Steven Martin of the University of Maryland discovered.
The American researchers formed their conclusions after analysing the social habits of 30,000 people between 1975 and 2006.
The findings raise questions about other studies which show that watching television is often the highlight of a person's day.
Professor Robinson, a sociologist, said: "The conflicting data suggest that TV may provide viewers with short-run pleasure, but at the expense of long-term malaise."
"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."
They thought many people find television an attractive thing to do because viewers do not have to go anywhere, plan ahead, pay anything or expend energy to enjoy themselves.
But they were unsure whether television actually made people unhappy.
Either it took people away from taking part in more rewarding activities, they said, or it was a "refuge for people who are already unhappy".
"Chronic unhappiness can be socially or personally debilitating and can interfere with ... most social and personal activities," they found "but even the unhappiest people can click a remote and be passively entertained by a TV".
Prof Martin compared compulsively watching television to drug addiction: "Addictive activities produce momentary pleasure but long-term misery and regret."
He added: "People most vulnerable to addiction tend to be socially or personally disadvantages, with TV becoming an opiate."
By contrast, those who surf the web a lot are no more happy or unhappy than average, they discovered.
Their report has been published in the Social Indicators Research journal.
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Unhappy people watch more TV
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