Unhappy people glue themselves to the television 30 percent more than happy people. 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. But perhaps the high from watching television doesn’t last. These data suggest that TV may provide viewers with short-run pleasure, but at the expense of long-term malaise.
TV is neither judgmental nor difficult, so people with few social skills or resources for other activities can engage in it. Furthermore, chronic unhappiness can be socially and personally debilitating and can interfere with work and most social and personal activities, but even the unhappiest people can click a remote and be passively entertained by a TV.
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