Hello Fellow Hedonists,
A new survey corroborates another set of studies which show that happy people watch thirty percent less T.V. than unhappy people. The General Social Survey has shown that happy people report watching an average of 19 hours of television per week and unhappy people report watching six more hours of television on average (education, income, age and marital status were controlled for).
The survey revealed things that wouldn't surprise those who follow this blog. Happy people are more socially active and attend more religious services than unhappy people.The survey also shows that happy people vote more, and read the newspaper more often than unhappy people. I found this a bit surprising in light of the evidence that suggests extremely happy people are a bit less politically active (and realistic) than their moderately happy counterparts.
The researchers have established a correlation between watching television and being unhappy but they don't know whether unhappiness leads to more television-watching or more television watching leads to unhappiness. After all, T.V might be a way for unhappy people to avoid dealing with the things that make them unhappy. Again, if you follow this blog, you are probably aware that another explanation of this data has been proposed: people who watch television are engaged in passive downtime (such as 'pooping out' in front of the boob-tube) miss out on the gratification of engaging in active downtime (such as riding a bike) or social activities which have been shown to increase your subjective well-being.
These explanations aren't mutually exclusive, and I would argue that television is probably part of some sort of vicious cycle (or shame spiral).
Excelsior!
C.L.Sosis
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