too much TV = unhappiness?

NEW YORK:

Happy people spend a lot of time socialising, going to church and reading newspapers - but they do not spend a lot of time watching television, a new study has found.

That is what unhappy people do.


The University of Maryland analysed 34 years of data collected from more than 45,000 participants and found that watching TV might make you feel good in the short term, but is more likely to lead to overall unhappiness.

'The pattern for daily TV use is particularly dramatic, with 'not happy' people estimating over 30per cent more TV hours per day than 'very happy' people,' the study said.

'Television viewing is a pleasurable enough activity with no lasting benefit, and it pushes aside time spent in other activities - ones that might be less immediately pleasurable, but that would provide long-term benefits in one's condition. In other words, TV does cause people to be less happy.'

The study, published in next month's issue of Social Indicators Research, analysed data from thousands of people who recorded their daily activities in diaries over the course of several decades. Researchers found that activities such as sex, reading and socialising correlated with the highest levels of overall happiness.

Watching TV, on the other hand, was the only activity that had a direct correlation with unhappiness.

'We looked at eight to 10 activities that happy people engage in, and for each one, the people who did the activities more - visiting others, going to church, all those things - were more happy,' said Dr John Robinson, co-author of the study. 'TV was the one activity that showed a negative relationship. Unhappy people did it more, and happy people did it less.'

The study said: 'TV is not judgmental or 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 TV. In other words, the causal order is reversed for people who watch television; unhappiness leads to television viewing.'

Unhappily married couples also watch more TV: '(Happily married couples) engage in 30per cent more sex, and they attend religious services more, and read newspapers on more days, while those not happy with their marriages watch more TV.'

Commenting on the study, Dr Robinson said the worsening economy could boost TV viewing.

'Through good and bad economic times, our diary studies consistently found that work was the major activity correlate of higher TV viewing hours,' he said.

Since the major predictor of how much time is spent watching television is whether someone works or not, Dr Robinson added, it is possible that rising unemployment will lead to more TV time.
NEW YORK TIMES, REUTERS

(shit i'm guilty of watching lotsa tv! but i dun tink my frens whO dun watch tv are much happier than me leh... is SPH publishing this to 'gek' mediacorp??)