“The pattern for daily TV use is particularly dramatic, with ‘not happy’ people estimating over 30% more TV hours per day than ‘very happy’ people,” the study says. “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 researchers determined that activities such as sex, reading and socializing correlated with the highest levels of overall happiness while watching TV, on the other hand, was the only activity that had a direct correlation with unhappiness.

It was noted that with regards to the TV watching, they weren’t sure whether happy people just don’t have time for TV because they’re too busy being happy… or that TV watching actually creates unhappiness in people. I think it’s both. Wonder when they’ll come out with the same study on people that spend 12+ hours in front of computers and how their happiness measures up…

Source - Study: Unhappy people watch more TV

Tags: happiness, television
Posted in Social