Is TV Making You Sad?

Looking into conflicting research into television viewing and happiness.

Today the Daily Mirror reports that, “Unhappy people watch more TV than happy people.” Why I am highlighting this is not in some soap-box style rant telling you to switch off and do something else (well maybe I will). Nor am I going to try and defend television. What I am interested in is how this reported in their imaginatively titled Couch Potato Woe.

The article claimed, “Scientists who examined the viewing habits of 30,000 people between 1975 and 2006 found happy people were more socially active, voted more and read more newspapers. Miserable people watched 20 per cent more TV.” That sounds all very plausible. It was the next line that really got me thinking:

“The research would appear to contradict other data which shows people rating watching TV as a highlight of their day.”

How exactly does that seem to contradict the idea that people who are down in the dumps watch more television? Surely if turning on the box is the highlight of someone’s day, this doesn’t suggest much of a happy existence, does it? Isn’t it the case that data showing people listing television as the highlight of their day backs up the idea that the box in the corner is making people miserable?

As time goes by we are reaching the point where nobody will have grown up without a television in their front room. My parents were perhaps the last generation who had a childhood not spent in front of the Box. Today, children are left to sit goggle eyed as their minds are infiltrated by advertisements and shows meant for adults.

Ok, maybe I am going to get on my soap box. I think Philip K Dick summed up part of the problem very succinctly in his essay How To Create A Universe that Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later, “Sometimes when I watch my eleven-year-old daughter watch TV, I wonder what she is being taught… Just how authentic is the information anyhow, even if the child correctly understood it? What is the relationship between the average TV situation comedy to reality? What about the cop shows? Cars are continually swerving out of control, crashing, and catching fire. The police are always good and they always win. Do not ignore that point: The police always win. What a lesson that is. You should not fight authority, and even if you do, you will lose. The message here is, Be passive. And—cooperate. If Officer Baretta asks you for information, give it to him, because Officer Beratta is a good man and to be trusted. He loves you, and you should love him.”

In his book, 100 ways to motivate yourself, Steve Chandler notes that watching television is watching other people do what they love to do, be it read the news, act, or even fool around and tell jokes. These people get paid to do these things they want to do, while the viewer watching gets nothing but a little older. Today, people claim that watching others having fun is often their most treasured moments. Children know nothing else than to sit and watch passively.

However just because research points to a correlation between television watching and depression, it could be that the cause and effect is muddled. Perhaps people feeling down find television as an easy way to pass the time, something they can do on their own with no need to dress up. It may be unfair to point to television as the cause of these woes. In that sense the Mirror was right and highlighting certain television as being something to enjoy could be a good thing. The key, as ever, is a balance between that and other forms of entertainment.