Does Watching TV Make Us Unhappy?
New study investigates the relation between TV watching and positive emotions.
Posted May 17, 2018
When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought (Steve Jobs, Wired magazine, 1996).
The average American spends close to three hours watching television every day.1 What that means it that in a span of, say, eight years, the average American spends the equivalent of one full year (24 hours a day) watching television!
Previous research has found a negative association between TV watching and positive affect—the experience of positive emotional states, high levels of energy, interest, and enthusiasm—but the causal direction of this connection remains unclear. That is to say there is research support for both the claim that unhappy people are drawn to watching TV, and the claim that watching television causes unhappiness.2
For instance, there is evidence that watching television reduces positive affect. Even when viewing TV programs happens to improve the mood, the effect is temporary and comes at the cost of engaging in alternative (and potentially beneficial) behaviors, such as volunteering, spending quality time with family and friends, and pursuing hobbies.
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What are people watching on TV?
Me...I love Star Trek, Supernatural, Once Upon A Time, and a host of other shows that I enjoy. If I'm watching news and I find myself getting too depressed or agitated, I change the channel to something that I like. Property Brothers makes me smile a lot. The wedding today had a nice feel good quality about it.
Life sucks sometimes and sometimes escapist TV or movies is the way to go.
These kinds of studies come along from time to time talking about it's destruction for humanity and all that. They said the same things about the internet and cell phone's too. I think rock music at one time got blamed for corrupting our youth, too.
So, yeah, horse hockey. 
Advertising always has us chasing the next big thing and they target you and beat you over the head relentlessly until you buy that product, and then you're drowning in debt because of it, and then they advertise products to get you out of debt! It's an endless cycle of shit and I blame well mostly that industry! 
