A recent study from the University of Maryland shows an inverse correlation between the amount of time one spends watching television and one’s personal sense of happiness. In other words, one can detect how miserable a person is by measuring how much television they watch.
On the other hand, there is a positive correlation between church going, socializing, and reading and happiness. Those who spend more time in these activities are more likely to claim to be happy.
Does this mean that television makes us miserable?
Not so fast. Perhaps television does make us miserable, but it is equally likely that people use television as a means of escape from an unhappy or alienated life.
My guess is that television is one activity that holds no potential for making us less unhappy. Retreating into the often repetitive lives of television characters contains none of the potential for growth and discovery that most other activities hold. By distracting us, television may serve to relieve pain, but it only treats the symptoms, rarely offering us genuine hope for change.
Read a Washington Post article on the study here.