Does Watching TV Make Us Happy?

Arbeitspapier

The paper studies a major human activity - that of watching TV - where many individuals have incomplete control over, and foresight into, their own behavior. As a consequence, they watch more TV than they consider optimal for themselves and their well-being is lower than what could be achieved. Mainly people with significant opportunity costs of time regret the amount of time spent watching TV. They report lower subjective well-being when watching TV for many hours. For others, there is no negative effect on life satisfaction from watching TV. Long hours spent in front of a TV are linked to higher material aspirations and anxiety and therewith lower life satisfaction.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CREMA Working Paper ; No. 2005-15

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis ; General Welfare; Well-Being
• Subject: Life satisfaction ; mispredicting utility ; revealed behavior ; self-control problem ; TV consumption

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Frey, Bruno S. ; Benesch, Christine ; Stutzer, Alois
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA)
• (where): Basel
• (when): 2005

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/214329
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET