Does Watching TV Make Us Happy?

Bruno Frey, Christine Benesch () and Alois Stutzer

CREMA Working Paper Series from Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA)

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: Life satisfaction; mispredicting utility; revealed behavior; self-control problem; TV consumption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cul, nep-ltv and nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Does watching TV make us happy? (2007)
Working Paper: Does watching TV make us happy?
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cra:wpaper:2005-15

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