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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.

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File URL: http://www.iew.uzh.ch/wp/iewwp241.pdf
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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich in its series IEW - Working Papers with number 241.

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Handle: RePEc:zur:iewwpx:241

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Related research

Keywords: Life satisfaction; mispredicting utility; revealed behavior; self-control problem; TV consumption;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:

• D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
• I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - General Welfare

References

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Citations

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:

1. Jeremy Kyle & revealed preference
   by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2011-02-23 12:55:14
2. TV & happiness
   by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2009-12-18 14:30:34
3. Consumption deskilling & utility
   by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2009-03-01 14:36:46
4. Diversifying mental states
   by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2013-02-02 13:39:27

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