A Newswise press release posted on Friday about a study from University of Maryland sociologists has hit the headlines of papers around the world including the UK, India, and Bulgaria as well as the United States. The new study suggests that unhappy people watch more television, while happy people spend more time reading and socializing. The investigators at the University of Maryland analyzed three decades of data from time-use studies and social attitudes surveys (nationally representative). Their study indicates that spending more time watching TV contributes to happiness in the moment, but may result in fewer positive effects in the long term.

“TV doesn’t really seem to satisfy people over the long haul the way that social involvement or reading a newspaper does,” says University of Maryland sociologist John P. Robinson, the study co-author and a pioneer in time-use studies. “It’s more passive and may provide escape – especially when the news is as depressing as the economy itself. The data suggest to us that the TV habit may offer short-run pleasure at the expense of long-term malaise.”

Robinson suggests that we might see a significant increase in TV viewing over the coming months and years as the economy worsens…

“Through good and bad economic times, our diary studies, have consistently found that work is the major activity correlate of higher TV viewing hours,” Robinson says. “As people have progressively more time on their hands, viewing hours increase.”

But Robinson cautions that some of that extra time also might be spent sleeping. “As working and viewing hours increase, so do sleep hours,” he says. “Sleep could be the second major beneficiary of job loss or reduced working hours.”

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