Abstract
Past research has shown a negative relationship between time spent watching television (TV) and several indicators of hedonic well-being—including positive affect (PA). However, cross-sectional designs employed in most of these studies do not allow for inferences regarding the direction of the link between TV watching and PA. Present research aimed to address this gap by using daily diary data from a large national sample of U.S. adults (N = 1668, age = 33–83 years). Respondents reported time spent watching TV as well as PA for eight consecutive days. Results of multilevel modeling analyses showed that duration of TV watching on the previous day did not significantly predict changes in PA on the next day. However, PA on the previous day significantly predicted decreases in duration of TV watching the following day. The results held after controlling for factors known to predict duration of TV watching and PA (i.e., age, gender, income level, employment status, marital status, health status, and personality traits). The present research goes beyond past cross-sectional work by shedding light on the direction of the link between TV watching and PA. Our findings indicate that watching TV does not seem to diminish PA—as critics of TV proclaim—but individuals seem to watch TV to a greater extent whenever they experience reduced PA.
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Notes
We estimated the mean level using a null multilevel model. Given that duration of TV watching was measured daily, multilevel modeling provides a better estimate of the mean than the arithmetic average of all observations combined. In a null (or also called intercept-only) model, the intercept is the sample average of the outcome—in this case, duration of TV watching. Mean PA was also estimated using the same approach.
The number of Level 1 units in the lagged outcome analyses was less than that in the concurrent analyses because by definition Day 1 observations do not have a lagged value and hence are missing from the analyses. In addition, for a given day to be included in the analyses, the respondent should provide data both for that particular day and the previous day.
Another possibility is that the effects of TV viewing follow a nonlinear pattern with adverse effects on PA observed only after a certain duration of TV watching is surpassed. We repeated the analyses by adding a quadratic term of TV watching duration to the models as an additional predictor. The quadratic effect of TV watching duration did not significantly predict PA regardless of inclusion of covariates in the model (all ps > 0.396).
We repeated all analyses by replacing PA with negative affect (NA). There was no significant concurrent association between duration of TV watching and NA. In addition, duration of TV watching or the quadratic effect of duration of TV watching on the previous day did not significantly predict changes in NA from the previous day to the next. Finally, NA on the previous day did not significantly predict changes in duration of TV watching from the previous day to the next regardless of inclusion of covariates in the model (all ps > 0.406).
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Bayraktaroglu, D., Gunaydin, G., Selcuk, E. et al. A Daily Diary Investigation of the Link Between Television Watching and Positive Affect. J Happiness Stud 20, 1089–1101 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-018-9989-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-018-9989-8