Often unhappy people are

People who are dissatisfied with life tend to spend a lot of free time sitting in front of a television screen, while very happy people like to read books and participate in social activities.

John P. Robinson and Steve Martin - two sociologists at the University of Maryland (USA) - want to learn about activities that bring happiness to people. They analyzed data from sociological studies from 1975 to 2006. These works have about 30,000 adults participated and divided into two groups.

(Photo: Daylife.com)

The first group includes studies of how people use time in a day. Scientists ask participants to list activities that they usually do in a day and how satisfied they are when they perform those activities.

The second group includes public opinion polls about people's satisfaction in life. Participants were asked about the level of happiness, how they used time and some other questions. These questions have remained constant for many years.

From the results of the analysis, the two researchers found that people who thought they had a happy life tended to spend more free time reading books, visiting friends, participating in social activities. On the contrary, those who are unhappy spend a lot of their free time watching TV.

Specifically, the TV viewing time of the unhappy is much higher than that of people who are happy about 20% (after taking into account the level of education, income, age and marital status of the participants). Most participants think that watching TV is the easiest activity of the day, because they don't have to leave home, wear clothes, spend money, plan and many other things.

51% of people are unhappy feeling they have too much free time, while this rate in very happy people is 19%. Both groups admitted that there was too much free time but did not know what to do as one of the serious problems.

" Like many other addictive activities, watching television can give us temporary satisfaction, but then it leaves a feeling of regret. Television addicts tend to face many obstacles in life. Personal and social life For those people, television can become a tool to help them forget reality , "concludes Steve Martin.