Neuroscience
There's a snobbishness about relaxation time. Tell someone your hobby is watching TV and chances are they'll look at you with derision. Mention meditation, reading or yoga and you're far more likely to attract nods of approval.
And yet there is substantial evidence that time watching TV or playing video games can have a powerful restorative effect - just what many of us need after a hard day. This benefit isn't found for everyone, and in a new paper Leonard Reinecke and his collaborators propose that a key reason has to do with guilt.
The researchers think that it is people who are mentally exhausted, who are most likely to experience guilt after vegging out with a box set or video game. This is because, in their depleted state, these people see their behaviour as procrastination. This leads to the paradoxical situation in which it is the people who could most benefit from the restorative effects of lounge-based downtime who are the least likely to do so.
To test their ideas, Reinecke's team surveyed nearly 500 people in Germany and Switzerland. Participants were recruited via a gaming website and through psychology and communication classes. Specifically, the participants answered questions about the previous day, including how much work or study they'd done (answers ranged from half an hour to 16 hours), how depleted they felt after work or college, how much TV they'd watched or video-gaming they'd played (this averaged around two hours), whether they viewed it as procrastination, whether they felt guilty, and how recharged they felt afterwards.
The key finding is that the more depleted people felt after work (agreeing with statements like "I felt like my willpower was gone"), the more they tended to view their TV or gaming as procrastination, the more guilt they felt, and the less likely they were to say they felt restored afterwards. The same findings applied for TV or video games.
"Rather than diminishing the beneficial potential of entertaining media," the researchers said, "we believe that the results of this study may ultimately help to optimise the well-being outcomes of entertaining media use by extending our knowledge of the mechanisms furthering and hindering media-induced recovery and general well-being." If the researchers are correct, then if you cut yourself some slack when you watch TV after a hard day, you're more likely feel rejuvenated afterwards.
Unfortunately, as the researchers admit in their paper, their methodological approach has several limitations. Above all, this wasn't an experimental study (with people allocated randomly to different interventions). This means the data can be interpreted in many different ways. One alternative reading of the results is that when TV or gaming fails to have a restorative effect, this leads people to view the time as wasteful procrastination, thus causing them to feel guilty.
_________________________________
Reinecke, L., Hartmann, T., & Eden, A. (2014). The Guilty Couch Potato: The Role of Ego Depletion in Reducing Recovery Through Media Use Journal of Communication, 64 (4), 569-589 DOI: 10.1111/jcom.12107
--further reading--
Do television and video games impact on the wellbeing of younger children?
Can relationships with fictional characters aid our self development?
A psychological problem with snacking in front of the telly.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- Link Feast
Our pick of this week's 10 best psychology and neuroscience links: Why We (and My Mum) Are So Glad The World is Waking up to What Autism Is If you're on the autistic spectrum, "never give up hope," says Joash Taylor. Is Late-Night Snacking Really...
- Could Violent Video Games Make Players More Moral In The Real World?
Video games allow players to indulge in simulated behaviours that in the real world would be highly antisocial or unethical, and many people are concerned how this might spill over from the screen to the street. A new study, however, suggests that such...
- Psychologists Investigate A Major, Ignored Reason For Our Lack Of Sleep - Bedtime Procrastination
Short term, lack of sleep scrambles our mental functioning. Long term, the health consequences can be dire. What's stopping us from getting enough? For many, adequate sleep is elusive because of sleep disorders, including varieties of insomnia. For...
- Do Television And Video Games Impact On The Wellbeing Of Younger Children?
We’re often bombarded with panicky stories in the news about the dangers of letting children watch too much television or play too many video games. The scientific reality is that we still know very little about how the use of electronic media affects...
- Effects Of A Violent Video Game Depend On Whether You're Superman Or The Joker
After Aaron Alexis shot dead 12 people at the Navy Yard in Washington DC in September, media outlets were quick to highlight his reported enjoyment of violent video games. To many, this was just the latest example of how violent games can foster real-life...
Neuroscience
Forgive yourself for relaxing in front of the TV and the couch time might actually do you some good
And yet there is substantial evidence that time watching TV or playing video games can have a powerful restorative effect - just what many of us need after a hard day. This benefit isn't found for everyone, and in a new paper Leonard Reinecke and his collaborators propose that a key reason has to do with guilt.
The researchers think that it is people who are mentally exhausted, who are most likely to experience guilt after vegging out with a box set or video game. This is because, in their depleted state, these people see their behaviour as procrastination. This leads to the paradoxical situation in which it is the people who could most benefit from the restorative effects of lounge-based downtime who are the least likely to do so.
To test their ideas, Reinecke's team surveyed nearly 500 people in Germany and Switzerland. Participants were recruited via a gaming website and through psychology and communication classes. Specifically, the participants answered questions about the previous day, including how much work or study they'd done (answers ranged from half an hour to 16 hours), how depleted they felt after work or college, how much TV they'd watched or video-gaming they'd played (this averaged around two hours), whether they viewed it as procrastination, whether they felt guilty, and how recharged they felt afterwards.
The key finding is that the more depleted people felt after work (agreeing with statements like "I felt like my willpower was gone"), the more they tended to view their TV or gaming as procrastination, the more guilt they felt, and the less likely they were to say they felt restored afterwards. The same findings applied for TV or video games.
"Rather than diminishing the beneficial potential of entertaining media," the researchers said, "we believe that the results of this study may ultimately help to optimise the well-being outcomes of entertaining media use by extending our knowledge of the mechanisms furthering and hindering media-induced recovery and general well-being." If the researchers are correct, then if you cut yourself some slack when you watch TV after a hard day, you're more likely feel rejuvenated afterwards.
Unfortunately, as the researchers admit in their paper, their methodological approach has several limitations. Above all, this wasn't an experimental study (with people allocated randomly to different interventions). This means the data can be interpreted in many different ways. One alternative reading of the results is that when TV or gaming fails to have a restorative effect, this leads people to view the time as wasteful procrastination, thus causing them to feel guilty.
_________________________________
Reinecke, L., Hartmann, T., & Eden, A. (2014). The Guilty Couch Potato: The Role of Ego Depletion in Reducing Recovery Through Media Use Journal of Communication, 64 (4), 569-589 DOI: 10.1111/jcom.12107
--further reading--
Do television and video games impact on the wellbeing of younger children?
Can relationships with fictional characters aid our self development?
A psychological problem with snacking in front of the telly.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- Link Feast
Our pick of this week's 10 best psychology and neuroscience links: Why We (and My Mum) Are So Glad The World is Waking up to What Autism Is If you're on the autistic spectrum, "never give up hope," says Joash Taylor. Is Late-Night Snacking Really...
- Could Violent Video Games Make Players More Moral In The Real World?
Video games allow players to indulge in simulated behaviours that in the real world would be highly antisocial or unethical, and many people are concerned how this might spill over from the screen to the street. A new study, however, suggests that such...
- Psychologists Investigate A Major, Ignored Reason For Our Lack Of Sleep - Bedtime Procrastination
Short term, lack of sleep scrambles our mental functioning. Long term, the health consequences can be dire. What's stopping us from getting enough? For many, adequate sleep is elusive because of sleep disorders, including varieties of insomnia. For...
- Do Television And Video Games Impact On The Wellbeing Of Younger Children?
We’re often bombarded with panicky stories in the news about the dangers of letting children watch too much television or play too many video games. The scientific reality is that we still know very little about how the use of electronic media affects...
- Effects Of A Violent Video Game Depend On Whether You're Superman Or The Joker
After Aaron Alexis shot dead 12 people at the Navy Yard in Washington DC in September, media outlets were quick to highlight his reported enjoyment of violent video games. To many, this was just the latest example of how violent games can foster real-life...