Neuroscience
Apparently, television commercials serve a useful purpose in the enjoyment of television shows. Future Tense's Jon Gordon interviewed Jeff Galak, a doctoral candidate at NYU's Stern School of Business last week regarding Galak's research suggesting that "commercial interruptions make TV shows more enjoyable."
Apparently it's not the commercials themselves that make us enjoy the shows we are watching. Instead, it's the forced break; we get habituated to what we are doing and thus enjoy it less over time. Since the commercials stop the show, when we return to the show, we enjoy it more because we've had a break. From the abstract:
"...[S]tudies demonstrate that, although people preferred to avoid commercial interruptions, these interruptions actually made programs more enjoyable (study 1), regardless of the quality of the commercial (study 2), even when controlling for the mere presence of the ads (study 3), and regardless of the nature of the interruption (study 4)."
The article will be published August.
For More Information
- A Preliminary Psychology Of Binge Tv Watching
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A Warm TV Can Drive Away Feelings of Loneliness & RejectionStudies find that illusionary relationships with TV characters can give us real pleasureRelease Date: April 22, 2009BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Not all technology meets human needs, and some technologies...
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Neuroscience
Interruptions & Watching Television
Apparently, television commercials serve a useful purpose in the enjoyment of television shows. Future Tense's Jon Gordon interviewed Jeff Galak, a doctoral candidate at NYU's Stern School of Business last week regarding Galak's research suggesting that "commercial interruptions make TV shows more enjoyable."
Apparently it's not the commercials themselves that make us enjoy the shows we are watching. Instead, it's the forced break; we get habituated to what we are doing and thus enjoy it less over time. Since the commercials stop the show, when we return to the show, we enjoy it more because we've had a break. From the abstract:
"...[S]tudies demonstrate that, although people preferred to avoid commercial interruptions, these interruptions actually made programs more enjoyable (study 1), regardless of the quality of the commercial (study 2), even when controlling for the mere presence of the ads (study 3), and regardless of the nature of the interruption (study 4)."
The article will be published August.
For More Information
- Gordon, Jon. Study: Interruptions make TV shows more enjoyable. Future Tense, Jan. 20, 2009.
- Nelson, Leif D., Tom Meyvis, and Jeff Galak (2009), “Enhancing the Television Viewing Experience through Commercial Interruptions,” in Press at the Journal of Consumer Research, 36 (August). [Paper; subscription required or check @ your library]
- A Preliminary Psychology Of Binge Tv Watching
A new study in the Journal of Health Psychology is the first to provide a scholarly definition of binge TV watching and to investigate some of the factors that explain how much people indulge in it. According to Emily Walton-Pattison at Newcastle University...
- Tv Shows Like The O.c. Accused Of Making Teenagers Sexist
American teenagers who spend more time watching romantic dramas like The O.C. or romance-based reality shows like The Bachelor tend to hold more old-fashioned views about the roles men and women should play when dating - a pattern that psychologists at...
- "all I Need Is A Tv Show..."
A Warm TV Can Drive Away Feelings of Loneliness & RejectionStudies find that illusionary relationships with TV characters can give us real pleasureRelease Date: April 22, 2009BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Not all technology meets human needs, and some technologies...
- Celebrities With Cns Diseases: Glen Campbell
Glen Campbell, a US cowboy-music entertainer was diagnosed with probable Alzheimer's disease earlier on 2011.He and his spouse have appeared on a number of television and radio shows, including BBC's Today show.Today, they appear on The Ellen...
- Massachusetts Libraries Commercial
Saw this Massachusetts Library commercial on Ugly Betty the other night (I'm way behind on my tv-watching). It sends you to masslibraries.gov (which redirects to http://libraries.state.ma.us/), where you can find a library near you by typing in your...