Television, health, and happiness: a natural experiment in West Germany
Television, health, and happiness: a natural experiment in West Germany
While watching television is one of the most time-consuming human activities, its potential negative effects on well-being are discussed in the literature as a prime example of irrational behavior. We are the first to comprehensively address this possible paradox by exploiting a novel setting in the research on the effects of television for society: a natural experiment in the late 1980s where people in a few geographically restricted areas of West Germany received commercial TV via terrestrial frequencies. Rich panel data combined with precisely calculated frequency signals allow us to determine how regional availability of commercial TV affects time-use, before investigating the implications for individual well-being over time. Contrary to previous research, we find no evidence of negative health impacts when TV consumption increases. For life satisfaction, we even find a positive effect, which is robust across various sensitivity analyses and subgroups of TV viewers. By also considering evidence from expenditure data and from our own separately conducted surveys, we discuss the external validity of our findings as well as possible mechanisms and conclude that correlational evidence on the well-being effects of TV viewing could be driven by negative self-selection.
Chadi, Adrian
9b86c34e-9340-465f-a4c0-492202a0958a
Hoffmann, Manuel
6fc75407-8594-4444-a9e9-2dc72cb8da6f
7 March 2026
Chadi, Adrian
9b86c34e-9340-465f-a4c0-492202a0958a
Hoffmann, Manuel
6fc75407-8594-4444-a9e9-2dc72cb8da6f
Chadi, Adrian and Hoffmann, Manuel
(2026)
Television, health, and happiness: a natural experiment in West Germany.
Journal of Public Economics, 257.
(doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2026.105600).
Abstract
While watching television is one of the most time-consuming human activities, its potential negative effects on well-being are discussed in the literature as a prime example of irrational behavior. We are the first to comprehensively address this possible paradox by exploiting a novel setting in the research on the effects of television for society: a natural experiment in the late 1980s where people in a few geographically restricted areas of West Germany received commercial TV via terrestrial frequencies. Rich panel data combined with precisely calculated frequency signals allow us to determine how regional availability of commercial TV affects time-use, before investigating the implications for individual well-being over time. Contrary to previous research, we find no evidence of negative health impacts when TV consumption increases. For life satisfaction, we even find a positive effect, which is robust across various sensitivity analyses and subgroups of TV viewers. By also considering evidence from expenditure data and from our own separately conducted surveys, we discuss the external validity of our findings as well as possible mechanisms and conclude that correlational evidence on the well-being effects of TV viewing could be driven by negative self-selection.
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Accepted/In Press date: 12 February 2026
e-pub ahead of print date: 7 March 2026
Published date: 7 March 2026
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 510638
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/510638
ISSN: 0047-2727
PURE UUID: 49befae6-8c9f-4879-89f1-a6608ff97ed3
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Date deposited: 14 Apr 2026 16:56
Last modified: 18 Apr 2026 02:25
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Author:
Adrian Chadi
Author:
Manuel Hoffmann
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