Employing a unique research methodology that enables people to report on their normal activities as they occur, the authors examine how people actually use and experience television — and how television viewing both contributes to and detracts from the quality of everyday life. Studied within the natural context of everyday living, and drawing comparisons between television viewing and a variety of other daily activities and leisure pursuits, this unusual book explores whether television is a boon or a detriment to family life; how people feel and think before, during, and after television viewing; what causes television habits to develop; and what causes heavy viewing — and what heavy viewing causes — in the short and long term.
Television and the Quality of Life also compares the viewing experience cross-nationally using samples from the United States, Italy, Canada, and Germany — and then interprets the findings within a broad theoretical and historical framework that considers how information use and daily activity contribute to individual, familial, societal, and cultural development.