A new study published in the Journal of Communication, gives that people who have had a more stressful day at work, felt guilty and experienced a sense of failure if they choosed to watch television or play computer games instead of doing other more meaningful tasks when they came home from work:
The study, published in the Journal of Communication, found that people who were highly stressed after work did not feel relaxed or recovered when they watched TV or played computer games.
Instead they had high levels of guilt and feelings of failure.
Researchers at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germany and the VU University Amsterdam in the Netherlands asked 471 study participants how they felt after work or school the previous day and what media they had used.
They found that those who were especially fatigued were more inclined to feel that they were procrastinating by watching TV or playing games instead of doing more important tasks.
This led them to feeling guilty, which in turn made them feel less recovered and revitalised, diminishing the positive effects of using media.
Previous research has shown that using entertaining media can produce a “recovery experience” that helps people relax and detach from the stresses of work.
But the latest study highlighted the paradox of using various media to relax after a stressful day, with those who might have benefited most from using media to recover instead experiencing lower levels of recovery, because they felt doing so was a sign that they had failed to exercise self-control.
Featured image: A family watch colour television in the 50s. The image from the Hulton Archive is titled Family Viewing. Via The Guardian.
