"Commercialism is a vacuum," my mother warned me. "It will suck you in."
I was seven or eight years old and my mother was running a bath for me. I imagined being sucked down the drain into a wet underworld of nefarious Disney characters.
I was getting the lecture because I'd been caught watching television beyond my allotted hour and, even more horrifying to my mother, I'd been making my Christmas list during the commercials.
I figured I was multi-tasking.
My mother figured otherwise. "How do you think you can figure out what you want while the commercials are bombarding you with images of what they want you to want?" my mother asked me. To her eyes, I was a sitting duck.
Later that night, she picked up our television and lugged it out the garage, never to be seen again.
"Thanks a lot," my sister snarked.
That was three decades ago. Since then, women have gained a bit of power, but if we are to believe recent studies, we haven't gained much in the way of happiness.
The misogynists want to blame feminism. (All right, ladies, you've had your fun, now it's back to the ironing board! For your own good, of course.) Don't worry--they always want to blame feminism.
But a closer look at the gender and happiness data reveals the real mood-zapper. And something tells me they won't be announcing it on TV.
According to a 2006 Princeton study about time-use, men have, since the 1960s, gradually cut back on activities that they found unpleasant--men now work less and relax more. Over the same time span, women have replaced housework with paid work, but we still do a larger share of child rearing, cooking, cleaning, and elder care. Adding alienation to overwork, women now spend less time with friends and more time watching television.
Ah, television.
A chance to sit down and relax. A chance to take in a talkshow or a daytime drama. A chance to fantasize about George Clooney. Seems innocuous enough, right?
Maybe not.
A number of studies published in the past few years have confirmed just what my mother warned me: Commercialism might just suck you into a pit of despair.
According to a 2005 study published by the Institute for Empirical Research in Economics in Zurich, long hours spent watching commercial television is linked to higher material aspirations--and higher anxiety--and with lower life satisfaction,
A 2008 University of Maryland study found the same thing: While people who describe themselves as happy say they enjoy watching television, it's actually the single activity they engage in less than unhappy people.
Some researchers have suggested that it isn't television-watching itself that makes us miserable, but rather the time that we then don't spend with friends and family.
That might be a piece of the puzzle, but it doesn't explain away all the misery.
To me, the explanation seems pretty simple: Television commercials purposefully make us feel unsatisfied in order to trigger our buying impulses. We all know that. It's what commercials are designed to do. We might think we're too smart for the marketers, but most times we're not. They've earned masters degrees learning how to make us feel bad!
As women have extended our television-watching hours and, at the same time, become the increasing target of advertising because of our expanding purchasing power...well. We've become sitting ducks.
Thought you were happy at 5-foot-5 and 150 pounds? Look at this tall and slender beauty--look how thrilled she is just to walk down the street with her new mascara on!
Thought you were satisfied with your apartment next to the railyard? Think again. Look at these glowing retirees entertaining in their giant hacienda. Now, those are some happy actors. They must have better financial advisors.
Thought your smile was pretty enough when you were expressing happiness? Gasp! Look at your teeth. Not to mention the mess in your ugly kitchen.
Yes, indeed. Research from all over the world has established the strong correlation between high-volume TV-watching and unhappiness.
And so, may I suggest, just as an experiment, just as a quick study in living: Kill your television.
You don't have to go smash it in the street. This is just an experiment, after all. Do what my mother used to do--just hide it in the garage.
Leave it out there for two weeks.
If you can't bear the thought of being without the box (nineteen percent of Americans actually say they couldn't survive without a television), you can prove my commercials-hypothesis by just turning off the cable and watching commercial-free DVDs.
For two short weeks.
And see what happens.
Just see what happens.
