It must take research to be able to come up with a bold statement like that.  And I can point to the research — two independent studies that were looking for two different things — to support it.

First, there’s a report on television viewing.  I know, I know, you’re thinking I’m going to tell you how much television viewership is down.  You might even be one of those media haters who looks forward to such reports because you can begin to imagine the eventual collapse of the television industry.

Sorry to upset you, but this research paints a different picture:  the average American now watches more than 142 hours of television per month, the highest reported to date.  This translates into about four to five hours per day in a 30-day month.  Part of the reason for this, it appears, is that more people have more than one television in the home: when you make it easy for the boob-tube to follow you around, it generally will.

So that’s half of the picture.  Here’s the other half:

The University of Maryland, where sociologists looking over 30 years worth of data have concluded that people who watch a lot of television are unhappy. People who say that they are very happy read more and socialize more.  TV Squad raises a lot of interesting questions about this one.

So there you have it.  If TV makes people unhappy, and more people are watching more TV than ever, well, you can see where we’re headed.

Keep smiling…unless, of course, you are unable to push yourself away from television when you need to.  If that’s the case, keep the Kleenex handy.