How Much, Why and How Adolescents Watch Television: Implications for Affective Well-Being

Abstract

This study was conducted in order to assess the contribution of the amount of television viewing, television viewing motives and cognitive involvement in the explanation of affective well-being of younger adolescents. The sample comprised 537 7th and 8th graders in ten primary schools located in Zagreb. In addition to self-assessment of the amount of television viewing, Television viewing motives scale, Cognitive involvement scales and Positive and Negative Affect Scale for Children – PANAS C were applied. Results of hierarchical regression analyses revealed that television viewing motives explained a rather high percentage of negative affect and somewhat lesser percentage of positive affect. Cognitive involvement in viewing explained a small amount of variance, while the amount of television viewing was not found to be a significant predictor of either positive or negative emotions. Generally, it can be concluded that how much adolescents watch television is not related to their affective well-being, how they watch it is weakly correlated, while why they do it has the biggest role, especially for negative emotions.