MARYLAND, UNITED STATES: Unhappy people are 30 per cent more likely to watch television than happy people, said a new study from the United States.

The finding, announced last Thursday and published in the journal Social Indicators Research, comes from a survey of nearly 30,000 American adults conducted between 1975 and 2006, said website Live Science.

While happy people reported watching an average of 19 hours of television per week, unhappy people clocked 25 hours.

"Chronic unhappiness can be socially and personally debilitating and can interfere with work and most social and personal activities, but even the unhappiest people can click a remote and be passively entertained by TV," the researchers wrote.

They added that follow-up studies are needed to find the relationship between television viewing and happiness.

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