Long Live The TV Commercials!

You have to admit that this title sounds a bit odd; most people find TV commercials very annoying. In most cases, you grab your remote and put your TV on another channel. You may be thinking that these advertisements are an unwanted interruption, but nothing is further from the truth. They actually increase the amount of viewing pleasure. Let’s see how that works!

In your brain there are a great amount of processes, of which we are not aware all of the time. One of them is adaptation. For example, buying a new car will increase your happiness level in the beginning, but very soon your happiness level adapts to your normal level of happiness. With TV commercials this is also the case. When you’re watching your favorite TV show and it’s time for a five minute break, you feel annoyed. After those five minutes, your favorite show starts again. And what happens? You are glad that the break is over and the program you like continues! Your happiness level increases drastically.

Figure 1: Repetitive peak in the level of happiness, with help of the interruption of TV commercials.

On the horizontal axis you see the expired time, on the vertical axis, you see the level of happiness.
What we can learn from this is that it is important to interrupt activities which give us pleasure, because this allows us to maximize our pleasure. Furthermore, it shows us that we must watch out with gadgets like interactive TV, or TV on demand. They are disastrous for your level of happiness!