Television “Addiction?” An Evaluation of Four Competing Media-Use Models

Abstract

Employing a uses and gratifications paradigm, four individual differences — sensation seeking, religiosity, hostility and family cohesion — were examined simultaneously as correlates of drug use and television viewing and used to test four corresponding models of addiction: medical/disease, moral, compensatory and enlightenment. Not only were alcohol and marijuana use inversely correlated with time spent and motives for watching television, but sensation seeking, which was positively correlated with drug use was negatively correlated with television viewing. Conversely, religiosity was positively correlated with television viewing and negatively with drug use. With these results, the author concluded that the medical/disease model of television addiction lacked empirical support, and other models emphasizing personal control and responsibility appeared more appropriate for developing strategies to regulate excessive or compulsive television viewing.

Predicting exposure to and liking of media violence: a uses and gratifications approach

“…Verbal aggressiveness predicts a variety of behaviors from alcohol consumption (see Graham, Schmidt, & Gillis, 1996;Moss & Kirisci, 1995) and video game use (see Anderson & Dill, 2000) to physical aggressiveness (e.g., Atkin,Smith,Roberto,Fediuk,76 K. Greene & M. Krcmar & Wagner, 2002) and substance use (Bukstein, 1996). Although several studies have focused on the link between personality and media exposure (e.g., Finn, 1992Finn, , 1997Krcmar & Greene, 1999;Weaver, 1991) including listening to violently oriented music (Atkin et al, 2002), no published study has examined the relationship between verbal aggressiveness and exposure to and liking of violent television. Rather, exposure to (but not liking of) media violence is often measured as a predictor of verbal aggression (e.g., Haridakis, 2002).…”

“…In other words, recent research stresses that both personality factors and social structure may influence individuals' needs that in turn influence the gratifications that individuals seek (GS) from mass media and their patterns of media use. Several studies (e.g., Finn, 1992Finn, , 1997Krcmar & Greene, 1999;Weaver, 1991) have utilized this approach by attempting to link personality factors with either GS or with actual patterns of media use. Although these studies assume-as does the uses and gratifications tradition-that audiences have ready access to their motives for choosing various content and can articulate those motives (e.g., Perloff, Quarles, & Drutz, 1983), it is possible that an understanding of the motives of exposure to media content (e.g., violent television) might also be gained through more indirect methods.…”

Individual Differences and Context: Factors Mediating Recall of Anti-Drug Public Service Announcements

“…In general, high sensation-seekers watch less television than low sensation-seekers do (Finn, 1992;Lorch et al, 1994) and, when they do, they prefer programs with antisocial humor, offbeat themes, action-adventure, and sexual and violent content (Aluja-Fabregat, 2000;Perse, 1996;Schierman & Rowland, 1985, Slater, 2003. Sensationseeking is also related to one's music preference (Arnett 1991a(Arnett , 1991bHansen & Hansen, 1990).…”

Socialization through Leisure: a Case Study of Nickelodeon Cable Television

“…The desire to be entertained, escape from boredom and issues of the present make television viewing an addictive one (Finn 1992). Scholars like Morgan (1983) and have classified television watchers into heavy and light viewers with heavy viewers being more likely than light viewers to take on the perspective of the media world than their real lives and society.…”

“…In relation to why they watch these program series, it was obvious that the respondents' motivation was for personal gratification as an overwhelming 66 (64.7%) indicated this while 16 (15.7%) stated that they are motivated to watch the series in order to discuss with friends while 10 (9.8%) stated that their parents encourage them to do so. These respondents can be classified as watching television for the passive pleasure of being entertained and not for the acquisition of information (Finn 1992). Thus for the respondents television viewing is purely a leisure activity (Table 3).…”