They don't go nearly far enough.
They don't say, in this new study from the General Social Survey that found that unhappy people tend to watch lots more TV than "happy" people, even though it's only about 30 percent more, and by the way who the hell knows how they calculated such a percentage, maybe something to do with retinal tracking and blink rates and blood viscosity, or perhaps just how many times the ghostly image of Tyra Banks or Keifer Sutherland or some hellspawn teen from "My Super Sweet 16" slithered into a study subject's nightmares later on, after the TV flickered off and the Cuervo ran its course and the Ambien kicked in. Just a guess.
Anyway, they don't say, in this cute and obvious new study, what everyone already knows: that there's an entire universe of unhappy things that unhappy people also indulge in besides watching way too much TV, and perhaps those things are all interrelated, and it might be worth exploring those things too, because oh my God don't you know this here life is a veritable liquid madhouse of unhappiness? A giant smoldering smoothie of misery and angst and vague feelings of inadequacy and spiritual barrenness? It's the American way.
Let me put it another way: Could the headline to this study also read, with equal revelatory power and forehead-slapping obviousness, "Unhappy people don't drink enough fresh water?" "Unhappy people twitch a great deal and wear itchy sweaters and vote Republican, often simultaneously?" "Unhappy people drive very large vehicles that smell like stale beer and which they can't parallel park worth a damn?" You're damn right it could.
It doesn't stop there. Have you heard that unhappy people grumble a lot and have terrible posture and still wear high-waisted pants with pleats? I bet you have. Or that unhappy people drink pink wine and wear tube socks with sandals and name their eighth cat Mr. Grumpy McPurrsington III, and think that's so adorable they almost pee themselves in their sleep, and then wonder why they can't get laid? Aha! Now we're getting somewhere.
This just in: Unhappy people never pluck their nose hairs, walk around the city with an expression like they just stepped in a bucket of sauerkraut, would very much like to invite Sarah Palin over for a game of "let's sit in opposite corners of the house and ignore each other for five solid hours of seething resentment before never having sex." See? So fascinating.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/11/19/notes111908.DTL
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