Many of you, I gather, watch Question Time or the Jeremy Kyle show - the two are indistinguishable - only to express dissatisfaction with them. This is a common trait, with important implications for the TV industry and economic theory, as a new paper shows.
Researchers at the University of Milano-Bicocca ran an experiment. They got subjects to spend 10 minutes watching TV, where they had a choice of three programmes which they could switch between at any time. One was an 18th century costume drama, one a documentary about immigrants and the third a talk show. For some subjects, the talk show was a calm discussion and for others it was a violent argument.
Where the talk show was a violent argument, subjects watched significantly (27%) more than they did when it was a calm discussion. However, when asked their opinion of the show afterwards, they expressed less satisfaction than they did with the calmer show. This is consistent with Bruno Frey’s finding that watching more TV generally makes folk unhappy. The researchers conclude:
In the presence of arousing content, subjects watch more of a given program, against their own will and interest.
This is true whether the violent talk show is a low-brow gossip show or a high brow current affairs programme: as I say, Question Time and Jeremy Kyle are the same thing.
There are two implications here. One is for the TV industry. Viewing figures alone are no evidence of programme quality. It’s entirely possible for a show to get a big but unsatisfied audience - and for TV executives to chase such audiences by staging controversy. This is not just a snobbish opinion, but an experimental finding.
The second implication is wider. This result flatly contradicts orthodox consumer choice theory, which says that people choose the option which gives them the highest utility. In this case, they do the opposite. Free choices make them worse off. It is an open question how far this finding generalizes.
But even if it does generalize, it would be a large leap of logic to infer from the fact that choice diminishes utility that such choice should be curtailed. Utility isn’t everything.
I think utility lacks a time dimension, and so does not model well choices such as consuming large amounts of chocolate or lager, which might seem a good idea at the time, but a little later I may regret.
But it doesn't necessarily follow that free choice makes them worse off than the alternatives. An alternative, say, of having a panel of experts deciding how much lager, chocolate, Jeremy Kyle, or Question Time you are allowed to consume may well result in lower short term AND longer term utility. As may a purely random allocation by lottery of permits to consume / watch the above.
Choice may turn out to be the least worst way of maximising utility.
Posted by: Jon B. | February 23, 2011 at 01:33 PM
At risk of providing the standard economists' response, are we looking for utility in the wrong place? Could viewers not enjoy, in some way, the annoyance and perhaps superiority they feel watching these shows?
Baselessly extrapolating from personal anecdote, I like to sometimes listen to Classic FM, despite the fact I virtually detest it - a narrow range of music, inept presenters, incessant plugs for the station and it's offshoots etc. But I do this specifically in order to wind me up; I rant and rave at the car radio about how crap the presenters are, how everything's "lovely" etc etc. I enjoy it.
And so could people be watching programmes with shouty idiots in order to make themselves feel better and reassured that they're not shouty idiots themselves; that being "dissatisfied" with the mouthing off of Nigel Farage or whomever makes them feel clever and superior?
Posted by: Andrew | February 23, 2011 at 01:42 PM
Look at that - that idiot commenter's phone autocompleted an "its" as "it's". What a retard! That sort of thing really dissatisfies me. Might keep checking this blog to see if anyone spots it and rips him to shreds.
Posted by: Andrew | February 23, 2011 at 01:47 PM
I agree with Andrew. If anything, this experiment simply shows - again - that there is a difference between people's stated and revealed preferences.
If someone says they disklike something, but keep doing it anyway, it stands to reason that they prefer doing it to not doing it.
Posted by: Neil | February 23, 2011 at 03:22 PM
I think Neil and Andrew have you there, Chris. If you want to have a crack at revealed preferences, you might want to consider an alternate route, such as revealed preferences merely being a snapshot of individual judgement at a given moment, and not able to accommodate the development of that judgement and decision-making over time.
Posted by: Adam Bell | February 23, 2011 at 03:45 PM
@ Adam - surely it's the other way round. In one-off choices, revealed preference might well not show subsequent utility, because of imperfect info or irrationality. But over time, folk learn and so choice and utility are more likely to coincide.
@ Andrew, Neil - how do you explain the Frey finding, that people who watch lots of TV have lower subjective well-being?
@ Neil - the claim that choices reveal preferences is a tautology. The issue is whether preferences maximize utility.
Posted by: chris | February 23, 2011 at 06:11 PM
Obvious conclusion: people who are discovered watching Jeremy Kyle are not so likely to admit they found it enjoyable, but instead tell the researcher that it 'made them angry, it was so bad'.
I find the Jeremy Kyle show to be a human form of bear baiting, and utterly distasteful. I therefore do not watch it. If I did watch it and then declared that 'I didn't like it really' I'd be a liar.
Posted by: Jim | February 23, 2011 at 06:48 PM
I think I fit into that analysis, I hate both shows a lot (and hence never watch them), although for slightly different reasons.
As Jim has said, Jeremy Kyle is human bear baiting (human baiting I guess), I never watch it, and if it's on and I can't change the channel I start to break things. I'm sure there's some sort of snobbery in me about this, but I do try to reassure myself that the people on the show are a very small minority.
Question Time, just like "debates" on the radio (such as on five live and radio 4), annoys me because it's just too many people with massive ego's interrupting and talking over one another. And a lot of the time they're just not that well informed either (at least not as informed as I'd expect for someone who's given the platform to voice their opinion on national television). If they interrupt too much, I change over, simple as.
Question Time also has those retarded seals, sorry, audience members, who clap incessantly whenver someone comes out with a lazy cliché like "illegal war" or "greedy bankers". Again, if it happens more than once, boom, Sky Sports News.
But yes, if it's something like Newsnight or Intelligence Squared, I never really feel that urge to launch the remote at something. Even if United are having a shocker I don't get as wound up as Question Time makes me! But I certainly don't purposefully watch shows that annoy me, I'd say that people who watch shows that "annoy them" are just lying.
Posted by: Tom Addison | February 23, 2011 at 07:23 PM
@Chris: People who watch loads of TV develop, over time, a feeling either of guilt (that they're wasting their lives) or of ennui. However, this is a long-term effect and completely unrelated to the effect you're describing in the Milano-Bicocca experiment.
The relative values of future and present utility in decision-making is a really interesting subject, and you should definitely cover it in an article. But this particular experiment has nothing to say on the subject.
Posted by: Neil | February 23, 2011 at 09:59 PM