ABSTRACT
Psychological research on well-being has burgeoned since the 1960s. In this context a number of factors have been identified that have a decisive impact on how we feel about ourselves and life in general: love, friendships, a fulfilling job, all are among the things in life that immediately come to mind and that have indeed been confirmed as contributing to our sense of well-being. But apart from such large-scale factors as one’s partner or one’s work, small, everyday matters also affect how we feel, and, among these, leisure time satisfaction has been shown to be significantly related to well-being (Argyle, 1987, Chap. 4). Leisure time, nowadays, is often media time—which raises the question that will be at issue in this chapter: Is there a relationship between our media use, especially our use of entertaining media fare, and our sense of well-being? To answer this question, I will begin `by giving an outline of some major concepts and results from research on well-being in psychology, distinguishing between different aspects or forms of well-being: subjective well-being, psychological well-being, and health. In the following section, the relationship between each of these forms of well-being and entertainment is examined, with a focus on entertainment as presented in the audiovisual media, notably television.
