Media Can do More Than Entertain

 It is pretty clear that the goal of mainstream media is to entertain us. For many blockbuster movies this is achieved with a pretty straight forward formula: Some action, some violence, some stereotypical gender portrayals (generally) and a sprinkle of romance. And this formula has worked now for decades and earned many people a lot of money.  It also entertained many people. But, it also reduces our human potential into simplistic hedonic automated couch potatoes. 

Just like our human experience includes more than one dimensional enjoyment experiences, researchers and some content creators now realized that media also has the potential to inspire empathy, perspective taking, compassion, human virtues, and prosociality, and make us feel connected to the transcendent aspects of life. And that those experiences still drive content consumption (aka, make money). 

Generally, entertainment researchers differentiate between media content that is pleasurable in nature, also called hedonic entertainment, which is content that makes us feel generally happy, uplifted and even excited. Examples are comedies like The Hangover or Spy; and meaningful content, also referred to as eudaimonic entertainment, which is media content that makes us think, we perceive as meaningful, or makes us want to do better for ourselves and others (we also call that transcendent media). Examples include dramas such as Forrest Gump or The Pursuit of Happyness. If you ever had goosebumps from watching a movie or even an advertisement like the one below, that made you feel happy and sad and the same time, you experienced, what researchers call “elevation”.

 P&G Thank You, Mom | Pick Them Back Up | Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games

Now, experiencing this “elevation,” research has shown, makes us want to help others, be a better person and make us feel more connected towards other people. So, if you wanted to text or call your mum after watching this video, you just exercised your “empathy” muscle and experienced a positive media effect that is particularly associated with “eudaimonic” or transcendent content, but that does not generally result from watching “hedonic” media content, such as funny cat videos, as research has shown.

The concepts of hedonic and eudaimonic media entertainment experiences actually overlap greatly with the two forms of “well-being” or “happiness” positive psychologists have differentiated: Hedonic happiness, which is defined as feeling satisfied with life, experiencing many positive emotions (such as feeling happy, joyful, content) and few negative emotions; and eudaimonic happiness which is generally associated with living a meaningful life, feeling that one’s life has purpose and having positive relationships with others.

Now, what is really interesting is that research has shown that eudaimonic well-being compared to hedonic well-being may outperform our desire for instant gratification and short term positive emotions in the long run. Eduaimonic well-being compared to hedonic well-being has been associated with better health such as less reactivity to stress, less insulin resistance (which means less chance of developing diabetes), higher good cholesterol, better sleep, and brain activity patterns that have been linked to decreased levels of depression.

As if this would not be enough, positive psychologist Barbara Fredrickson and her colleagues found that eudaimonic well-being, but not hedonic well-being even decreased a specific genetic expression that is associated with chronic stress and is involved in a variety of human illnesses, including arthritis and heart disease, indicating that eudaimonic well-being is associated with better health even on a genetic level.

Fredrickson says that “while hedonic and eudaimonic well-being may generally foster well-being, on a physiological level hedonic well-being may just be “empty calories” that don’t help us broaden our awareness or build our capacity in ways that benefit us physically. At the cellular level, our bodies appear to respond better to a different kind of well-being, one based on a sense of connectedness and purpose."

Now, WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT FOR CONTENT CREATORS AND MEDIA RESEARCHERS? 

Based on this knowledge, it seems that entertainment media that is meaningful and inspiring in nature is even more important for our overall well-being than we thought.

So, how about creating and bringing to the forefront a little more content that fosters connection rather than division, that is built on inclusivity rather than stereotyping, that inspires compassion and makes us understand that we are all part of a larger whole, connected to something larger than ourselves, something that goes beyond this material nature.

Recent research demonstrates that inspiring content is powerful to increase compassion, love, and even reduce stereotypes. 

So, can entertaining media increase our well-being? Absolutely! Can media affect different forms of well-being?  Research seems to suggest so. Whereas some media (funny cat videos), for example, seems to make us happy in the moment (hedonic entertainment), other media is more conducive to affect our perceptions of meaning in life and connectedness towards humanity and the transcendent (eudaimonic and transcendent media).

Whereas it can be good to get a good laugh out of a funny video or movie every once in a while, too much of these “empty calories” as Frederickson calls hedonic well-being, may not contribute to long term (eudaimonic) well-being that seems to even affects us on a physiological level. Instead, media content that can contribute to aspects of eudaimonic or transcendent well-being, may be especially important for our technology obsessed and seemingly disconnected society.