The Science Of TV Watching

Today in the New York Times there's a story about a study on how interruptions affect our enjoyment of TV shows:

Liked the Show? Maybe It Was the Commercials by Benedict Carey

The study's finding of increased enjoyment with a break makes a lot of sense for comedies. The interruption gives you a chance to catch your breath and reset your comedy threshold, and remember the best laughs in the previous segment.

But I would think the difference is either much smaller, or more likely the opposite, for drama shows, most notably LOST. Now that LOST is answering so many mysteries (or at least filling in information necessary to understand them) the commercials seem two or three times longer than they actually are. If they did a study using a first run new episode on 100 Lost fans I think they'd find the interruptions diminished enjoyment of the show. Or maybe not, and the breaks let the new information sink in, giving you a chance to think about the new information and try to piece things together.

One major thing not mentioned in the article is how if you skip the commercials you can watch an hour-long show in less than 45 minutes, which gives you 15 minutes to do something else that makes you happier than the happiness lost by not sitting through the commercial breaks.