IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS) Volume 20, Issue 11, Ver. II (Nov. 2015) PP 64-71 e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845. www.iosrjournals.org DOI: 10.9790/0837-201126471 www.iosrjournals.org 64 | Page A Study on Life Satisfaction and Television Dependency among Urban Women in Chennai Ms. M. Samandha Smith* Assistant Professor, Department of Visual Communication, Sathyabama University Abstract: A woman in India is associated to the natural resources of the nation. Though, women still yearns to have a social status, she is not allowed to take decisions on her own; always the society expects her to remain silent as she is the weaker sex. The status of a woman and her quality of life gradually developed. Under the Indian context, Homemaker is mainly a woman who is confined to the domestic chores in a family. On the other way, men in order to provide his family a good standard of living and comfortable life, spend less quality time with their families. Therefore, women are left alone with less interaction. As a result this might make them to rely on television viewing for their psychological support, relaxation and a feeling of escapism. Thus it creates a strong affinity towards television. They believe that television is the simplest means of enjoyment. Therefore, they seek personal satisfaction through television viewing. Some studies suggest that ‘life satisfaction’ might be one of the motives of television use. Therefore the aim of the study is to test the association of life satisfaction and television dependency among urban homemakers. For this purpose a survey on 150 homemakers (women) of three parts of Chennai city were conducted, data gathered through structured questionnaire from urban homemakers. Keywords:– Life Satisfaction, Television viewing, homemakers, soap operas, urban woman I. Introduction Homemakers in India are confined to do the households. They do it as their natural responsibility. They are the primary source of satisfaction to their family members, whereas their satisfaction is not very much focused. Homemakers are alone after their spouse and children move to their respective work and education places. At this point of time, they have less or no interaction with others, so they entirely rely on television. Television is one of the mediums, which is viewed across all strata of society. There are a variety of television programmes such as sports, news, and current affairs, serials, sitcoms, talk shows, game shows, films, music videos, and some development oriented programmes. By watching these programmes they might experience some emotions, therefore this desire to experience the emotions may be a key factor for them to utilize television. As Kirk Johnson (2001) indicates that uses and gratification theory is a goal-oriented behaviour, therefore audiences are not passive but active in using media for some purposes, whereas media do not use them. Nevertheless, after the popularity of television in India, homemakers are spending lesser time in conversing with their family, relatives and friends and giving more priority for watching television (Kirk Johnson, 2000). 1.1 Homemaker’s in India In India, a woman who does homemaking had no strain in doing the household chores in those days, because the family structure was a joint family system. Nowadays nuclear families are on the rise however, the traditional joint family structures diminish gradually. Thus the feeling of togetherness decline in the minds of the people. Balachandran. M. Raj, et al., (2007) In India, a woman in a family undergoes mental pressures, whereas workingwoman eases from her routine life through the change attains at her workplace. She adjusts her character according to the situations she faces in both the places. Whereas a homemaker, as no transformation from her regular tasks. Her day starts and ends monotonously, under this circumstance a homemaker is left with the sense of loneliness. After the advent of the television, homemakers create a strong affinity towards television for a psychological support and relaxation besides being with their relatives. In Indian, the most popular television genre was the soap operas or serials. Homemakers were occupied in these programmes by doing their household chores. Jensen and Oster (2008) in their research has found that within 10-15 years of the arrival of television, the cable or satellite TV has reached 60 percent in Tamil Nadu, this shows that households are more dependent on television for their relaxation and other positive aspects of life.