‘I am perfectly imperfect because I am a media professional’: Asserting the Association Between Media Consumption Attitude, Emotional Ownership and Personal Well-being

Abstract

A profession that leads to well-being is rewarding and fulfilling, as it is a vital factor in ascertaining the happiness and purpose of one’s life. Information and communications technology has become an integral part of everyone’s life in contemporary times. Media professionals are engaged in using various types of digital and online media for their work-related needs. At many times, due to extensive work requirements, they carry their professional commitments outside the office hours. Due to their obsessive media consumption attitude, they lose out on spending time with their families and themselves. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of such media consumption attitude in relation to personal well-being. For this, 429 working professionals from different domains of media across the Indian subcontinent participated in our survey. The results revealed that media usage has a significant role in influencing personal well-being. At the same time, emotional ownership stood to be a mediator in the relationship between media consumption attitude and personal well-being. The findings pave the way to understand the professional and personal challenges faced by media professionals, while suggesting a possible roadmap for achieving a happy and purposeful life.