Does Television Damage
your Relationships?
The first answer is I don’t
know. But here under you will see a
collection of studies which make the conclusion that it does. We should really appreciate the hard work of all these researchers. We can add television to the
list of things that are destroying marriages across the world. According to a
recent study from Albion University, watching television can be a significant cause of marital strife, right up there with
“no longer caring what you look like” and “deciding to be the person you
actually are in front of your spouse.” It’s not just because watching TV comes
to be the easiest alternative to speaking with someone you once cared for but
have slowly, almost glacially, grown to despise after years of crushing
familiarity has transformed once adorable quirks into banal tics that set your
teeth to grinding. No, it’s because seeing
happy, devoted couples on television makes us wish that we were happy and
devoted to someone, instead of just being married to them.
Published in a journal Mass Communication and
Society,
the study suggests that the more stock people put in the as-seen-on-TV
portrayals of relationships in their favorite shows, the less likely they are
to be committed to their own relationship. If, for example, you place a lot of
emotional weight on the fact that the characters in Burn Notice would take a bullet for one another because
they are so very much in love, you may be more likely to question how happy you
are with your significant other, who can’t even be relied on to clean up their
own dishes in the sink, let alone leap in front of a terrorist’s gun to save
your life. Granted, you are probably (hopefully) not being shot at as much as
characters on television shows, but it’s the principle of the thing
The study also found that
viewers who were more invested in television relationships saw the costs of
their own relationship — in freedom, responsibility to another human being, and
time spent picking someone else’s hair out of the drain — as higher than less
invested viewers and tended to have unrealistic expectations of their real life
lovers
This whole study really
makes us nostalgic for a time when people just had unreasonable expectations of
how attractive we were from television. Now that we also apparently have to be
super spies who take out the trash every night before making tasteful but
sheet-ripping love to our partners in soft light, man, it all just seems like too
much work. What’s on the tube tonight?
If
your blood pressure spikes when your partner talks during a TV show. Television is
ruling your partners’ life or ruled the past life. If you have to wait until
the commercial breaks to get your partners’ attention, there is something seriously
wrong with the TV watching. If there is a mood change or get angry when
your show is interrupted it is time to
think about the effect that creates on one’s life. If you find annoying and
seems the other as a curtain that interrupts your TV show, you seriously
entering into a stage of irreparable damage.
“I
made the choice to watch what’s on and I want to know what’s going on,” he
said. “Then an obstacle comes up, that just so happens to be someone I love
dearly.”
TV
hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s gone everywhere. Streaming services and smart
devices have made programs constantly available. And that ubiquity is having a
profound but overlooked effect on our relationships.
“People
have this impression that TV is dead, like the effects aren’t there,” says
Professor Jeremy Osborn, who teaches communications at Cornerstone
University. “Everybody’s so focused on
Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat and all those things. The reality is
different.”
With
so much streaming content so readily available, we’ve become a nation of binge
watchers. Sixty-one percent of respondents to a 2013 Netflix
survey said they regularly binge-watched. And
there’s evidently no shame in that. Seventy-one percent of the survey
respondents felt good about binge watching.
We
compulsively watch episode after episode, robbing ourselves of sleep and other
comforts and opportunities. It’s tempting to see it as a form of addictive
behavior but mental health professionals aren’t sure. While some mental
health facilities treat forms of screen addiction, The Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders hasn’t
officially recognized excessive binge viewing as a disorder.
Still,
researchers are actively exploring the mental health issues surrounding binge
watching. A University of Texas at Austin study found that people turn to Netflix
when they’re lonely and depressed and looking to escape negative feelings.
But
sometimes the show’s chosen for simpler reasons. Some people interviewed for
this story told me they let their partners decide what to watch for the sake of
keeping peace in the house.
“I
ceded control of the remote, the DVR, and so on in the Marriage Accords of
’98,” Mike, a book reviewer from Virginia joked. “I watch what she
watches, or at least listen while I work at the computer. It usually works,
until she starts binge watching bad reality shows or something.”
Couples
reported trying to watch shows together but admitted it can be hard to resist
the temptation to advance on a show alone.
“I
sneaked a few episodes of GOT without
waiting for my husband, I didn’t admit it though,” Colorado mom Lauren said. “I
just happily watched them again when he was ready.”
Watching
TV is a more active experience than we are prone to believe. According to
Longwood University Biopsychology and Neuroscience professor Catherine Franssen, while our bodies are at rest as we watch TV our
brains are frantically firing off chemicals.
“It’s
a really great trick they do to keep us watching,” Franssen said. “It’s
essentially activating our stress response, our fight or flight. By the end of
the show, we’re engrossed in the story and the characters. “
When
we binge watch episodic television, our brains are on a rollercoaster looping through
stress and alleviation from stress. When a TV episode ends on a cliffhanger and
our brains release the stress hormones cortisol and norepinephrine in response.
Even though if we’re watching TV late at night, we feel wired and compelled to
watch another show.
Franssen
said that while we characterize stress as unpleasant, it’s also a crucial part
of excitement and fun. “Stress, in moderation, is what we live for,” she said.
“Think of a roller coaster ride. It’s fun because it stresses us out a little bit
for a short period of time.”
As
TV excites our brain with stress, it warms it with something close to love.
Because we like and empathize with characters in shows, our brain is swimming
in oxytocin, a hormone associated with affection, bonding, and passion.
And the pleasure of watching the show activates our brains’ reward circuit by
releasing feel-good chemicals dopamine and serotonin.
With
so much going on in for us internally, interruptions from the outside world can
be jarring. “Shows can pull us away from a relationship,” Franssen said. When
your partner is locked into a show you can feel frustrated that they’re not
engaging with you. And they’re getting a feeling of accomplishment and reward
from the show, so there’s less incentive to perform the real world work that
makes us feel the same satisfaction. Half-listening to a spouse’s concerns — or
ignoring them altogether — is a major marital issue.
“My
wife and I had a blow-out argument a few weeks ago because she said that I was
watching too much television instead of listening intently to her,” says Nick
Holcomb, a 33-year-old father of one. Holcomb says that he uses TV to destress
after a long day in the office (he’s a financial analyst) but he did realize
that he was watching it instead of having actual discussions with his wife.
Due
to the brain chemistry involved in binge-watching, any kind of show has the
potential to pull people apart. But Jeremy Osborn’s research has led him to
believe certain types of content can make the divisions more pronounced. A 2012
study he conducted found that entertainment with romantic themes, from scripted
dramas to reality TV romance competitions, casts a harsh light
on real-life relationships.
“Say
I’m sitting in my living room in my boring day-to-day life, looking at my
partner who’s falling asleep on the couch with their hand in a bag of Cheetos
or something,” Osborne said. “Then I watch a show like The
Bachelor and I start to think I deserve that. Every day of
my life should look like that, because it seems to be like that every day for
those people. If I think that’s normal, that becomes part of my comparison.”
Like
scripted entertainment, reality TV is carefully engineered to hook viewers. But
the shows are presented as a form of reality, fostering unhealthy expectations
for some viewers.
“The
problem comes when people watch those programs and they believe that they
accurately portray reality,” Osborn said. “These portrayals are not generally
realistic. They tend to portray relationships in a couple of warped ways.”
Sex
and romance are presented without the complications of real life. Aaron
Anderson, owner and counselor at the Marriage and Family Clinic in Colorado,
said actual romance can be disappointing when dating shows set up expectations
of trysts involving helicopter rides and hidden mountain retreats.
“Most
couples who come into counseling for intimacy or sexually related difficulties
believe that sex is spontaneous, that it just kind of happens, and there’s no
build up to it, and both partners just magically are in the mood at the same
moment,” Anderson said.
So,
what can be done to avoid over-streaming from evolving into marital strife or a
relationship stuck in neutral? Simple: press pause on your show and have an
actual conversation. By simply being conscious of your habits and opting to,
say, go for a walk, out to dinner, or converse in silence is a step in the
right direction. So is setting limits of how much content you view in the week.
At the very least, steer clear of reality romance competitions. Those shows are
terrible anyway
Are you and your
boyfriend a Jim and Pam, or more like a Barney and Robin? Either way, comparing
your real relationship to a TV couple could lead to a lousy love life.
A new study in Mass
Communication and Society surveyed 392 people who had been married
for an average of 19 years. As it turns out, the more realistic you find
depictions of TV romance, the less likely you are to be wholly committed to
your actual marriage. Plus, you’re also more likely to see marriage as a
burden, and be open to the idea that there’s someone better out there.
On-again, off-again
relationships in TV shows—built up by sweeps weeks and season finales—impact
what you think a husband or boyfriend should be. Just like
you look to your own past relationships and your friends’ flings to set
standards, “television basically becomes another influence on your
expectations,” says study author Jeremy Osborn, Ph.D., a communications studies
professor at Albion College.
And it’s not the number of
shows you watch or how many hours you’ve spent watching reruns that
matters, according to the study. Even a moderate acceptance that fictional
relationships represent something true to life could result in a false sense of
what love is.
So we dug through our
TiVo recordings and found the worst relationship myths you might have learned
from your prime time viewing. Feel free to laugh and cry with these four
shows—but don’t look to them for love and life advice anymore.
The show: Modern Family
The myth: The Emmy-winning sitcom
rightly earns praise for its depiction of “unconventional” households,
including a gay couple and an older man starting a second family with a younger
woman. But Modern Family still follows the standard sitcom
trope of introducing a problem with the couple and heightening it to comic
proportions until the problem is finally acknowledged and resolved—all within
22 minutes.
The reality: Sorry, Phil and Claire—actual relationship conflicts are rarely resolved in such a neat and tidy fashion,
says Osborn. Sometimes you’ll need to head problems off early, and other times
you simply need to let mild offenses slide.
The show: The Bachelor
The myth: There are quite a
few myths on this “reality” series, which—shocker!—doesn’t exactly have a great
track record when it comes to creating actual, stable marriages. A big
delusion: the notion that women will tolerate a guy who casually dates a dozen
different people while slowly weeding out his least favorites. Even more
ludicrous? The idea that you’ll find a life partner in just a few weeks of
lavish, alcohol-infused dates around the globe.
The reality: If only it were
that easy. “These couples go on incredible dates in exotic locations, only to
come home and wind up having the same arguments about who left the
cap off the toothpaste that the rest of us have,” says Osborn.
The show: How I Met Your Mother
The myth: One recent season of this
long-running sitcom revolved around Ted—the guy who’s supposedly telling his
kids how he met their mother—deciding if he should try and break up the
marriage between a woman he has a certain amount of chemistry with and her
wealthy, older husband.
The reality: While the idea of stealing someone away
from a partner who seems wrong for them is a very common trope in both TV and
movies, forget about it in real life—if you have any amount of respect for the
guy in question, you’ll let it go, pronto. Any man in a committed relationship
should be completely off limits, until he’s not. That’s a basic rule.
The show: Bones
The myth: The heart of this crime
drama revolves around the odd sexual tension between the stuffy female forensic
anthropologist (that would be Bones) and the more intuitive male FBI agent she
works with. But even though the two now have a baby together, there are still
always other gorgeous men and women around to tempt the couple apart.
The reality: “Most married people aren’t surrounded
by available, attractive singles the way Hollywood portrays,” says Osborn. But
seeing it on TV might make you wonder if maybe you should audition for the next
season of The Bachelorette. Resist the temptation—and let
this ease your worries about your guy: Married men are actually happier after
getting hitched than they would be if they stayed single, according to recent
researchers from Michigan State University
With more than a hundred
channels and thousands of programmes coming on TV, it has become difficult to
maintain a balance between family and TV life. Yes, you read it right. TV seems
to have become an important part of family time.
In fact, the television
is now more important than any other member in the family. Some studies have
also proven that television has ruined many relationships and negatively
affects family life. Here are some of the results of those studies.
1. TV has become more important than family:
In today's fast paced
life, there is no time for a family to sit together, talk or eat peacefully due
to erratic work hours and job demands; however, TV seems to be on top of the
priority list of each family member. This has caused loneliness, sadness, and
even depression, according to some studies.
2. Your day starts with looking for the TV remote: What is that first thing
you do when you open your eyes? Do you look at your partner and smile? Or do
you straightaway ask him or her for the TV remote? You might not even realise
but you probably start your day by making your partner sad. Learn to watch your
actions more than the TV. It might save your relationship.
3. You've cancelled plans with your partner to watch TV: You promised your partner
in the morning to take him or her out for dinner. Now, it is a bad idea to
cancel the plan just for the sake of your favourite TV programme. You can't
even imagine its impact on your relationship and how it makes your partner
feel. Is the TV really more important than your partner's feelings? Think
again!
4. You compare your real-life marriage with reel-life: When you watch too much
of something, you start imagining yourself living in that (unrealistic) world.
You start comparing your partner with the actor playing some character on the
television and find reasons to fight with your partner. This makes your partner
feel less worthy and creates a gap between you two.
5. You are addicted to television: You fought with your
partner last week but you don't seem to be making any efforts to kiss and make
up. All you do is come home late and turn the television on. It doesn't matter
to you if your partner has smiled in all these days but a particular scene on
the television could make you smile. Watching you glued to the TV disappoints
your partner and could even lead to separation between you two. This addiction
is more dangerous than the fight itself because it creates a widening gap in
the relationship due to less communication between you two.
The television is there
to entertain us and our family. It should never be the replacement for our
valuable relationships. Please don't forget, it's just an idiot box.
Don't make yourself look like a fool by falling in love with it. Too much of
watching television negatively affects your relationships.
You family life should be
on top of your priority list. Turn your television off and learn to spend more
time with your loved ones. Reel happiness can never replace the real happiness
that comes by being with our closed ones. If someone ask you how television can
affect your relationships, you will have either lame answers or the right
answer which tell the truth.
One in five have identified
the ‘third person’ in their relationship — as their TV, according to new
research.
A survey
of 2,000 people found over 20 per cent of couples regularly row over their
viewing habits, with “too much choice” being the number one cause.
Simon
Till, spokesman for EE TV, which commissioned the study, said: ”With so much
great TV available via live channels, catch up and on-demand, it’s no surprise
that some couples can’t agree on what to watch and when.
A
disgruntled 75 per cent of those in relationships said they often sit through
shows they don’t like but “just to please their other half”.
Football
was the most argued about TV event, followed by Formula One and the X Factor.
Further reasons which caused consternation are: partner falls asleep while
viewing, asking questions all the way through, and ‘we never watch what I
want’.
The other
major difficulty with television and relationships according to research is
that viewing can impact on expectations in marriage or families.
TV shows
often depict an unrealistic view of relationships based on passion, adventure
and unrealistic situations. We know that often TV relationships are
romanticised and idealised but we prefer the idea of passion and romance to
real life. But when your mind is tuned to the characters on the screen, your
real life partner become a nuisance.
“Television
can become an influence on our expectations” says study author Jeremy Osborn
PhD, a communications professor at Albion College.
”The
fantasy and escapism of our favourite shows are huge parts of the attraction
but are we subconsciously buying into the depictions of love marriage, family
and friendship that we see on the screen?”
Are women
expecting their men to have a touch of the “Poldark” mowing the lawn or men
wanting their wives to emulate Nigella in the kitchen?
We have
all heard of the situations where followers of soap operas have confused them
with reality such as the “Free The Weatherfield One campaign” from the
Coronation Street plot, but when the continuing drama characters replace real
life it can seriously affect other relationships.
Some
questions raised in the survey are:
·
Do you ever feel that you have to keep up with the fictional
characters in your favourite soap?
·
Do perfect couples portrayed on TV make you feel that your
marriage is lacking?
·
Do romances and love stories make you feel as though something is
missing in your own life?
Most
people are aware that films are fictional yet they still have an influence on
our moods. It is important to accept that most of the screen romances rarely go
beyond the initial emotion and the “happy ever after” is assumed. And most of
those ideal characters have a damaged life and broken relationships.
Fictional
romances rarely show the tolerance compromise and hard work that keeps a couple
together. And the mawkish family dramas so popular in America, gloss over the
agonising adolescence phase of “why did you have me” and “everyone else is
allowed to”.
Let’s
enjoy the television in the room but not let it be another irritant in our
lives that spoils real family life.
What do you think about the controlling influences the televisual
media has on our day to day living? If you think it has not changed your life
much, then you are lying. And no media can make any better your life or your
relationsips!
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