Does Television Damage your Relationships?

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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