Reality TV Shows Are Affecting Your Mind in A Very Bad Way

In the recent decade, there have been many different reality TV shows broadcasted all around the world. Some had a small number of viewers, but others have been extremely popular. All of them, generally, have had a bad influence on people’s mind, both of youngsters and grown-ups.

 Children

Countless researches have been made in the recent years analyzing the influence of the reality TV shows on the young minds. They have shown that the impact on the values of young girls is huge and that it also influences the way they deal with the real-life situations. This is also true about young boys, but somehow girls are more affected. Children are often fooled by the fact that this program is referred to as “reality,” and they start imitating the behavior of their favorite reality stars.

What to do?

The first thing you have to tell your children (and repeat it daily) is that no reality TV show is about actual reality. The people there are paid to do what they are told to, so nothing is spontaneous. They are paid to wear designer clothes and consume a specific type of drink or food. They are even told to yell at each other for no apparent reason and behave a bit crazy. The creators of those shows want the participants to do erratic and irresponsible things because it promotes the show itself and earns them a lot of money when many people are watching it.

If your teenager wants to watch it, do it together

It is easy to deal with young children, but the question is what to do with a teenager who wants to watch a reality TV show? Well, if you think that a certain reality program is appropriate for his/her age, you should watch it together so that you can make constant comments and discuss what you see there. You should probably see some episodes of the show beforehand alone so that you can have some prepared real-life critique on the show.

Ask your teenager about his/her opinions. Try catching their train of thought and gauge how your child percepts reality TV. Ask him/her to describe what is good or bad about some of the behaviors you see there. Then try to get his/her point of view on the matter in question.

Ask your child about the characters of the show

This is a good way to see what characters your child sees as good ones and with whom he/she identifies. You will realize what values your child may or may not be reflecting. Ask your child what his/her friends are saying about the show and which characters they like or don’t like. This way, you will also get a better notion of your child’s friends.

By doing all of this, you will help your child get a critical point of view and thus making him/her question everything that he/she sees both on TV and in real life itself.

 Adults

Yes, it is not just children who are affected! Even if you don’t watch those shows very much, you are probably well familiar with many of them through the news feed on your social networks or through stories of your acquaintances and friends. Why do they watch it? Well, it can be rather ‘contagious’ to a certain type of people who like to gossip even though they are adults. Let’s see the negative effects on the adults.

Reality shows promote selfishness

In reality shows, everyone wants to be the most famous star of the show. In those shows that are some competitions, everyone wants to win, and they would do anything to be the center of the show. Quite literally anything, even things that are unimaginable and obnoxious to regular people.

In a way, it is understandable why the producers of the show promote this behavior, but it is quite disturbing to realize what are some individuals capable of doing for their selfish interests.

They give many unrealistic expectations

Even though they are called reality, most of them are based on some scenarios written by someone. They should be seen as movies or series (really bad ones) since nothing is actually unprepared and spontaneous. On the other hand, real life is spontaneous, mostly full of unpredictable and thus unplanned, unwanted situations. Where is the similarity, could you just tell me?

Realities degrade traditional family values

A plentitude of currently produced reality TV shows feature families, but it doesn’t mean that they promote good family values. On the contrary, TV producers know that their shows have better ratings when people, especially siblings, bicker with each other and make pranks, or when parents have relationship issues, cheating and similar things that are highly unwanted in real life.

Some psychologist claim that common people want to see all of this to remind themselves that their lives aren’t bad at all. Even so, our subconscious mind is getting the message that family is something unimportant. Watching other people arguing all day long, every day, makes us accept that behavioral pattern and, subconsciously (and gradually) become like them.