The Importance Of Reality Television

Reality television is a very popular form of entertainment these days. Something about watching seemingly normal people make friends, make enemies, and fight on television really pulls the average American in. However, this could actually be very terrible. Researchers say that watching these reality television shows could actually be teaching people to overreact in reaction to normal, everyday occurrences. In fact, if this love of reality television keeps up, the nation may be facing a huge problem: people will actually start to believe that overreacting is the norm. So, is reality television actually teaching people to overreact?
Being able to stay calm under pressure is generally considered to be an attribute to ones’ demeanor. Or is it?
Co-author of the book Stop Overreaction, Sarah Coyne, says that “verbal aggression, such as insults, teasing and rational aggression, are common on reality TV: this includes gossiping and social exclusion.” In fact, today aggressive behavior appears more on reality television than it does in the fictional world of dramas, soap operas or comedies. For example, research has revealed that there is an average of 52 acts of aggression per hour on reality TV, compared to just 33 on non-reality TV. According to Coyne, “we’re setting up our culture to being
If these words are indeed true of reality television, why in the world are people so fond of it? As Jaffe wrote, “All we really wanted to see was the same thing we saw in the mirror every morning-ourselves. Only different.” This really explains the reason that people are so drawn to reality television. They see people as normal as themselves on TV, winning a million dollars and becoming low-class celebrities. Perhaps this is just a much greater pull than seeing perfect, beautiful actors/actresses on some fiction show and knowing that they get a million dollars for filming only one episode. Another reason that some people are so drawn to reality television, as Steven Reiss, a psychologist at Ohio State University, said, is because “they enjoy feeling superior to the people being portrayed.” So if a person watches, say, Kim Kardashian freak out on her sister or some other family member for one thing or another, the viewer may feel that they would never behave so rashly and would then feel superior to her. Another word for this feeling would be vengeance. As Reiss said, “People with a strong need for vengeance have the potential to enjoy watching people being humiliated. And that is exactly what most reality television portrays in at