Fear in general. It's so bullshit. Who wants to live in a world like that?

See, I've known for a while that "TV is bad" — blah blah.. but it's the details. WHY. & not some lame assed study that barely applies.

Now, the escapism thing I figured (using it to avoid life) — but that's not really about TV, you can escape tons of different ways. That's about what you're escaping from.

This though, well, this is the first time I've had a specific realisation (other than, duh, it wastes time) about TV in particular, not just escaping etc in general.

& yeah, TV in children's bedrooms = scary.

I was surprised recently how many children, from as young as a year old, have a television set in their bedrooms in America. 72%. I wish I still had that link because they had similar things to say about TV training or "raising" children and the negative effects. The sense of waiting for the shoe to drop was mentioned. You're on to something, Si ;)

It's scary to me as a parent how all of this anxiety plays out in how
we raise or children. Not just what they are watching but how it seems
they are growing up in a world where parents are taught to be fearful
of outsiders and other adults are wary of interacting with children
for fear of accusations.

I guess people do respond very strongly to stories centered on danger
and fear. Obviously it's in our best interests to learn what should be
avoided so I can see why it's a very effective story telling
technique, marketing tool, etc. but when it's so magnified and so
constant it becomes incredibly limiting and reinforces a lot of
negative ideas.

I think a huge part of the enjoyment comes down to escapism (like so many things). It's a way to avoid an unpleasant feeling in one's life — rather than, say, welcoming up that feeling, healing it & thus removing it permanently.

I know for me that's been a HUGE life pattern, that I'm only recently starting to seriously shift.

But yeah, soap operas. Oh man. I had a friend once who pointed out that you could time 20 seconds MAX between someone on Eastenders etc getting upset, shouting or crying. Watching it with that in mind it's disturbing just how accurate that is.

& yeah, I hear you re free time.. although oddly, the internet seems to soak up a lot. What's with that, exactly?

No, as delightful as downloading an iphone based self-torture device sounds? I'm really not that keen to. Thanks for the offer though! *laugh*

Sounds to me like simple empathy — you anthropomorphize & associate with the character on the screen (same as FPSs, & RPGs, right?) so then, in a weird but real way, you feel the pain they would be experiencing. But yeah, the impact of these things is scarily disproportionate at times, no question about that. Hence my thinking deeply about how much I'm associating with TV. I know I'm heavily affected by the things in my immediate environment.

Pretty much every story does this, including movies and novels — they just take longer than TV.

I think on TV it's more noticeable, especially within series, because it happens over and over again. Soaps are the worst, they have multiple crises at once, and there's never a point where all of them are resolved at the same time and viewers get to relax.

And yet people enjoy it.

I think there's another thing — how often does one watch movies, vs watching TV? you can happily watch TV every day of the week.. but movies tend to be a rarer thing, because of the time requirement/hassle. So that by itself works in their favour.

Of course, there are also a ton of movies that just shamelessly rip the standard TV format too — so no benefit there.

& yeah, I'm specifically thinking in terms of — how have I been making my life more difficult, with this belief? (bashing my head against a wall again, see). All positive little steps in the right direction.

Yep, definitely a smart move to limit time around certain types of people — no matter how well shielded you are, it's almost inevitable they will affect you & how you are/behave/feel.

ps. you don't have two jacuzzis? The shame!