Television Is Infectious: One Looks With A Critical Eye

By Staff

Tuesday, July 7, 2009, 12:44

Television is an influencing medium and there is no dispute about that. What we see, and hear, to a large extent, affects our conscience. Some times these feelings, sub consciousness many a times, may me good, but others may act as a boomerang. Same has been the case with a lot of the ladies watching the television series, Friends.

Friends, one of the most entertaining television shows of the recent times seems to have been taken by people, the ladies to be precise, in an altogether different sense. Researchers at Ryerson University have found that the show's slender and beautiful cast members, like Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox Arquette, make the viewers feel worse about their own appearances.

The study conducted by Dr. Stephen Want, an Assistant Professor in Ryerson's Department of Psychology, was a way to measure how television shows made university-aged women feel about their overall appearances. On this, the researcher opines, "Our study showed two things. First, people have the tendency to make rapid comparisons of themselves to images on television programs even when they don't think they are being affected". About the second, he explains: "When we are reminded that 'real life' doesn't resemble what is seen on T.V., and we can look at things with a critical eye, the comparisons become less relevant."

He claimed that the project filled a gap in contemporary body-image research. He said: "There's a lot of talk about the effect of media images on people's satisfaction with their appearance. But the term 'media images'", he explains, "Is used as a catch-all phrase. Most research focuses on fashion magazines and television commercials; we wanted to see if other images on TV achieved the same result."

So, how did the expert reach the conclusion? For this, the researchers recruited 76 undergraduate women, and assigned them to one of four groups. Each group later viewed a 10-minute clip of Friends in which thin and physically attractive characters played a prominent role, but their physical appearance was not especially emphasized. The researchers wanted to gauge participants' satisfaction with their overall appearance after watching Friends.

However, before viewing the segment, two of the groups were asked to read intervention material on appearance and also on weight and shape. Both sets of intervention materials were intended to convey the message that idealized images of women on TV are unrealistic and unattainable.

The researchers found that watching the segment had a significantly adverse effect on the participants' satisfaction with their own appearance. However, reading the intervention material seemed to mitigate some of those feelings.

For those willing to leaf through the pages of the study can have a hand on the journal Sex Roles, where the same has been published.

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