TV Helps To Handle Loneliness

By Margarita Nahapetyan

Favorite characters on TV shows and illusionary relationships with them can provide people with genuine feelings of belonging, even after being rejected by close friends or family members, indicates a new research by psychologists at the University at Buffalo and Miami University of Ohio.

The scientists conducted four linked studies among undergraduate students and came to the conclusion that television can cast away feelings of loneliness and abandonment in many. "We need connections to other people almost as much as we need food and water," says the main investigator Jaye L. Derrick, Ph.D., postdoctoral associate and adjunct instructor of psychology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. "To me, it made sense that television could be an extension of that need, a way of temporarily fulfilling that need while we are not able to seek connection to other people."

The first study which involved more than 700 students, used the Loneliness Activities Scale and the Likelihood of Feeling Lonely Scale, and revealed that people tended to tune to favorite TV programs when they felt lonely and also, felt less rejected when watching their favorite shows. The second study involved 102 undergraduate students and asked some of them to write about a favorite TV show while others wrote about watching whatever was on TV. When the self-esteem and emotions of the participants were analyzed, those who had written about a favorite TV show were found to feel much better.

Experiment number three of 116 subjects used the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule and an 8-item analysis of feelings of rejection. The results showed that thinking about favorite TV program buffered individuals against low self-esteem, bad mood and feelings of abandonment in a relationship.

In the 4th experiment, the experts used a word-completion test based on the knowledge that individuals tend to fill in blanks in order to create words associated with the way they are feeling. The results revealed that students who first wrote about their favourite television program were less likely to complete words connected to loneliness or rejection, filling in ha - as "hard" instead of "hate," for example.

We only got those effects based just on favorite TV programs, Dr. Derrick says. So it is associated with a character people are familiar with, and also has to be a plot individuals are familiar with and the story they are used to plunging themselves in from day to day, she added. Television is the most "ubiquitous" and effortless source of media through which people are fulfilling the need for communication and companionship, Derrick says, but book-readers and video game addicts likely derive similar benefits from their medium of choice. "I think that people are incredibly adaptable," the expert says. "We find all sorts of ways of fulfilling our needs and, if not, getting a quick fix so that we manage to keep on going."

People become attached to favorite TV characters because they are familiar and predictable, as a family member, or a close friend, with the same neuroses and weak points, the scientists say. And, besides, people experience a real sense of loss when a show or character stops to exist, and are more likely to feel some kind of emptiness, they explain. Television has always been a collective experience and even in the age of TV on cellphones, people still gather with friends to watch and talk about their favorite shows.

The findings are published in the current issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.