Once any TV show is on the air for long enough, a curious thing happens. It amasses enough devoted fans that watch it every week that they begin to turn on it. They constantly rave about how they now hate the show… it’s not like it used to be… but they’re still watching it anyway. The same thing happens with any franchise entertainment: movies, comic books, video games, bands. Is it inertia? Is it hate watching? We sometimes call it media addiction. But why is that a thing? On today’s show, Hannah, Katya, Wayne and Mav welcome two psychologists, Stephanie Siler and Ashley Bobak to discuss the nature of addiction and try to figure out if it is indeed possible to be addicted to TV show or other type of media and what are the ramifications thereof.
Citations and Links:
- This episode’s Call for Comments
- “The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered, and It Is Not What You Think” by Johann Hari
- Thank you to Maximilian’s thoughtForm Music for our theme (and check out his new Christmas music video)
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Such a shame that The Simpsons was canceled after its 11th season. But, at least they knew it had lost its charm and decided to move on to other, fresher things.
Hah… you know, I didn’t even think to talk about the idea of denial on media addiction. Like, I don’t think you’re alone here. There’s a point where many people simply decide to end their head canons where they think the show is just done… and I think that’s worth thinking about. Maybe some future show.
Could be interesting, yeah. I think Star Trek and Star Wars are the first places I’d look, for sure. They keep repeating the cycle.