How television taught me to be normal

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From watching TV, I learned more than some stupid seminar.

People usually act the same way in real life.

Television is a good way to study body language, hand gestures, & facial expressions. Also it can teach you how many conversations begin and the correct tone & pitch when saying something.

My stepdad says I can learn to pick up women easier if I start watching soaps. Learn pick up lines.

Television has taught me that people are idiots who have very short attention spans and are utterly boring.

The Wire has taught me never to visit Baltimore without a bullet proof vest and a bodyguard.

The wire is one the greatest shows i've watched. Stuff like that is just exciting to watch cuz it's so real and stuff goes on like that everywhere across the world where there are hoods.

TV teaching you to be normal, WTF?!

I always say this, though
I watched shows like "leave it to beaver" and "the cosby show" to learn how people were supposed to interact with each other.
I found it fascinating. And educational.

I learned to read body language all right and tell when someone is lying but duh it's because it's all the same thing on TV. They always use the same body language. I know the patterns but in real life, it's all different so it makes it difficult. Just because someone is stuttering or they can't get a word out doesn't mean they are lying but on TV it does.

I learned a lot about human interaction and psychology from shows like Criminal Intent.

I learned more what is right and wrong just by watching Lifetime TV. That's how I learned about laws.

I also learned what kind of people there are out there.

How do you learn about laws on Lifetime?

People did crime and they got punished for it.

Ah, I see.

The problem as someone noted is that TV body language is often an extension of stage conventions, and stage conventions are not the same as normal body language. Actors also tend to control aspects of their appearance that are visible to non-autistic people, but not necessarily everything that's visible to autistic people, so... yeah can be a weird way to get ideas.

I agree. My son has learned so much from tv and incorperates it into his daily behavior. TV is okay as long as the viewer can apply what he/she has viewed and takes omething from it.

Some kids just stare at it, dumbfounded, and space out.

Intelligent people learn from it.

So many people watch enough TV, though, that these larger-than-life stage conventions will call forth enough associations in people that they will actually understand your body language. I always found it more useful it for something to model, rather than to understand people, because one does not necessarily equal the other. On one level, while I knew that people didn't actually act that way, I was still consciously learning how to navigate interactive behavior, so it was a starting point. This was in, say, middle school.



I still can't tell when people are lying, except when I don't believe them because evidence is contradictory. I will never, ever let anyone know that though, say, at work. General rule is to act skeptical except when it is someone who has proven trustworthy.