TV Naïveté

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It is interesting how much of our cultural underpinnings here on WP come from the television.

Absolutely, and not just for autistic people. NT kids are so messed up based on false messages they learn from entertainment. Real life does not mirror what TV shows us. If you don't realize that TV and movies are NOT REAL (even when you have "reality TV"), you will presume it reflects sociological norms.

Perhaps worse, even if you are "normal," exposure to bad behavior by the media slowly conditions people to mimic it as normal behavior.

On a personal note, I've had A LOT of problems growing up dealing with reality BECAUSE of the influence TV had on me. I survive by mimicking the behavior I observe in others. TV did nothing but program me with incorrect information about human interaction.

Was reading the Globe and Mail this morning and it rung true to this thread. These children are being taught not to bully in a society that uses bullying as a prime political and social strategy.

Link to full article: Conservative attacks are nothing but bullying

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FLASHING IMAGE WARNING

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgOWTM5R2DA[/youtube]

Personally I would prefer to throw our TV out of the window, but my partner is a junkie and it would seem the sort of unsocial act that you see on the..........

I once had a therapist who suggested watching TV shows such as Friends to learn how to socialize, see how people react to what others do & say, what topics were acceptable for small talk, etc. I never went back for another session with that therapist. It was obvious she didn't understand what I'd spent months explaining to her: that the problem was not so much understanding others' interactions as it was getting lost in the moment when attempting it myself. Leading to another point about TV - watching the characters interact and understanding their reactions to each other is not so much a problem because both sides of the interaction is visible. Trouble arises when only one side is known (me), while the other person's viewpoint remains inscrutable, as it is to me in real life.

OBW I hope you did not have to pay for such quality advice.

TV is bad for ALL kids. Lots of misleading messages. My nephew is NT, but Spongebob made him act out because he presumed the actions depicted in the cartoon would be deemed funny and acceptable in real life.

My whole life, I've had to mimic to try and fit in. TV only showed me bad behaviors to mimic, and it caused me a lot of problems. In large part, I don't care to watch TV just because I don't need to expose my brain to false images of reality. It's hard enough trying to fit in when mimicking regular people.

Televison, books, and movies. I devoured them all, believing that they were a good way to figure out how the rest of the people in the world thought, behaved, responded, interacted, etc. That was a terrible mistake. I learned how to talk to people from the books I read nonstop while hiding away in my closet as a child/teen. Real people don't talk like that, and tend to feel that I am condescending, concieted, and self-righteous. Movies and TV were my next attempt to learn social behavior, but the representations on the screen don't match reality. I had trouble figuring out that all these altruistic characters weren't actually representing the reality of the population, just the way the majority of people saw themselves. I still have trouble remebering at times that most people, in situations where it could cause them inconvenience or harm, will only do "the right thing" if they think someone is watching.

And I am still a sucker when it comes to liars. I cannot seem to disbelieve anything a person says (unless it is something I am certain is factually flawed) until they establish a pattern of dishonesty. I have been screwed over by a lot of people, including "friends" and "family" by being fed a load of malarky. I am still teetering on the edge of bankruptcy because my father convinced me he was going to lose his house (when he actually used the money I had been sending him to buy a nex Audi and go on several vacations, including a month long hiking tour of Europe). Afet discovering I had been talken advantage of, I still assumed that there must be some information missing, some explanation or justification. When I confronted him (which took me several months of psyching myself up for it), he just told me that it was time for me to start paying him back for all the money he spent to raise me and "for being a pain in his ass" as a child. I also have three sisters that have all gotten me to pay many of their bills. Luckily I met a girl who won't let my family leech off of me anymore, and will aggressively pursue anyone who tries to take advantage of my gullibility.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-mWOCiCVtw[/youtube]
or this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOX_gUhLKkU[/youtube]

This is actually an argument (not to change the topic) for religion, as a omniscient, omnipresent being would always be "watching" which would encourage people to always do the right thing. Sort of like how people (myself guiltily included) brainwash kids into believing in Santa Claus and use it to modify their behavior around Christmas time LOL

No, I'm not religious. I do appreciate religion and the purpose people place in it, however.

Not necessarily TV but I was obsessed with Sweet Valley High when I was a teenager (collected over 300 books) and that gave me a totally unrealistic perception of what a 'teenager' was, and I felt like I'd got it totally wrong. I'm 26 and haven't even got close to how the 16 year old characters act! It also gave me a totally skewed view on friends etc and how to act. I was convinced that if I were American and lived in California, everything would be fine!