What can television help us learn?

Since its invention, people have debated whether television hinders or enables learning. Being a television fanatic, I am often irked when people tell me watching TV is an epic waste of time. Our television sets, laptop screens, or whatever device we use to view TV shows, provide us with a myriad of worlds and infinite knowledge. Those who think watching television kills brain cells are terribly mistaken and here’s why:

Television teaches us how to improve our social skills

A primary function of gaining knowledge, whether we acknowledge it or not, is being able to share it with others, or to have sustainable conversations. Much like books, television series help us converse with people. Each show provides and array of conversation topics. I often make friends based on us having similar tastes in television shows and bonding over them, discussing what happened in the last episode of New Girl or The Mindy Project and predicting what the future holds for our beloved characters. Not only does television supply us with an ice breaking conversation topic, but also it is proven that watching television improves our conversational skills. We see suave characters on the screen with impeccable social skills that we can then adapt. We also see those awkward characters with absolutely no social skills- they teach us what not to do.

Television teaches us how to improve our analytic skills

Television teaches us how to read faces and interpret body language. We become accustomed to understand the motives of the actors on screen only through their facial expressions. We improve our skills in studying character development in seeing the characters on screen unravel themselves to us and change through the course of the series. While many believe the characters on television lack depth- I strongly disagree. Even Gossip Girl has complex characters that are interesting to study, such as the dark and psychologically damaged, Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick). Through watching series we begin to pay better attention to foreshadowing, hidden agendas and even contradictions in television shows- I can now spot several errors made by the writers of Friends. Contrary to popular belief, television can encourage us to pay attention to detail. Crime dramas such as Sherlock, can help us develop skills in spotting hidden clues and better understanding the human psyche.

Television teaches us empathy and humanizes us

Often television shows deal with the hard facts of life such as death, divorce or coming out of the closet. We empathize with the characters on screen as they go through these tough times. We also witness characters being stigmatized for their sexuality, race, social class, or even for what their interest are if they are deemed “socially unacceptable”. We become more aware of the social biases that are still deeply rooted in society. Not only do we become aware of them, but we empathize with the characters, putting ourselves in their shoes. We may even learn about strange and frustrating situations such as life in an American women’s prison in Orange is the New Black.

Television teaches us how to develop our sense of humor

Comedy shows, help us develop our own sense of humor. Subconsciously we reproduce what we find funny, for this reason watching comedy makes us funnier. We develop our own unique styles of humor. Comedians or future comedians take their inspiration from watching comedy, whether it be a sketch show like Saturday Night Live, a talk show or a comedy sitcom. We learn what is funny and what is not funny through seeing audience reaction and our own reactions to the humor on the screen. Again we learn what to do and what not to do when making jokes- perhaps we even become inspired to write our own sketches.

Television teaches us random facts

There are always some random facts we pick up from watching television shows. I have learned numerous medical facts from watching medical shows such as House and Greys Anatomy, and have gained insight into how it is like to work in a law firm from watching Suits, which is packed with legal knowledge- of course, this knowledge would be better absorbed by someone who studies law or medicine. While I am not a science person, I know a thing or two about string theory and theoretical physics from watching The Big Bang Theory. In fact, every episode of The Big Bang Theory provides viewers with interesting facts, such as penguins are a monogamous species that occasionally cheat on their partners and that jellyfish are capable or immortality through continued regeneration.

Even menial matters are given scientific explanations such as why refrigerating bread causes it to become stale- as Sheldon (James Parsons) tells us, the staleness is due to the starch molecules in the bread becoming crystalized which occurs at a faster rate in cooler surroundings.

Television teaches us how to solve everyday problems

Each episode on a television show is based on a current problem in the characters life- a battle to be won no matter how big or small. The majority of television shows, specifically sitcoms such as Modern Family deal with everyday problems. Usually, we see these problems being solved. We learn how to deal with emotional distress, how to get over a break up, how to make friends with someone we do not initially like, or how to live with a dysfunctional family. Television shows can serve as excellent sources of knowledge. What we take from television is up to us. While there are many mindless shows out there, the majority are capable of teaching us at least something. Television’s contribution to developing our learning is substantially overlooked.