Society Fellow’s concern at reality TV

Reality television’s obsession with the “emotional meltdown of losers” is damaging the British psyche – creating a society in which we revel in seeing people hacked to pieces, a Fellow of the British Psychological Society has warned.

Professor Paul Gilbert OBE from the University of Derby told the Independent:

“Reality shows are designed to hold your interest in people when they lose, and see them despair. The focus is on the emotional meltdown of losers,” Professor Gilbert told The Independent.

“We need to be studying in detail the effect of this kind of competitive culture in the media on the young people who are growing up on it.”

“Supposing all the young people watching The Apprentice thought this was the way people did business, with all the back-stabbing and attacking each other. Would you really want to live in a world where everyone did that?”

He added: “So much is going on that is making people angry. I think people feel a bit hopeless.”