E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
AP file
You've seen this episode of "Seinfeld" approximately eleventy billion times, and yet you're still glued to the TV. You (and your housemates) may think you're just being lazy, but a new study suggests that you're doing something useful: watching reruns of our favorite TV shows actually replenishes our self-control.
Jaye Derrick, research scientist at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions, had a hunch that watching TV is doing something more for our brains than turning them to mush. Specifically, she wanted to see whether the restorative powers of watching a familiar TV show might have any effect on our reserves of self-control.
Because self-control comes in limited quantities. It takes a lot of mental energy to refrain from calling your partner a jerk or eating a second slice of chocolate cake -- and as you exert yourself, self-control depletes, past research has suggested.
People restock their reserves in many ways and Derrick believed that watching TV or a movie or reading a book might re-establish self-control because it stands in as a social surrogate. Chatting and sharing some laughs with friends provides a positive social event that boosts moods and restores diminished self-control. Derrick suspected that retreating to a familiar fictional world could provide the same benefits as those real life experiences.
Derrick asked subjects to take a daily survey for two weeks, where they answered questions about stress, effortful self-control, fictional world use, and mood. They also noted if they retreated to a familiar fictional world, such as a rerun or a re-read of a book. The results revealed that people escaped to a fictional world to find relief from stressful situations and when they encountered a favorite repeat of a TV show, movie, or book it built up their self-control.
“Part of it is sitting there watching these social characters we enjoy and kind of living in the moment a bit,” explains Derrick. And watching these familiar faces feels as reinvigorating as hanging out with a loved one.
She suspects that people enjoy re-watching or re-reading because they feel comfortable with the plot and characters—and they don’t have to exert any extra effort. When people see a new episode of a much-loved show they invest mental energy into following the plot, wondering about twists and turns.
“We have to do all this extra effort when [watching or reading] a new TV show, new movie, or new book. If we have seen it before we can just enjoy it,” Derrick explains. “A positive mood is energizing.”
As someone who found herself in front of the tube re-watching some of her favorite shows, Derrick feels happy that TV viewing has a positive side.
“I am hesitant to make this into a prescription [because] we don’t know what the potential long term effects are, but what the research suggests is that [watching] favorite episodes can be beneficial.”
More from The Body Odd:
Sorry, there's no such thing as a case of the Mondays
Zit-zapping virus may be living on your face
Why your eyes burn when you wake in the wee hours
Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.
Leave a Comment:
They should extend this study to children. I wonder if they watch the same movie over and over again because they have control over very few things in life.
Interesting idea....
Wait wasn't there just a study that said watching TV makes us fat?
I don't know Steve... but If I had to watch one more Barney I may have blasted my own brains it... :)
I wonder if listening to familiar music does that too. I enjoy listening to some of the 80's music that I grew up with, and it can be a stress reliever, or displacer.
TanManTexas
That's exactly the concept behind Oldies/Dusties radio formats: mellow down with memories. I don't think there's any comparable RevolutionNow/Angry Rap of Yesterday format. Yet.
I dunno, maybe that'll bring a warm smile to the faces of aging grocery store thieves everywhere soon.
I have purposely re-watched favorite movies or recorded television for years at bedtime. It is better than Ambien to cure insomnia.
I never, ever, get tired of watching the old Looney Tunes. One of my absolute faves is "Rabbit Hood" starring Bugs. Classic.
Wow! I sure hope they're right about this! I watch TV reruns constantly and the day before yesterday quit my 20-plus-year-old pack-a-day smoking habit cold turkey and I REALLY need that self-control right about now... before I kill something!
I think there is something to this. I couldn't appreciate as much at a younger age, but I think there is something nice about re experiencing something like a book or a show. Since you know the outcome, you are more involved with the journey than the final goal or seeing what happens next.
Some shows I can watch over and others, not so much. "M.A.S.H." and "Seinfeld" are two. I know exactly what is coming up or what they are going to say and it's still funny. For example: Frank Burns: (paraphrased) "Why is it that as soon as people meet me, they don't like me?" Trapper: "Saves time, Frank."
lol. I loved M.A.S.H. I love just watching the episodes over and over.
Frank Burns
I guess she didn't take into account the "first-person shooter" gamers that retreat to their fictional world then come out into the real world and kill a few people...
Wrong. There's already something twisted about someone who would do that. Weak and twisted.
Zorro did just blame a video game for killing people... the gun made me do it!
my favorites are the Dick Van Dyke show and Andy Griffith. still hilarious time and time again.
I love both of those, plus "I love Lucy" and "The Beverly Hillbillies". My boyfriend thinks I'm crazy for laughing at 50 year old jokes I've seen a million times, but I can't get enough.
I actually agree through my own life's experience. I am sure many others will feel the same way....there is something easy and comforting and enjoyable in this - especially now in our world of pressure....I just watched a rerun of two old 1967-68 shows with Don Knotts - I used to just love him - The Reluctant Astronaut and one other (can't remember the name) with him as a bumbling type setter dared to spend the night in a haunted mansion....laughed myself silly all over again!!! The lasting feeling was great....and I remember people who didn't let their children watch T.V. - they would put it in the closet....
The Incredible Mr. Lippett!!!!!
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.
Just saw it a couple weeks ago, funny as hell. Knotts was a genius.
wait... did my husband write this?? he is constantly watching Seinfeld and The Simpsons etc... i hope he does not see this, we would never get him away from the TV. groan.
I watch Groundhog Day whenever I feel a little down. Bill Murray is genius in this and I always laugh. It always puts things in perspective. And I always feel better when it is over.
With no side effects.
I totally agree! More often I find myself watching shows from the 90's and feeling like im hanging at jerry's apartment. or With my 4 grandmas at Blanche's House (golden girls) or watching Dj at Roseannes. and living single!!! It feels good to just tune in and zone out with the peeps... tune in to a show and feel apart of it & knowing the cast all your life feels like they are family..so these re-runs are comfort and TV i'll enjoy for the rest of my life <3.... Re-Run=My Life <3
Let me see if I got the gist of this. A TV company telling us we should watch more TV over and over for the rest of our lives? What are the odds?! I especially like the shamelessly self-promoting "Seinfeld" photo, NBC. And congratulations on encouraging "self-control" through repetition. Thanks for the advice; I totally don't see any type of agenda there. So by all means if you want to become a moronic blob, then keep watching Jersey Shore reruns (or whatever your poison may be) until that's all you know. But if you'd prefer becoming a more informed and capable participant in life, please keep learning new things and then using that knowledge for the benefit of others. You'll feel more content than you would from watching your favorite TV show.
The flipside of this might explain why adolescents with poor impulse control constantly crave the "new!" experience, and pronounce predictable or repetitive as "boring!" I've heard that teeny-tweeny brain development just doesn't allow the sort of self-control expected of adults... so, what's the break-point? Maybe when Seinfeld is amusing? Or is that a sign of protracted adolescence?
For me "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". I could watch Jonathan Winters destroy that gas station eleventy billion times!
No Comment.
I love watching reruns, basically because there isn't anything new worth watching. I love Nick at Night and tvland for this reason, so I can watch shows I have watched since I was a teenager and still laugh at the funny parts. My husband thinks I'm strange about loving to watch re-runs, maybe I will have to show him this article. I was watching something a couple days a go and they showed an ad for the new carol burnett dvd set and I just sat there laughing at the clips of the show I've seen millions of time-the was some good clean funny stuff.
I reread favorite books from time to time.
I would have thought that watching television reruns would waste your time more than anything else.
what a load of crap.