A Teenage Couch Potato

I may be a couch potato at some times. Meaning, I stay up watching television all day instead of doing other things. 

I never thought that television could teach me things about life. 

It shaped me. 

I usually base my everyday life on TV shows.

I even think my life is in a movie.

This is when I am struck by the Cultivation Theory. 

Cultivation Theory
It looks at the mass media as a socializing agent and investigates whether television viewers come to believe the television version of reality the more they watch it.


The theory states that in every situation in your life, you naturally think like what would happen or what you would do based on the movies and TV shows you have watched.

We've got lots of experiences that our behaviors, attitude, personality, beliefs and dispositions were based on the things which we have watched in the television.

As for my experiences..

I have two little cousins. Because of their yayas, they were really exposed to drama TV shows. They got used to watching the stressing dramas in the local channels. There came a time when their parents were fighting. But it's not actually a big fight. It was just an argument. But then, because of the influence of television to them, they both cried in their rooms secretly. They prayed there so that their parents won't get annulled.

Because of television, a small argument made them think too much. Like what they have watched in the television, they already thought that their parents would be breaking up. That idea naturally came up to them because of television. 

Another example is when we see in the television that when you are in Tondo, Manila, it is full of killers, alcoholics and squatters. But some of our relatives were there. When I was little, after seeing those things about Tondo, I get so scared when I knew that we are going there even if I really haven't seen Tondo. When we reached Tondo, I felt really weird. When I look at other people, I already label them as rapists, etc. even if I still haven't really talked to them or really know them. Because of what I see from the television, I naturally assumed that people might be bad in Tondo.

One last example is about my friend who broke up with her boyfriend. She was clearly influenced by the movie, "One More Chance". In the movie, it was shown that when two people broke up because for some reason, after some time, you would still be back together no matter what happens and no matter how long it might take you to forget all the mistakes, the point is that you'd still get back together after a long break up. Because of the movie, her mind was set that they will still be back together. Because of the movie, it shows the lovers hope that things will still get better and that they will still be back in the future. The problem is that when they will never get back together. Because she's still waiting for the time for them to be together again, she becomes stuck in the past. This is what happened to my friend, she locks in her hope even if there are no chances that they will still be together again. This is the effect from the influence of the movie to her.