How television affects our society - Where actors once believed it was essentially career suicide if you moved from film into television, things are now quite the opposite. TV is one of the most lucrative industries these days, producing world-famous stars and enrapturing audiences globally. But how is it affecting our society?

Often referred to as “the opiate of the masses,” or else as one of the most well-loved pastimes across generations, check out this gallery to see how TV is changing our lives.

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Spending less time on real-life interactions - It’s all too easy to check out of real life and let yourself be sedated by a constant flow of entertaining programs.

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However, it sparks socialization - Conversely, TV shows are also a way for mass amounts of people to unite over a shared experience—be it Jon Snow’s latest plot twist or the finale of M*A*S*H.

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Being a fan is good for your health - Psychologists have confirmed that participating in a fandom, for everything from TV shows to singers, combats depression through the very feeling of belonging to something bigger than yourself.

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Relationship to food - We’re all guilty of overeating in front of the screen. The feeling of satisfaction you get after eating enough food gets lost when you’re distracted by a screen as you shove food into your mouth.

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TV is a huge overeating trigger - According to a 2017 Harris Poll, almost 80% of American millennials overeat while watching TV at least sometimes. The statistics of overeating in front of the TV surpass overeating due to loneliness, sadness, and stress!

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Increases obesity rates - Combining the lack of exercise and the increase of consumption in front of the screen means higher obesity rates, particularly for children who are also targeted by junk food advertisements.

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Changes how we see society - The lack of representation of people of color on-screen is slowly improving as societal issues do the same, but it can be dangerous to look at society as what is represented on-screen, particularly in regards to race, class, and gender diversity, as it is often still far from the truth.

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It physically shapes our living rooms - Television sets are the focal point of many living rooms, physically altering homes to allow for more comfortable viewing.

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An accessible form of education - While there are a lot of negative lessons to be learned from television, there are also shows like 'Shark Tank' which, while entertaining, also impart significant lessons on entrepreneurship.

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Increasing acceptance of differences - Watching other people's stories unfold, stories which are designed to evoke empathy, can lead to society's quicker acceptance of marginalized groups like LGBT+, people with disabilities, or people of color. Shows like 'Ellen,' 'Modern Family,' 'Blackish,' and 'Atypical' are all good examples.

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Less sleep - Television has been associated with irregular sleep patterns, especially from the blue light of the screen. Lack of sleep means a decrease in your body's natural production of melatonin, which has a whole other roster of physiological problems.

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Increases tolerance for violence - A long-term study between 1977 and 1992, controlled for socioeconomic factors and parenting styles, looked at 557 children from five countries and their TV viewing habits, revisiting them as young adults. It found that early exposure to TV violence was a predictor of aggressive behavior later on.

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Changes our standards - Reality TV in particular is often crafted in such a way as to make us feel better about ourselves by watching those with lower standards of behavior, but the opposite is also true when it comes to romance and self-perception, when TV shows give us unrealistic standards.

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The potential to increase suicide rates - A new study from the University of Michigan looked at the effect of the Netflix series '13 Reasons Why,' which deals with high school bullying, sexual assault, and suicide. It determined that the show actually increased the risk of suicide in teens.

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It can hurt relationships - TV shows combine a false mirroring of society with the common tropes of characters moving from partner to partner, having affairs, and canoodling with gorgeous actors, all of which leads to a grass-is-greener effect in viewers.

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Distorts body image - Impossibly thin actresses and chiseled actors feed into the ridiculously beauty standards people hold themselves up to. One example is when fully grown adults are playing high school students.

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It connects the world in pain and triumph - From the first moon landings to the 9/11 attacks, these televised events connect viewers to other parts of the world in collective triumphs and travesties, bringing us closer together as humankind.

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The news can affect your mental health - Countless studies have looked at the negative effects of 24-hour news on mental health. When journalism follows principles like "If it bleeds, it leads," it's not hard to understand why.

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It's divisive - Many news stations have become biased sources which can lead to a total separation of information between, for example, Republicans and Democrats, and can make people less informed about the actual current affairs.

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Decline in quality family time - With the rise of TV came the decline of eating dinner at the table, and while it is still a bonding experience that lives on in the real world (i.e. references, discussions, inside jokes), there is much less time to chat about each other's real lives.

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Attention problems - Early television exposure has, however, been associated with attention problems, as well as the impairment of growing brains.

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It can be the source of many misconceptions - Take, for example, the infamous images of starving African children so popular in adverts. These generalizing and provocative images skew the Western world's perception of life abroad.

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Cooking finesse - Food-centric channels have opened people’s cabinets to a range of ingredients and recipes, so our palates have widened just from that exposure alone.

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Cultural domination - A paper published by NCBI speaks at length about the influence of TV in third world countries who can't or don't produce many of their own shows, highlighting how this can negatively affect a country's cultural values by essentially assimilating them into other values.

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Expectations versus reality - The goal of many TV programs is to draw audiences in by mirroring reality, but that's led us to have unrealistic expectations of people like police, lawyers, teachers, significant others, criminals, families, and more.

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Sports are huge - Since TV began broadcasting sporting events, the world has become an enormous stadium, from which any seat has a perfect view of the game and everyone can root for someone.

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It's our greatest escape - While that might sound like a bad thing, and definitely can be, laughing or crying along to the careful work of talented people is a much better alternative than other forms of escapism.

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TV has become a highly appreciated art - The art of plot structure, characters, cinematography, and subject matter have elevated TV shows to much more than they ever were. Shows like 'Game of Thrones', 'The Wire,' or 'Black Mirror' are pushing our expectations.

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TV can watch us back - Netflix is notorious for keeping tabs on its viewers' habits, but their tabs are so vigilant that the audience to product relationship is becoming nearly symbiotic, where, soon, shows will be catered exactly to when, where, and how people consume TV.

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