Social Skills and Watching TV Shows

Post Reply New Topic

Hello Everybodt

My psychologist (who specializes in treating autism) once told me that I have to watch shows that deal with social situations like Sitcoms. An example of the subject show will be "Friends". I do have the time to watch the show but I am resistant to take action in the subject area.

When I watch TV, I mainly watch political shows,, sports (primarily the NFL), or documentaries (history or space). I also spend time on the internet on reading articles and blogs for the various RSS feeds. I just do not watch sitcoms because they are not stimulating. I get stimulated by information and not humor.

My question: Does anybody watch TV shows and learn social skiils. Does anybody have seen a direct correlation between by watching sitcoms and increased social skills? Did anybody have a better relationships with Nts subsquent to watching sitcoms?

If I do see that a lot of aspies have done the subject action and have experienced sucess in this area, perhaps, I will give it try.

Sincerely,

Chris

That's the first time I've heard of someone being assigned sitcoms as therapy, but yeah, I can see how it would give you a better sense of the subtle interplay involved in human smalltalk. I think all comedy reflects that kind of timing. Just telling a joke won't (usually) make people laugh, it has to be told in a specific way, with a certain rhythm and cadence, or it falls flat and just sounds stupid. All conversational interaction is like that and sitcoms base most of their storytelling on it, so I think it would be good for you. As many as there are out there, surely you can find something that will resonate with you. Try Big Bang Theory - its an object lesson in how someone with AS struggles with social interaction - the Sheldon character is based on Aspergian characteristics straight out of the DSM.

Personally, I always liked NewsRadio for being very intelligently written and having some uniquely offbeat characters in it, but you'll have to watch it on DvD now, unless some cable channel has it in syndicated reruns.

I can understand why a show like 'Friends' might not grab your interest - its tolerable, but panders to the 'lowest common denominator' masses as far as the writing goes.

I think that watching most sit-coms for social tips is like watching porn to learn the art of dating and relationships.

People don't act like that in real life.

I would be inclined to people watch in natural situations. Restaurants, bars, clubs, the beach, the cafeteria at college, classes, etc. to better learn social skills.

I never understood why the guys and girls act so dramatic in porn, but in real life they are just calm. You're right, Tv and stuff like that is fake. It's real life to exaggeration.

That's kind of the point of using it as therapy. When done to exaggeration, its easier to see whats actually happening.

If 'watching people in real life situations' was helping, there wouldn't be a need for the therapeutic approach to begin with - hell-looo, that's our weakness in the first place, we don't see these cues in real life because we have a neurological disorder. If you can pick them up by just people watching,congratulations - you're not Autistic!

And I have never seen anyone in porn 'acting dramatic' Most of them are barely literate enough to even read their lines, and frankly everything I've seen that was made from the 90s on, attempts not the vaguest pretense of plot or acting of any kind. There was a brief period during the 80s when porn performers tried to inject some actual plot elements into their product, but they never got very good at it and stopped trying after a few years. Social interaction in porn is not exaggerated, its non-existent. They only need enough stupid lines to make it barely plausible that these people have a 'reason' for rutting.

I still say comedy can teach you a lot about the rhythms of social interaction - specifically because they're exaggerated.

I can only speak as someone who had a lot of difficulty socializing as a child, youth and young adult and had trouble picking up on social cues. I found watching and imitating sit-com type bevaviour only made me look silly (like the sit-coms themselves). Life is not a contrived sit com.

With practice and learning what to look for (unfortunately I did not have therapists to help me). Over time, I had better luck observing people in natural settings. With some help of some sort - I would have learned faster.

As it is - I went from someone who had trouble with social situations, obtaining and holding employment and trouble making and maintaining friends to someone who IS comfortable in social situations, has long term, gainful employment and is happily married for seven years. This took a long time (years), but, again, I didn't have help of any sort.

It didn't come from imitating sit-coms. It came from turning the tv OFF and observing and interacting with the REAL WORLD.

I will gently remind Willard that autism is a spectrum. Some people will need more help than others and have varying strengths. The comment "[/i]helloooo..[i] - if you can just pick then up (social cues) from just watching people - congratulations - you don't have autism" is inappropriate and ignorant. You are an expert only on your own situation. You have no right to suggest diagnosis of me or anyone else.

Sorry, I utterly and completely disagree with that.

First, the only spectrum involved IS one of functionality ('functionality' being the ability to gracefully hide your Autism). The handicaps are identical, else it would be impossible to diagnose - you can't use AS as an umbrella DX to cover everybody who feels they don't fit in with society. I'll grant you, I do believe there are a lot of misdiagnoses and even more mis-self diagnoses, but that doesn't change the fact that Autism is a very specific disorder and the problems it presents are the same across the board OR YOU DON'T HAVE IT.

There are plenty of posters here whose remarks make clear that they do indeed suffer from all the classic symptoms of Autism. There are a great many more who have one or two 'similar' issues that are clearly not exactly the same, and even more who have nothing but a general social anxiety who engage in endless 'me, too!' choruses, but who have nothing resembling actual Autism, but are convinced nonetheless that they do. I don't care what you think, or whether you agree, the difference is obvious to anyone who lives with the real thing. So yes, I do have a right to point out the truth and identify what is pathetically trendy faux Autism. Its an insult to those of us who actually SUFFER from it.

Pity that so many people have to pay an actual professional to get a diagnosis when they could just consult with you Willard. (sarcasm).

People watching does nothing for me, whatever I'm missing I'm not going to catch because I'm already missing it every time in the first place and I'm not even sure what I'm looking for. Not to mention that people get a little nervous if you watch them anyway.

Whatever you think about other people's diagnoses, there are some of us out there that will get nothing from watching. That is when this whole "I did it myself, you should too" crap gets irritating. I'm not you.

Because I'm not you, doing something different may have different results for me than it would for you. I've at least learned comedic timing and the art sarcasm from watching and reading comedies. It's just too subtle if I try to pick it up in real life. You can observe the same interaction again and again if need be that way.

Willard is right in that to be diagnosed with classic autism there must be a certain level of severity. This site is also for AS, though. AS is still undergoing a semantics battle so this site is intended to have a broad spectrum.