TV Naïveté

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For a while now I have been wondering,

Does the Television we watch as children give us unrealistic expectations of the real world?
People are portrayed as being friendlier, etc.
For me as an aspie child this caused me a few problems early on.

Anyone else?

Yes, I think the media can have a huge impact on how we see the world. A lot of aspies are both more sheltered than their NT peers and also tend to take things more to heart. This can translate as the media being a primary mode of modelling with a limited set of emulation examples that we may take more at face value. There are also limited role models that we can identify with whereas NT children may find they relate more. We are left in the same quandary when it comes to the media as our real lives and may tend to gravitate towards media with less realistic portrayals of the darker side of social realities. I would say a lot of aspies are going to be naive regardless of their media ingestion but would also say when it comes to media, at least in my own life, it is very important that one be choice in what one exposes themselves too for many reasons. I'd also say being exposed to the friendlier paired with the more educational side of media as a child saved me a lot of pain that may have been caused if i had been exposed to pop culture as my peers into pop culture were themselves more prone to be rough and socially two-faced, as their own media exposure encouraged. The peers I found ended up being into similar sheltered pursuits but were themselves rounded socially so instead of being bullied they kind of protected and helped me learn what I may otherwise have been missing if I were left to my own devices or those portrayed in a variety of media.

I thought things that happened in it like peoples reactions, how relationships went, moms giving birth, when there is a ugly fight in court, I thought it was all like that but the truth is it's all exaggerated and it's for the drama. Sure some of it could be real but it's usually not like that in the real world, even body language is exaggerated and peoples reactions and family problems or families being perfect. Like in a movie, they may involve a huge court room and jury when in real life, if it were real, it would be in a small court room with a few people and that's it, no jurors.

Also jails tend to look different on TV, they all have bars but in real life, cells actually look like normal rooms and they have benches and a sink and toilet, trash can and a water jug with cups. I've seen them.

TV isn't always reality. Sometimes things are old fashioned what we see on it. I don't think it caused me any problems except I couldn't understand as a child why in the movie it was perfectly okay to assault someone and make it be okay but in real life it wasn't okay. I also noticed how people can point guns to peoples heads and they have no reaction an they aren't scared but in real life the person would have been arrested for pointing a gun and I am sure the person who had the gun pointed at would have been scared. Assault someone, you can get charged for it while in movies, it's all okay and no consequence happens.

So I have learned to not believe everything I see on TV and assume it's like that in real life and expect it's like that. They will also do stereotypes, ugh. Look at what they do with Autism or mental illnesses. Unfortunately lot of people do believe what they see on TV because they don't know reality and people have even used Rain Man to educate themselves about autism. I even wonder if movie companies have ever gotten sued because someone was stupid to do something they saw in a movie and it resulted in them getting hurt or someone else. We're so sue happy.

This ^^

In reality there is a calmness that underpins everything. A calmness but also a vulnerability. Life is much more reasonable and enduring when approached honestly. I think the media tries to spin naivete as something negative. And there is nothing wrong with naivete, innocence is a true honest state, much more favorable than ignorance. It feels as if the media perverts a lot to encourage states of ignorance as almost a faux protective measure, or to sheep people or control them, or keep them preoccupied with intoxicated states of entertainment. But really isn't that what causes the harm against the naive in the first place?

Yeah, I think television I watched as a child gave me unrealistic expectations of what life in the real world would be. Life is not like Mr. Roger's Neighborhood and Sesame Street. People are friendlier on television aimed at children. I watched a ton of Nickelodeon, and none of that reflects the life I lived and am living. I loved, and still love, television, but it definitely has its positives and negatives. Of course, I wasn't diagnosed with Aspergers as a child, and my traits are more profound now.

My favourite sitcom was The Brady Bunch, when I was little. Every time I got in trouble at home, I've always wondered why my parents couldn't reason with me the way that Mike and Carol Brady did with their kids. I was pissed off when I got a spanking because of that.

I think the world is less kind to autistic people and our experience of the world is quite different from that of non-autistic people. So maybe what we see on TV might be true for non-autistic people, but not for us. This could probably be said with other groups of people, not just with autistic vs non-autistic.

I also agree that what you see on TV and other media involves a lot of exaggerations, too. Bad people are simply purely evil and good people are pure saints. There are other exaggerations. And I think that's because people in general love dramas. If everything on TV are very strictly accurate and realistic, then people would be bored. So the media have to create dramas to attract people. So inevitably you'd be disappointed (or relieved) if you expect your life to be like what you see on TV.

I watched a LOT of TV in my childhood (late 1960s through late 1970s).

Regarding setting unrealistic expectations (especially about what life would be like for me as an adult). Yeah – I can imagine that TV contributed to this. But no more than other things in my environment (parents, family, peers, teachers, etc.).

Yes, I had a hard time reconciling the way my mother spoke to me (frustrated, impatient, annoyed) versus the way mothers on TV spoke to their kids (patiently and kindly) and solved problems together. I also saw/heard a big difference in the way my mother spoke with (sweetly) and treated my sister compared to me, and this added to the frustration and anger. I saw other kids not getting yelled at for the things I got yelled at, and it added to my resentment and negativity.

OP described what you'd expect if you had a smaller social network, did'nt have simular age examples to reference (siblings, cousins, etc.), or were socially excluded. The average person would be expected to turn to the easiest source of social/cultural references, the television.

Yes the world of TV is very misleading.

Tons of negativity on TV and in the media. To watch TV, all one would think happens on earth is murder or silly families (or both!)

Have you seen the movie Splash? Watch the scene in which Daryl Hannah, a mermaid in the film who has never been outside the ocean, reacts to television for the first time. Daryl Hannah is herself supposedly on the spectrum by the way.

All of these things were true for me, I was confused and disappointed when life was totally different to how it was portrayed on tv, and this only made my retreats to it (and video games) more frequent.

There is also the natural disillusionment that occurs when reaching adulthood. Perhaps in modern society it is missing the rite of passage it may have had in previous times or in different cultures. Does the television contribute to making this transition more or less difficult? I don't know really, chances are something will take its place its just a medium of today's culture.

How does teaching a child to believe in Santa Clause affect the child? Depends on the child. Have had cousins who championed the process of finding out the truth for themselves and who, in the process, gained a great deal of self-confidence in coming to the reality of the myth on their own. Have had others who were never told and felt alienated because they couldn't participate in the hoopla nor participate in the truth. And others who never really recovered, they took the myth to heart so much that their live were crushed and it caused trauma.

Perhaps AS children are more sensitive to this than NT children. Perhaps not. The rules from childhood, whether television ones or just basic rules of thumb, some as folks tend to adhere to very strictly and it does impact their lives. Then again the same arguments could be made for religion or education.

Frankly I still view various television mediums and film mediums as excellent ways to convey reality, as one would books, everything is a process and everything is a frame. With television we tend to forget the end of the film is often the beginning or there are worlds beyond the edge of the screen.

Perhaps more should be done in the realm of education to help teach people to learn about media analysis and instill a healthy theory of knowledge.

Also, television is never a substitute for in person real-time interaction. There is no substitute for experience.

eh, sorry for the ramble.

I watched so much tv in my life that I feel like I have expirienced all these things portrayed in it.I never could identify with real life people.I always identified myself with TV characters.In TV men will do everything for a woman they love.In real life they think only on themselves,and escape from a girl who has problems.People are more kind to each other,good always wins.I copy my styling from TV,I am happy as long as I have something interesting to watch.I have unrealistic expectations of life because of it.TV is my escape from reality.I love this glamurous world,where problems always resolve and everyone is happy in the end.

Yes, I was very naive about TV when I was a teen. Teenage sitcoms like "Boy Meets World" caused me problems especially. They showed nice guy behavior (yes, this is where it's going) as being rewarded. So I started acting like a nice guy, only to get friend-zoned again and again. As we know, in real life, only jerks get the girls. I there was a sitcom that at least gave the basics on how to act like a jerk, I'd probably have fewer problems dating as a teen.

Absolutely, yes. TV showed that right always won out, the bad guy eventually would be found out and punished, the nice guy would fit the girl - or vice-versa, and so on. Those examples made adjusting to the world more difficult, I think.