A study conducted by the Girl Scout Research Institute (which is apparently a real place, where I doubt there are serious-looking women walking around with clipboards while wearing the little uniform) has concluded that girls who watch awful reality TV shows have worse images of themselves and beliefs about how to behave as women. I know. Shocker. They found that these girls “expect a higher level of drama, aggression, and bullying in their own lives, and measure their worth primarily by their physical appearance.”
"Damn it, Becky. Your findings are anomalous, yet you're presenting them as somehow categorical! "
These girls who watch more horrible shows about repulsive women being despicable also tend to believe that “gossiping is a normal part of a relationship between girls” (78%) and that “girls often have to compete for a guy’s attention” (74%). In addition, 72% of girls who watch a lot of reality TV also say they spend a lot of time trying to look pretty (38% say that a girl’s overall value is based on how she looks). No word from the Boy Scouts on the relationship of watching reality TV and using Axe Body Spray. While these results are hardly surprising, they’re certainly distressing. But it is, sadly, only the latest in a string of research showing the dangers of reality television.
Among the other recent studies regarding television watching habits findings:
Impressionable viewers who watch Jersey Shore are 38% more likely to have negative opinions about Italians, young adults, people who exercise, women, idiots, men, alcohol, New Jersey, coastlines, human beings, and the prospect of our continued existence. (source: The Boys & Girls & Applied Statisticians Club of America)
Regular viewers of America’s Got Talent are 21% more likely to believe that America does not, in fact, have talent. (source: The Little-League Baseball Department of Advanced Kinesiology Studies)
Scientists who conducted a survey of people who watch the program Survivor were stunned to learn that Survivor is still on. (source: The Federated University of Those Kids Who Try to Sell You Magazines At Your Door So They Can Get A Scholarship, And You Buy Some To Be Helpful Even Though The Prices Are Totally Inflated, And Then The Magazines Never Come)
Pictured: 4H headquarters, in Copenhagen.
Adults who watched episodes of Keeping Up With The Kardashians were 30% more likely to utter the phrase, “I’m sorry, who are they?” 19% more likely to say, “Why do they have a TV show?” and a whopping 46% more likely to angrily mutter, “Do they… do they do anything? Is there some talent they’re famous for? Why does this exist?” (source: The 4-H International Research Station)
Regular viewers of Chopped are more 27% more likely to serve their families a main course that includes the ingredients chipotle peppers, Sweetarts, aspirin, and whale blubber. (source: The Pat-a-cake, Pat-a-cake, Culinary Institute for Baker-Persons [admitting women since 1978])
The Byronic Man 
October 14, 2011 at 4:19 pm
This is funny. You have talent.
October 14, 2011 at 5:33 pm
I applaud your research methodology and thorough fact-checking!
October 15, 2011 at 6:45 am
I’m all about the science.
October 14, 2011 at 5:34 pm
You should do a study on the amount of people who read this blog and believe it’s statistics and their sources. 😉
October 15, 2011 at 6:46 am
I wondered about that. That or how many 4H members will come across and think, ‘We have an international research station??’
October 17, 2011 at 3:06 pm
You mean 4H isnt really headquartered in Copenhagen?
October 18, 2011 at 5:19 am
Well, not the official one. It’s the super-secret one.
October 15, 2011 at 3:15 am
Ahhh The Chopped one sent me into a giggle fit! (One time they made them use GRAPE gelatin powder!) Pretty sure 100% of your readers will experience similar symptoms after reading this.
October 15, 2011 at 6:51 am
Hopefully the giggling part, not the “eating grape gelatin powder” part.
October 15, 2011 at 7:15 am
I’m glad to see you’re researching them and not watching them. If a person with low self-esteem sat and watched every reality tv show going…that person I’d like to meet. Just imagine the stimulating conversation and unlimited opportunities for humor.
October 15, 2011 at 1:50 pm
I actually had to do a Google search for “popular reality tv 2011”. I’ve seen a couple episodes of “Chopped” (you’ll notice that’s the only one with specific detail about what happens during the show) and about 3 minutes of Jersey Shore, out of morbid curiosity.
October 15, 2011 at 7:30 am
As you say, not surprising yet distressing initial stats… but my god, funny through and through thereafter! I loved the caption under the girl scouts pic. And the genious of “admitting women since 1978”! Keep ’em comin’, Byron!
October 15, 2011 at 1:54 pm
I suppose there’d be no drama in releasing statistics that show, for example, “Girls who watch a lot of TV usually turn out just dandy!” but it is as distressing as it is predictable.
October 16, 2011 at 5:05 am
Love the magazine one! (Safe to say I will never be able to forget Survivor.) I wish you could be the statistics master who’d make the reality conform to your statistics. The ones that started your entry were terrifying indeed.
October 16, 2011 at 5:05 pm
When I was girl scout age there wasn’t reality tv and I still received those messages. It was probably from Full House, that show was pretty intense.
October 17, 2011 at 1:45 pm
The world will never be at a shortage for negative messages for young girls
October 18, 2011 at 4:11 pm
When I was a cub scout we didn’t get to research reality TV. Of course, that was back in the 70s. Great blog!
October 18, 2011 at 4:59 pm
I’ll bet the old pack would get together for a little research. It’s never too late!
October 19, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Piffle. I can only assume this is the spawn of our “why corduroy” conversation, which was leading up to my “Why Reality TV?” blog post. But you beat me to the punch.
Damn you!
I SHANT be so careless next time.
ps. i hate you for being funnier than me.
October 20, 2011 at 6:25 am
Curses! You’ve discovered my writing method!
Step 1: Wait for someone to say something clever in my comments.
Step 2: Steal cleverness.
October 20, 2011 at 8:56 am
Yeah. I can tell from your…little blog here that you aren’t clever enough to think it up by yourself.
….
Do you ever have that thing where you just don’t know if your tone is conveying on the intenet, and then you want to be like (joke) but then if it was, you kind of ruined it?
I hate that.
October 20, 2011 at 11:58 am
I’m sorry, my eyes were too blurry with tears to read the second half of your comment.
October 20, 2011 at 12:23 pm
Oh, the HUMANITY!!!