Lately I have been fighting bad habits such as nicotine and nail biting, but the most difficult has been watching talk shows. I always get fascinated with the screaming and gory details of people’s personal lives. However, I’ve begun to evaluate how these juicy hour-long shows are affecting the nation and its young viewers.

First of all, let me start by saying that there are a few reputable tyrants out there like Montel Williams and Oprah. Both of these very articulate adults deal with actual social concerns such as teen pregnancy and promiscuity, inner city schooling, welfare, self-defense, nutrition and child safety. The key to their successes is that they both have very strong personal opinions that they aren’t afraid to express to the panel (unlike the

PC queen Ricki Lake). They do

not let their sets become chaotic, they remain in control, and by the end of the show they’ve usually made some headway with the guests.

Jenny Jones and Maury Povich are just too cute to be taken seriously. Their issues aren’t of large-scale importance and their main goal seems to be entertainment. Turning people’s troubles into entertainment has been a recent trend for ratings and that goes double for Jerry Springer. His topics have strayed toward the sensational. A girl who sleeps with 251 men in ten hours? Come on! Does Annabel really deserve that kind of publicity?

Back to my original question: how do sensationalistic talk shows affect our media?

Abuse and neglect are abundant in our society and are not trivial. The way they are exploited on talk shows suggests to our youth that it’s okay to be a delinquent, it’s your parent’s fault for abusing you. People have been receiving the message in the last couple of decades that they can blame their problems on external sources and that therapy and counseling are cure-alls.

People need to take responsibility for their own actions. I’ve met very few people who have had a Mary Sunshine childhood. What happens to us when we’re young does shape our personality, but as we grow older, we learn that we have the power to shape ourselves.

In nearly half the cases, therapy and counseling do not work. For some, it is the best possible solution and the only one. For others, talking incessantly about their feelings and the past only make matters more confusing.

Talk shows unnecessarily teach children about inappropriate topics. Kids do not need to learn about sadistic lesbian love pentagons or drug pushers who beat their prostitute wives, especially when they’re just beginning to comprehend the world beyond their parents.

It saddens me when people’s personal lives are opened up and spilled in front of millions of viewers. We have seen so many emotions and hardships that we risk becoming desensitized. Empathy, among other factors, shapes us as mature moral beings. So if you are a talk show junkie like myself, think about how you’re helping the ratings and expanding the effects on the young people who choose Sally and Ricki over the Animaniacs. And as Jerry would say, “Take care of yourself and each other.”

Erika Stevenson is a senior in English from Marshalltown.