Everything Bad Is Good For You

The teen mom 2 series, shown on MTV is a reality television show about a group of young women who are, for the most part, struggling with parenthood and other relationships. In episode four, "Moving In, Moving On" which was aired on February 1st, 2011 on channel 48, four young mothers come across everyday drama from their school, friends, and family. Teen Mom 2 is about real people with real problems such as teen pregnancy. Although, it is not nice to laugh at others who are having a difficult time but this show is made to entertain its viewers by giving them an insight into what it would be like to bear a child at such a young age and how hard it is to balance motherhood with school. Reality shows, like Teen Mom 2 allows its viewers to watch others experience a life changing event and to hopefully learn from their mistakes and take the initiative to practice safe sex.

In the book, Everything Bad Is Good For You, Steven Johnson states that many people who watch reality television are mostly intrigued by the raw emotion that those who are being filmed possess. (97) The thrill is knowing that these events just occurred in real life and that we are viewing people who are not actors, live their everyday lives in a “split second.” “Humans express the full complexity of their emotions through the unspoken language of facial expressions...”(Johnson 98) An example of this would be when Jenelle, a young mother who recently started dating again, comes home to her mother and child with visible hickeys all over her neck, one can assume that her mother is less than pleased. It doesn’t take a genius to know this is not in anyway appropriate for a mother to be acting, but it is entertaining to watch her mother react to Jenelle’s ridiculous endeavors. Reality television does indeed challenge our emotional IQ by measuring our ability to assess and respond to others emotional signals, in order to build our own social skills and cognitive development. (Johnson 99) Multithreaded dramas such as Teen Mom 2 are so complex because it involves many characters and allows its viewers to create many perspectives of what they just watched.

It is the emotional intensity of Teen Mom 2 that attracts its viewers on a weekly basis. For example, when Jenelle and her mother argue over the custody of young Jace because Jenelle’s mother believes that her daughter in unfit to be a parent and insists she gets her life on track is heart breaking. Its devastating to know that there are mothers out there who can neglect their child by staying out all night and not realize that it is wrong. Maybe, its easier for a viewer to comprehend these problems because they are looking from outside of the box rather than inside. Teen Mom 2 shows many examples of claim of value, such as the one mentioned above, the ability for a person to make a judgement and to conclude whether its right or wrong.

Reality television is not so bad for us at all, it stimulates our mind and improves our social and decision making skills. Although, many of us only tune into shows like Teen Mom 2 simply for entertainment rather than to further develop our cognition, the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding it through thought, experience and our senses.