This weekend, Keeping Up with the Kardashians aired the season premiere of their 15th season. Since 2007, the Kardashian family has been taking over TV screens across the world.
And, while many people are extremely open with how much they dislike the Kardashians, there are those who are fans of this famous family and watch the show regularly. While everyone has the right to watch what they choose, it turns out that watching the Kardashians can cause more harm to individuals than it does good.
According to a new study for the London School of Economics, watching the Kardashians can actually make you a worse person. The research focused on “materialistic media,” that usually “glamorizes fame, luxury, and wealth.”
According to The Telegraph, the study used two control groups, totaling 487 individuals. The people in the study were shown specific media–one group seeing shows like Keeping Up with the Kardashians and other materialistic media programs, while the other group was shown shows more “news like,” consisting of neutral images an natural scenery.
After watching the programs, users were polled and asked questions about the shows. According to the research, those who watched Keeping Up with the Kardashians and other shows like it were exhibiting more “materialistic and anti-welfare attitudes.”
Study author Dr. Rodolfo Leyva of LSE’s Department of Media and Communications department said:
Humans are inherently materialistic but also very social and communal.
The way this is expressed depends on our culture. If there is more emphasis on materialism as a way to be happy, this makes us more inclined to be selfish and anti-social, and therefore unsympathetic to people less fortunate.
While you may think it’s just mindless entertainment and things to “pass the time,” it turns out watching this kind of trash television can make you a horrible person. #NoSurpriseThere
