Watching trashy TV does not make you dumb. Science says so.

How could it possibly be wrong when it just feels so right?

The conversation was going fine until I uttered one, fateful phrase.

“I love Keeping Up With The Kardashians.”

The response I got back was one of disdain as he snickered and said, “Oh, I don’t really know it, I only watch SBS and ABC.”

And with that, the conversation was done.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time I’ve been met with narrowed eyes and judgemental responses when I’ve expressed my love of trashy TV.

Well no more, I say.

I am going to speak on behalf of everyone who watches “trashy” TV when I say, “back the f*** off my TV watching ways, please.”

Most people are bombarded with an overload of information throughout the day. If we’re not on laptops, we’re on phones while simultaneously trying to hold a conversation with a colleague.

From the moment we wake up to the moment we get home, our brains are constantly working.

Do you know what’s not fun after a day like this?

The news.

Or a documentary about the Gulf War.

Or a biographical account of Marie Antoinette’s participation in an absolute monarchy.

Instead, I want to watch Jennifer Hawkins critique the leggy woman’s pose in Australia’s Next Top Model and be able to turn off my brain good and proper.

Some studies have shown that things like reality TV can even be good for us.

According to Daily Mail, researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany found that watching reality TV could be making us nicer as a person.

Added to this, very clever watcher of reality TV and Anthropologist Grant McCracken wrote in Wired that, “Reality TV makes anthropologists of us all.”

And he would know, OK?

But to be honest, whether it makes us better people or not, I don’t actually care.

What I do care about is the absolute calm that floats over me after a few minutes of turning on this “trash”.

I care about the fact that it makes me feel happy and peaceful and relaxed.

And I care that I am so absorbed in these shows, so completely and utterly at peace, that I don’t even hear those around me begging for me to change the channel.

That doesn’t make me dumb.  It just makes me happy.

Related links:

I met Kim Kardashian and I still don’t understand why she’s famous.

Rosie Recaps season 3 episode 3 of The Bachelor.

Everything you need to know about reality TV. From someone who knows.

8 reality TV shows we would welcome back to air.