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There's all sorts of interesting and sometimes subtle negative impacts on the real world that inaccurate depictions in fiction have. I think these mainly happen

There's all sorts of interesting and sometimes subtle negative impacts on the real world that inaccurate depictions in fiction have. I think these mainly happen for situations people are likely to only see in fiction rather than reality. A mundane example is people turning up to court and behaving incorrectly because they're used to Hollywood depictions. Another one is people thinking someone using a command-line on a computer must be “hacking”. More troublesome is dramatically unrealistic depictions of minorities.

dalbasal 5y ago
Sure. Also, porn, romance novels, high school social life, prison, mafia, war, psychotherapy... The world is full of examples where literary cliches have more influence on our biases and expectations than first or second hand experiences. We rarely observe other people falling in love, but we see it in movies and stories all the time. Hence why this article is subtly brilliant. It reminds us how much of our "knowledge" is actually fiction.
- dmix 5y ago
  A big one is 30+ year olds writing the screenplays and therefore dialogue of kids and teenagers which are always precocious and seem adult like. Which young people think they should be at a similar stage of development or imitate them.
  - ambicapter 5y ago
    Or they think that what they're saying and thinking will come out similar to how it came out on the tv show...
  - bsder 5y ago
    I find the whole 25 year old playing a 15 year old more problematic. Especially for girls, this gives a tremendously powerful incorrect body image signal. However, even for guys, it's starting to get ridiculous--the actors always have their shirt off, are completely cut and have <5% bodyfat. The only boys who look like that at 15 are short, currently miserable as hell and cutting weight for a tournament (and probably on steroids, to boot).
  - rrauenza 5y ago
    We steered our kids from all of the Disney Channel tweener sitcoms.. they're awful in that way.
- ako 5y ago
  Tv violence making us think the world is a much more dangerous place than it really is.
krisoft 5y ago
Absolutely. It is also crazy when literally conveniences influence people's thinking. In serialised fiction where you have a set of "cast members" the writers sometimes feel that they should shake things up. Temporarily put out of action one or the other member of the recurring characters to see how the new group dynamics will evolve. One common trope is where a member of the heroes' group falls into coma. Hijinks happen, the rest of the group copes with the missing member, and a few episodes later when the writers get bored of the scenario they bring back the person from coma. And because the whole motivation for the coma was a plot convenience you will get a quick recovery. A dramatic scene usually occurs where the patient wakes up, frequently due to some stimulus from a friend. You are lucky if you can see one cut scene of the patient recovering afterwards. Real life coma is nothing like this. In reality a high percentage of those in coma die. They can have all kind of involuntary movements which would confuse someone who expects a sleeping beauty coma. The recovery usually is a long, and arduous process even when someone wakes up and of course there are health risks even after the patient opens their eyes up. [1] A few weeks ago I had a discussion with my dad. He told me about a friend of his who had a stroke and fallen into a coma. At the time when we talked the friend was unable to breath on his own since days. My dad was super concerned that the friend in question doesn't have life insurance. It felt as if it was a foregone conclusion to him that his friend is going to wake up, and is going to leave the hospital. His only worry was what is going to happen with him after. Now, how much of this was an understandable psychological coping mechanism, and how much of it was due to incorrect representation of coma patients in media is hard to tell. Sadly later the friend passed away. Luckily my dad didn't had to make any care decisions about his friend. (Of course) But regular people get thrown into situations like that all the time, all around the world. It's already a very stressful situation as a baseline, and then on top of whatever is happening people have all kind of unreasonable expectations swirling in their heads as they go through it. And all because writers regularly run out of material and have a need to conveniently shake things up in their fictional worlds. 1: https://www.livescience.com/739-comatose-patients-falsely-depicted-movies.html https://www.livescience.com/739-comatose-patients-falsely-de...
- detaro 5y ago
  > My dad was super concerned that the friend in question doesn't have life insurance. It felt as if it was a foregone conclusion to him that his friend is going to wake up, and is going to leave the hospital Wouldn't having life insurance be more relevant for the case where the friend doesn't wake up...?
rodgerd 5y ago
"I'm not a stalker, I'm re-enacting the 80s teen comedies that I grew up with!"

dalbasal 5y ago

Sure. Also, porn, romance novels, high school social life, prison, mafia, war, psychotherapy... The world is full of examples where literary cliches have more influence on our biases and expectations than first or second hand experiences. We rarely observe other people falling in love, but we see it in movies and stories all the time. Hence why this article is subtly brilliant. It reminds us how much of our "knowledge" is actually fiction.

dmix 5y ago
A big one is 30+ year olds writing the screenplays and therefore dialogue of kids and teenagers which are always precocious and seem adult like. Which young people think they should be at a similar stage of development or imitate them.
- ambicapter 5y ago
  Or they think that what they're saying and thinking will come out similar to how it came out on the tv show...
- bsder 5y ago
  I find the whole 25 year old playing a 15 year old more problematic. Especially for girls, this gives a tremendously powerful incorrect body image signal. However, even for guys, it's starting to get ridiculous--the actors always have their shirt off, are completely cut and have <5% bodyfat. The only boys who look like that at 15 are short, currently miserable as hell and cutting weight for a tournament (and probably on steroids, to boot).
- rrauenza 5y ago
  We steered our kids from all of the Disney Channel tweener sitcoms.. they're awful in that way.
ako 5y ago
Tv violence making us think the world is a much more dangerous place than it really is.

krisoft 5y ago

Absolutely. It is also crazy when literally conveniences influence people's thinking. In serialised fiction where you have a set of "cast members" the writers sometimes feel that they should shake things up. Temporarily put out of action one or the other member of the recurring characters to see how the new group dynamics will evolve. One common trope is where a member of the heroes' group falls into coma. Hijinks happen, the rest of the group copes with the missing member, and a few episodes later when the writers get bored of the scenario they bring back the person from coma. And because the whole motivation for the coma was a plot convenience you will get a quick recovery. A dramatic scene usually occurs where the patient wakes up, frequently due to some stimulus from a friend. You are lucky if you can see one cut scene of the patient recovering afterwards. Real life coma is nothing like this. In reality a high percentage of those in coma die. They can have all kind of involuntary movements which would confuse someone who expects a sleeping beauty coma. The recovery usually is a long, and arduous process even when someone wakes up and of course there are health risks even after the patient opens their eyes up. [1] A few weeks ago I had a discussion with my dad. He told me about a friend of his who had a stroke and fallen into a coma. At the time when we talked the friend was unable to breath on his own since days. My dad was super concerned that the friend in question doesn't have life insurance. It felt as if it was a foregone conclusion to him that his friend is going to wake up, and is going to leave the hospital. His only worry was what is going to happen with him after. Now, how much of this was an understandable psychological coping mechanism, and how much of it was due to incorrect representation of coma patients in media is hard to tell. Sadly later the friend passed away. Luckily my dad didn't had to make any care decisions about his friend. (Of course) But regular people get thrown into situations like that all the time, all around the world. It's already a very stressful situation as a baseline, and then on top of whatever is happening people have all kind of unreasonable expectations swirling in their heads as they go through it. And all because writers regularly run out of material and have a need to conveniently shake things up in their fictional worlds. 1: https://www.livescience.com/739-comatose-patients-falsely-depicted-movies.html https://www.livescience.com/739-comatose-patients-falsely-de...

detaro 5y ago
> My dad was super concerned that the friend in question doesn't have life insurance. It felt as if it was a foregone conclusion to him that his friend is going to wake up, and is going to leave the hospital Wouldn't having life insurance be more relevant for the case where the friend doesn't wake up...?

rodgerd 5y ago

"I'm not a stalker, I'm re-enacting the 80s teen comedies that I grew up with!"