Mental Health Awareness Month is a time to reflect on what it means to live mindfully and take inventory on how our thoughts dictate our behavior. This also marks an important opportunity to take a temperature check on how we’ve handled an extremely challenging 2020 that’s resulted in major life changes and subsequently, new ways to cope.
According to data in a new Nielsen report, Black families may be over consuming television as a way to self-soothe after a tumultuous year.
The findings are in The New Black Family Culture: Navigating Crisis Through Content, released this spring. The report’s data underscores there was a significant uptick in the amount of Black families that utilize television as entertainment and a critical source for news to help educate themselves about the social injustice that the country is facing.
It also pulled back the curtain on more concerning data as well. Since the pandemic hit, 26% of African American families have spent their time utilizing streaming content to escape negative news consumption. With the lack of social interaction, families are spending more time bonding at home and engaging one another through televisions and movies.
Essentially, now more than ever Black American families are feeling the need to utilize methods of escapism to cope with the harsh realities of being a part of a racially oppressed group in the US.
The American Psychology Association defines escapism as the tendency to escape from the real world to the safety and comfort of a fantasy world. Since life is innately stressful, coping strategies are essential to making it through each day.
Escapism can be a coping skill when used positively; however, to ignore reality completely can be concerning.
Professionals advise that individuals get regular exercise, fresh air and a balanced diet to avoid falling into the pitfalls of unhealthy escapist tactics.
Everyone utilizes escapist strategies in life, as the harsh realities of life are apparent and permeate the human race. Reading a book, listening to music, and exercising can all be positive forms of escapism in the face of stress.
Other escapist strategies usually include a social aspect like partying, working long hours in an office workplace setting or going out and meeting new people. But of course, COVID-19 has stripped those options and left people to deal with effects of isolation.
In the absence of social-based soothing tactics, it’s easy to assume that television programming harkening back to a simpler time has been used as a form of self care.
Overall, “comfort television” rerun streaming saw a sharp uptick in 2020. The growth rate was even larger for some shows with casts that are more representative of the nation’s diversity. Year-to-year viewing of ABC’s “Family Matters” (1989-1998), which focuses on a Black family, skyrocketed, recording 11.4 billion viewing minutes for a 392% increase from 2019. “George Lopez” (2002-07), built around a popular comedian of Mexican-American heritage, recorded nearly 11 billion viewing minutes, a 113% jump, while “The Bernie Mac Show” (2001-06) was up 71% to 3.3 billion minutes. Additionally, “Good Times” (6.9 billion minutes, up 24%); and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” (6.7 billion minutes, up 13%) saw a dramatic increase in streaming as well.
So, as the world slowly starts to re-open is this overconsumption of media healthy?
“We can’t say that it is or isn’t, but we do know that these paint a picture to advertisers and media companies that Black people want to see themselves shown in a positive light and hopefully that will be reflected in how we are represented in media moving forward,” said Charlene Polite Corley, VP of Diverse Insights & Partnerships at Nielsen.
“For the rest of America, the isolation of prolonged social distancing has perhaps hinted at the isolation many diverse populations have long felt from being underrepresented in the office, at school, or even in public policy,” she continues in a Nielsen article further explaining the findings. “Parity in representation is important, but TV isn’t always about reflecting reality. It’s often a way to escape it. This makes the expansion of the stories, themes and roles Black women and Black men inhabit, both in front of and behind the camera, just as critical. Not just for the thrill that being seen has on Black audiences, but for the potential that full inclusion in the creation and distribution of TV content will have in shaping the hopes and dreams of Black families, our country and the world.
For more information, please visit Nielsen.com
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