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Even as the reality TV industry shrinks, shows like "Love Island USA" and "The Traitors" are soaring in popularity. Watching such unscripted reality shows can change your behavior in ways you may not realize, says sociologist Danielle J. Lindemann.
"We might think that people are just passive receptacles for reality TV, but there's a lot of research that shows people are consuming these shows more actively and, whether good or bad, learning from the shows," says Lindemann, a Lehigh University professor who has taught courses about the sociology of reality TV. She's also the author of "True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us," which published in February 2022.
Unscripted reality TV has been a staple in American homes, to some degree, since the 1990s — largely due to shows with unpredictable and contentious characters like CBS' "Survivor" and MTV's "The Real World." The genre is currently experiencing simultaneous ups and downs, with some shows soaring in viewership while swaths of others are losing viewers or being cancelled.
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The annual number of new seasons of unscripted and reality TV shows has fallen by a third in the U.S. since 2022, according to data collected by research group Luminate and reported by The New York Times on Tuesday. On March 19, ABC cancelled the latest season of "The Bachelorette" after a scandal involving the season's bachelorette Taylor Frankie Paul, who's also a star of Hulu's "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives." ABC also didn't air a season of "The Bachelorette" in 2025, breaking a streak of 18 consecutive years at the time.
Yet some reality TV shows still rake in viewers and spark pop culture conversations. "Love Island USA," which has appeared on CBS and Peacock, and Peacock's "The Traitors" reportedly surpassed 18 billion and 600 million minutes of watch time in 2025 and 2026, respectively. The Season 50 premiere of "Survivor," which aired on Feb. 25, averaged 5.06 million viewers over three hours, the show's highest viewership in more than two years, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Most people watch reality TV to make themselves feel better about their own lives, says Lindemann. But the genre could influence your life and how you interact with other people more than you expect, she says.
3 ways watching reality TV can change your behavior
1. It can make you more, or less, empathetic
The more familiar you become with people from marginalized populations, the more likely you are to be accepting of them, research shows. In the realm of reality TV, Lindemann points to the example of Pedro Zamora, an openly gay man living with AIDS, who starred on MTV's "The Real World San Francisco" in 1994.
"This was huge to have a gay man on TV who wasn't just stereotyped ... He was just living his life, and you saw all sides of him," Lindemann says. "For a lot of people, that was the first queer person that they got to know on television ... That changed people's perceptions, not only of gay people, but also of people living with AIDS at the time."
When Zamora died on Nov. 11, 1994, the sitting U.S. president at the time — Bill Clinton — released a statement expressing that he was "deeply saddened," and that Zamora "taught all of us that AIDS is a disease with a human face and one that affects every American."
Reality TV shows can also cause viewers to develop stronger biases against groups of people, says Lindemann. Watching just one episode of "The Biggest Loser," which aired on NBC and USA Network, caused viewers in a small experimental study to develop a greater dislike of people who were overweight compared to their disposition beforehand.
"That's a really potent example of how even exposure to one episode of a reality show can really alter people's minds," Lindemann says.
2. It can influence how you perceive conflict or approach dating
The type of reality television that you watch matters.
Heavy viewers of reality TV shows that depict aggression and strife in relationships are more likely to overestimate the extent to which real-life romantic relationships involve conflict, found a small psychology study published in 2013 by University of Wisconsin, Madison researchers.
"We can find that our everyday interactions might seem like they involve more hostility" after heavily watching shows that feature conflict, Lindemann says.
College students, especially young men, who watch reality TV shows centered around dating tend to use the shows to learn how to date, according to a January 2006 study from researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
"I don't know if you want to say that's good or bad, but they're using it as an educational tool," Lindemann says.
3. It can foster closeness between you and other viewers of the shows you love
In recent years, Americans have gotten lonelier to the point of epidemic status and less socially connected. Reality TV's rising popularity creates opportunities for more shared experiences, says Lindemann.
"We don't have as many connections as we used to," she says, "but people are forging connections through reality TV."
During the summer of 2025, viewers of "Love Island USA" hosted watch parties with their friends, and bars across the country played the show on large screens as patrons met, mingled and debated about Season 7. "You had people meeting up in person to do these old school-style watch parties," Lindemann says. "It became like this social phenomenon."
Many people used to consider reality TV shows a guilty pleasure, says Lindemann. Now, viewers are less likely to hide their affection for their favorite shows, she notes — whether at in-person gatherings, text threads with friends or on social media during each episode.
"People are creating social solidarity around these programs," Lindemann says.
Disclosure: Versant Media is the parent company of USA Network and CNBC.
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