There is more than one kind of reality TV. The obvious one is programmes like "The Apprentice", "The Traitors", "Dragons Den", "Race Around the World" - all BBC. On ITV there is "Big brother", "Love Island", "Britains Got Talent", "TOWIE".
The other kind is the reality we see in daily news & documentary programmes.
Then there is the reality of our own individual lives. How do we process reality tv & real events we can see at a safe distance?
I seriously wonder if we truly understand what reality is. We are bombarded with the "reality" of social media & "influencers" as well as reality tv. What we see is carefully curated & edited. The people we see present a persona & we have no way of knowing how real that is. I suspect in many cases it is worlds away from the reality most of us experience.
The reality of disaster & war is removed from us. We watch, but do we really process & empathise? When people are actually involved in traumatic events that is light years away from watching it on a screen. Distance allows us to see it almost like a drama, because it is too hard to fully engage with what is happening.
I am concerned that we are becoming inured to events that should motivate us to action. Our own lives are so complex & busy that we cannot allow ourselves to become too involved in the lives of others. The daily grind, whatever that is, occupies our minds & energy to the extent that we possibly tolerate things that are intolerable. In fact it is all to easy to "other" people so that we don't feel personal responsibility to take action. This is evident in the way refugees & migrants are portrayed. If we were to acknowledge their equal humanity to ourselves, how could we describe them as illegal, a flood, an influx, an onslaught, mass migration......The language we use risks dehumanizing individuals and conflating legal status with identity.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/aug/02/language-on-immigration-in-uk-news-and-politics-found-to-have-shaped-backlash-against-antiracism
https://www.runnymedetrust.org/publications/a-hostile-environment-language-race-surveillance-and-the-media
Today we have the ability to know more of what the reality of living in other places is. We cannot say that we didn't know. If you accept that, then don't you have to do something about the unacceptable reality that millions live with?