In this post we’re talking about addiction to soap operas. The French have a word for it – “sériephilie”, or “sériphile addict” to borrow a phrase from sociologist Clément Combes. The very idea of soap addiction makes some people smile. So who’s hidden behind the label? A person who loses control of their consumption of television series, to the point where their social life is affected. And we have to admit that quite a number of series have such a good plot that you quickly get addicted.

Scriptwriters know the key to success, and they’re quick to capitalise on it. They often use the same formula to lure in potential victims. There’s a scenario, intelligently contrived; an open ending which means that the series never reaches a conclusion; and a format which encourages consumption.

Because an episode only lasts an hour, why not watch another one? Up to this point there’s nothing really bad except that this mild addiction can swing to obsession. The soap addict’s only topic for conversation becomes the series of the moment. He or she may go as far as identifying with the characters and copying their way of speaking. To sum up, a soap opera acts on our behaviour and personality, producing a kind of alienation that’s more insidious than it seems.

These TV series also promote some twisted values. The hero of Dexter, the well-known and fashionable US detective story, is a serial killer who can get away with giving in to his impulses because he’s an expert in the forensic analysis of traces of blood. In Breaking Bad, another popular series, there’s an honourable chemistry teacher who turns himself into a drug dealer to finance the incurable condition he suffers from. There’s nothing very moral about it; the arguments are not convincing.

The series Gossip Girl is possibly even more twisted. It describes the lifestyle of Manhattan’s billionaire elite. It’s a world in which hypocrisy, adultery and a lack of sincerity in personal relations become commonplace; a kind of caricature of a consumer society where pleasure-seeking comes first. For more fragile personalities, the false sense of ease is dangerous and a soap addict may sometimes have difficulty reconciling fiction with reality. It’s sometimes only a single step from social isolation to depression. Today, the impact of TV series on our behaviour is starting to be taken seriously, in the same way as other addictions.

Nu