Staying in your “comfort zone” means different things to different people.
Some people tend to thrive in chaotic situations and feel perfectly comfortable with the adrenaline rush that comes with something new.
Others more like myself feel most confident when they know what to expect, how to plan and feel prepared for it.
There are surely many things about me that reflect this, but I wanted to look into one popular habit that might sum it up.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve heard more and more people talk about their “comfort show.”
There’s no question at all that, despite how cringe-worthy its characters can sometimes be, “The Office” is my go-to.
The show was almost always playing on the TV in the common room of my dorm freshman year at Ohio State. A couple years later, it was very rare for me to walk down the halls of my second dorm as a Resident Advisor without hearing “The Office” playing in at least one of my residents’ rooms.
I’ve seen every episode of the show at least a few times, partly from its popularity in college and my memories attached to it, but also because it is just so easy for me to tune into.
I choose “The Office” when I want to laugh, or when I don’t want to have to pay too much attention or even when I just don’t want to think about choosing something to watch.
As it turns out, it seems like even the thrill seekers among us might feel the same when it comes to TV habits, as a 2023 survey from CableTV.com showed that 87% of Americans have a comfort show.
I know why I gravitate toward “The Office,” but this survey made me wonder why so many people also prefer to watch the same show over and over, especially when we have access to so many new options.
CableTV cites a media professor at the University of Florida who explained comfort shows as a way to make our world feel safer and less unpredictable than it typically is.
“We may have originally fallen in love with our favorite shows because they were suspenseful or comically unpredictable, but we get enough of that throughout our day,” Dr. Andrew Selepak said. “When we want to relax, we don’t want more of the day’s stress, but to unwind with the comfort of our favorite characters in our favorite shows going through the lines and plots that we can recite by heart.”
A Psychology Today article by Dr. Jennifer Fayard explains the same idea a little further.
Fayard uses a term called “cognitive load,” which refers to the amount of stress we put on our working memory – a “limited resource… (with) a point at which we simply cannot deal with anything else.”
Especially throughout the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, unfamiliar conditions and new concerns took up much of our mental capacity.
So, even learning about new characters and plot lines or predicting how a fictional situation might have played out could have felt like just too much to pile onto our tired brains.
Fayard also notes that “new is good, but familiar is better.”
She cites a psychological phenomenon called the “mere exposure effect,” which essentially says that the more times an individual is exposed to something, the more they tend to like it later on. This is because it’s easier for us to process that information, so it’s easier to feel positive emotions.
Most simply, Fayard said it comes down to the fact that everyone’s brain is lazy, “and having to do no thinking whatsoever makes it happy.”
And can’t we all afford to be a little happier?
So, next time, I won’t feel quite as guilty when my roommate hears “The Office” theme song playing yet again.
-Kayleen Petrovia is a reporter for the Journal-Tribune.