Some kind words for the 'soap' fans
By Don Brand
Oregon Register-Guard
March 29, 1980
College students around the country are getting a vicarious liberal education in thwarted love affairs, unwanted pregnancies, unfaithful spouses, divorce and bizarre illnesses. That's what two Northern Illinois professors have found in a study of the growing number of college students who watch soap operas on television.
Professors Myles Breen and Jon Powell estimate as many as 40 percent of the female students and 10 percent of the male students at Northern Illinois University are soap opera addicts. Breen and Powell say that 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago, college students "wouldn't have been caught dead watching soap operas." Now, they report, it's a "nationwide phenomena."
In a survey of more than 500 college viewers, 40 percent said they watched because they were intrigued with the plots; 30 percent said they liked the programs because the characters were "so dumb;" nearly 14 percent said they watched because the troubles of TV characters made their own problems seem trivial; and another 14 percent said they identified with some of the characters.
Powell said he didn't feel it hurt students intellectually to follow the soaps because the time they spent staring at the tube probably would have been spent drinking beer or in other nonessential pursuits.
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