Soaps draw people in by presenting the dramatic lives of attractive people. People whose lives are so much more interesting than our own. They are enough like us to make them familiar to us. They're just prettier, richer and playing for higher stakes.

We get hooked by our biology. Women are caught by their empathy with the characters. Men are trapped by the beautiful women. The characters are presented in such a way that the audience becomes involved with the details of their lives. People know more about the Soap characters than they do about their own family.

Soap operas are compelling dramas with good (if predictable) story-lines. Anyone with free time during the day can get drawn in by them. That includes students shift workers and stay-at-home parents. Husbands home during the day learn not to change the channel while the stories are on.

That's how it is at least in the beginning for men. The talking penetrates the fog in your brain. You glance at the screen and notice how hot the women are. Resistance is futile, you have been assimilated. Soon you pass from ridiculing the nonsense on the screen to updating your wife on things she missed. As the trend continues, you find yourself talking about soaps with the women who come to visit the wife.

For an addiction, it's rather mild. It isn't as expensive as drugs, as dirty as porn or as depressing as the news programs. In fact, soaps have LESS sex, violence or foul language than the evening news. At least you don't feel as much despair after the soaps end. Perhaps that is the redeeming trait of Soap operas. No matter the difficulty or challenges they face, the characters always cling to hope. They believeand we believethat things will work out in the end. And hope is something we all need.

Learn more about this author, Morgan Johnson.
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