For the lonely, a blurred line between real and fictional people
news.osu.edu
In lonely people, the boundary between real friends and favorite fictional characters gets blurred in the part of the brain that is active when thinking about others, a new study found.Researchers scanned the brains of people who were fans of “Game of Thrones” while they thought about various characters in the show and about their real frien...

Using fMRI scans on 19 lonely fans of “Game of Thrones”, researchers discovered that they processed their favorite characters similarly to real friends in their brains. This suggests that lonelier …::In lonely people, the boundary between real friends and favorite fictional characters gets blurred in the part of the brain that is active when thinking about others, a new study found.Researchers scanned the brains of people who were fans of “Game of Thrones” while they thought about various characters in the show and about their real frien…

  • scarabic@lemmy.worldEnglish
    18·
    1 year ago

    I believe there’s a subplot in Fahrenheit 451 where the protagonist’s wife becomes lost in a surround-screen fictional show that she talks about as if it were her real social life. This is not some aberration but the intended way for it to be consumed - the characters turn and address her directly throughout the show.