Snuggled deep in the folds of fluffy recliners in our comfortable homes, we watch, enamored, as people supposedly a lot like us eat rats in the race for survival.

        At a higher rate than almost any other city in the country, viewers in Cincinnati tuned in last summer to Survivor to see who was the most deceptive, who would conquer the physical challenges and who would have to abide by the tribe's decision, pack it up and head home.

        Our love affair with reality TV is heightened this winter with contestants from the Tristate on at least four of the latest shows, including The Mole, which aired its third segment Tuesday. (ABC, 8 p.m.)

        The bottom line: We like to watch.

        To some, reality TV is the car wreck we can't avert our eyes from, the accident that slows traffic because drivers strain their necks to see what tragedy has befallen someone else.

        For others, it is merely innocuous entertainment. We watch because we wonder what we would do in the same situation. TV producers count on us to somehow relate with Kate Pahls, the grandmother from Columbia Township, vying for $1 million on The Mole, and Rodger Bingham, the teacher from Crittenden, Ky., who hopes to put his farming skills to use on Survivor: The Australian Outback.

        But there are some people who are purposefully tuning out this round of reality TV. They say it's too voyeuristic and an invasion of privacy. The shows, which hinge on greed and dishonesty, cunning and back stabbing ability, teach the wrong lessons to children — and adults.

        Furthermore, people say they don't need TV to experience real life.

        “I want something entertaining when I sit down to watch TV,” says Becky Niehaus, 33, of Loveland. “I go through real life every day. I don't feel like sitting down and watching real life on TV.”

        Top network honchos hope few people can resist the appeal of watching what seems to be the forbidden. CBS is taking on the ever-popular Friends, trying to dent NBC's hold on Thursdays with Survivor II. Fox is staking its reputation, tarnished by last year's fiasco of Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, with another morally dubious program, Temptation Island. And ABC hopes The Mole will shore up the viewership attracted by Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

        They want us to watch. And many of us are, even if we feel dirty in the morning.

Why we watch
        In Williamstown, Ky., Marigold Festival Committee meetings ran shorter and smoother this past summer. Members wanted to get home in time to watch Survivor.

        “I enjoy — what do you say — studying people?” says Diane Beckham, 53. She worked on the Marigold Festival and hurried home to catch Survivor. The show provided a look at human behavior, she says. It makes you ask, “What would you do?”

        Mrs. Beckham is also a camper. She likes the primitive kind of camping where the fire pit is not already built and there's no electrical outlet at the end of the concrete pad. She enjoyed watching the inventive ways Survivor competitors found to survive.

        For Jeremy Marshall, the lure of reality TV is its spontaneity. There's no script. It's not planned. Anything could happen.

        He loved Big Brother.

        “I want to go on that show so bad,” says Mr. Marshall, 29, of Blue Ash. “It's just like (MTV's) The Real World, where you get to try and overcome obstacles.”

        Lydia Blanton, 30, of Mount Adams, was drawn to Survivor — and expects she'll watch its sequel. She liked watching how people on the island forged — and dissolved — relationships. She also enjoyed the physical challenges, the sense of testing oneself to the limits of personal capability.

        For Mrs. Beckham, some of the other reality shows hold little appeal. The characters on Big Brother annoyed her, and she dismisses the morally-challenged premise of Temptation Island.

        She even found the lesson of the first Survivor series — “it's a dog-eat-dog world” — disturbing. But Mrs. Beckham plans to tune in after the Super Bowl to watch the debut of Survivor 2.

        “I'm not a TV watcher,” she says, but “this hooked me.”

        Reality TV is less predictable than the stock situations of many prime-time sitcoms and dramas, says Dr. Michael Porte, a communication professor at the University of Cincinnati.

        “That's the thrill for us. We might see something that we shouldn't see,” he says. “We're getting a glimpse of something forbidden, and that's part of the appeal.”

        Another lure of reality TV is its attraction to the voyeur within people, says Dr. Clay Calvert, author of Voyeur Nation: Media, Privacy and Peering in Modern Culture (Westview Press; $25).

        “In a way, we all want to be back stabbers,” he says. “With these shows, we get to see it done ... It panders to our instincts to be cunning and back stabbing and Machiavellian. Maybe we enjoy that. We get to be Jack Nicholson for once.”

The dangers
        But this voyeurism comes at a price, cautions Dr. Calvert and other experts.

        “The real danger is that we become these passive spectators and live our lives through other people,” he says. Instead of interacting in the community, talking with neighbors or doing volunteer work, people become engrossed in the lives of “real people” on TV shows.

        Despite the latest craze in reality TV, the genre isn't new. Candid Camera in the 1950s and 1960s played on the genuine emotions of real people who come to realize they're the butt of a practical joke. Shows like Cops appeal to those who want to see the seamier side of life without experiencing it firsthand.

        MTV ratcheted up the idea of reality shows nearly a decade ago, with The Real World, which follows the twists and turns of several young people living in the same house.

        “We have this whole generation weaned on The Real World that has come to expect others' lives as fodder for their entertainment,” Dr. Calvert says.

        That raises another potential problem. When people believe they have a right to watch others, he says, the value of privacy may be at risk. At some point, people may stop watching others on TV and start thinking it's OK to watch people in real life.

        Mrs. Niehaus watched several of the Survivor episodes this summer. She began watching to see how real people responded to the challenges. She and co-workers would talk the next day about how they would have reacted in the same situations.

        But then it turned ugly. The final episode was cutthroat and petty. Susan, the truck driver, went on a rage, comparing Richard to a snake and Kelly to a rat. Mrs. Niehaus doesn't plan to watch the Survivor sequel.

        “I like to see the good in people instead of the bad,” Mrs. Niehaus says. “I think this brought out the bad in them.”

Responsible viewing
        What if you or your children watch reality TV anyway? Does that mean you've failed as parents or you're morally challenged?

        The experts say no. But they recommend responsible viewing, just as with any TV show.

        Media consumption is like food consumption, says Dr. Dan Andriacco, author of the just-released Screen Saved (St. Anthony Messenger Press, $9.95). The book examines how to make media an effective tool in ministry and how to tell when media pose a danger to the church and its followers.

        “Are you consuming junk food or consuming nourishing food?” asks Dr. Andriacco, also the spokesman for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. “A little bit of junk food within certain bounds (isn't a problem). Certainly because something is entertaining doesn't make it bad for you. What can make something bad for you spiritually is if you absorb values alien to Christian values without even thinking about it.”

        Repeatedly watching shows that glorify adultery affects a person's view of it, he says. Constantly seeing violence on television desensitizes people.

        In watching television, people should be critical and discerning. Think how you would react to the same ethical dilemmas, Dr. Andriacco suggests. If your children are watching, talk with them about what options people had to violence or dishonesty. Explain what's right and wrong.

        “You shouldn't just absorb what you see, but challenge it and talk to your kids about it,” Dr. Andriacco says. “Pick and choose what you're going to incorporate within your life.”

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