Are you an Idol addict?

A deviation from the usual topics on Homegrown, with a nod to the health reporter hat that I also wear. Here's an article I wrote about this week's American Idol:

 By Cindy Hadish

The Gazette

   When viewers tune in to the “American Idol” finale this week, is something beyond entertainment pulling them in to watch?

   Experts don't necessarily call that pull an addiction, but for some, it comes close.

   “Idol is kind of a Super Bowl for pop culture fans,” Mark Andrejevic, University of Iowa associate professor of communication studies, wrote in an e-mail.

   Andrejevic, author of “Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched,” noted that two things draw reality television viewers to the shows: identifying with contestants, because they are “real” people, rather than celebrities, and the fact that the outcome isn't scripted.

   With Fox TV's “American Idol,” there is even more at stake, said Andrejevic, who is on leave in Queensland, Australia.

   “The audience serves as a giant focus group for testing out a new product that is sold right back to them as something they created,” he wrote, calling the show a culmination of commercial exploitation of interactivity. “We get to share their victories and disappointments and know that we've played some part in them.”

   To UI psychiatry professor Dr. Donald Black, “addiction” is overused.

   Black would confine the word to misusing ingested or injected substances, but he notes that the public uses it to describe excessive or poorly controlled behaviors.

   Those include working, eating, computers, gambling, sex and television.

   “Some experts argue that some of these excessive behaviors probably involve the same brain circuitry that true addictions do and are therefore related to them,” he wrote in an e-mail, citing gambling as an example.

   Tricia Borelli, director of counseling services at Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids, watched all nine seasons of American Idol and plans to have friends over for the finale.

   “We're just pretty faithful,” Borelli, 39, said of her family's viewing habits, especially son, Owen, 10, who plans to someday tryout for the show. “I don't know exactly if we're addicted or not. I just think it's good entertainment and the musicians are getting better every time.”

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cindy.hadish@gazcomm.com