“Love Island USA” in one word: messy.
Isolate a bunch of single, young adults referred to as “Islanders” in a luxury villa in Fiji. Have them compete in simultaneously humiliating and sexualized challenges while trying to find real love. But don’t forget, they’re also competing for the chance to win $100,000 — which they cannot acknowledge unless they want to come off as a disingenuous couple to the millions of people watching and judging them.
If you look up the show’s premise, that’s essentially what you’ll find. But it’s not the whole story.
This show promises its viewers drama. However, people are unpredictable. Production needs to find a way to ensure the Islanders entertain while still allowing them to make their own decisions.
They may not be able to control the contestants, but there is one thing production has complete control over — the environment. To ensure the over-the-top behaviors and choices that keep viewers watching, “Love Island” has created the ideal psychological conditions to destabilize the Islanders and trigger conflict.
Time Distortion
You know that feeling right when you wake up during the night and can’t tell if it’s closer to midnight or sunrise? Now, imagine that 24/7.
“Love Island” contestants have no access to clocks or calendars. Some former Islanders say production goes so far as to display fake times and dates on their show-issued phones to keep the cast disoriented.
As a result, Islanders lose track of how long they’ve known each other. They become emotionally invested so quickly it can seem comical — but there’s a scientific explanation. The brain’s ability to process social information is linked to how it makes sense of time, and vice versa. By cutting contestants off from any timekeeping tools, “Love Island” skews their social-emotional understanding of the world around them.
Sleep Deprivation
Perhaps the biggest culprit of “Love Island” crash-outs and questionable decisions is sleep deprivation. Islanders often sleep less than 7 hours each night, consistently getting less than the recommended minimum.
Production controls every aspect of the cast’s schedule. They decide when to turn off the lights for bed and when to turn them back on in the morning, which coincides with a morning greeting blasted through the speakers. (This shout is edited out of the episodes to avoid jarring viewers.) They even police naps.
For the sake of content, “Love Island” relies on its contestants being awake and interacting with each other. This is the most common explanation for these questionable sleep routines. But there’s another benefit (for production, not the cast) that could be a contributing factor.
Sleep deprivation reduces decision-making abilities. People become prone to riskier behaviors and poor judgment, not dissimilar to the effects of intoxication. Getting Islanders drunk may be a liability issue, but depriving them of sleep raises fewer red flags while creating similar opportunities for content.
Surveillance
Every part of the villa is filmed 24/7, including the bathrooms. Privacy is non-existent. The contestants are policed and interrupted by production if they break the rules (e.g., napping in the wrong place at the wrong time). Islanders consent to this, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t impacted.
Some psychological effects of surveillance include increased vigilance, heightened self-consciousness, and heightened fight-or-flight responses — all of which exacerbate conflict. This means the cameras and microphones don’t just capture the drama; they help create it.
With this in mind…
Let’s treat the Islanders with some grace.
Part of the fun of reality dating shows is forming opinions and judging how things play out. But it’s important to remember that these are real people. They have just spent weeks or months in psychological conditions that most of us will never experience, and they consented to sharing these emotionally intense moments of their lives with us for our entertainment.
So, if you choose to tune in for Season 9, take a moment to imagine yourself in their shoes before sitting back to watch the drama unfold.
Featured image via Cesan Escuadro on Pexels
