Is my guilty pleasure show evidence-based?

A while back, I was telling a colleague that I had allowed myself to watch one season of my guilty pleasure show over winter break. 

What was the show? Married at First Sight. (Deep breath … Okay, I admitted it.) 

If you’re not familiar with the show, it is essentially a forum for getting an arranged marriage. 

A team of relationship experts has a seemingly rigorous screening and matchmaking process, during which they pick a handful of couples who meet for the first time at the altar on the day of their wedding. 

The show follows them through their first few months of marriage, and then they decide whether or not they stay together or get a divorce.

My colleague said, “Does that show even work?” 

I laughed at this question because I had been thinking about this myself. 

Admittedly, I Google (in Incognito Mode, obviously) “where are they now?” any time I watch a season of the show. 

And I have thought to myself, “Wow, this is not evidence-based at all.” 

Thanks to the random person online who already did the math: Out of 69 couples matched in Seasons 1 to SEVENTEEN, only 11 were together as of 2024. That’s a 15.9% success rate.

And honestly, that’s better than I thought. 

On 7 of the 17 seasons, not a single couple stayed together (i.e., 41.2% of the seasons were completely unsuccessful).

Yikes.  

But of course, they don’t advertise the show this way. Just like in the real world, we don’t advertise programs by their pain points. 

I’m sure if they said, “sign up for our show – not even 16% of our couples stay together!” … not many people would sign up. 

Granted, Married at First Sight has tried a number of different improvements and models, but clearly something isn’t working.

And yet, my Googling tells me they are on Season 19. 

So what is my point here? 

Well, our track record matters. Studying our work matters. How we represent our work to the public matters even more. 

When we fail to identify our problems and course correct, we could end up giving people false hope, wasting their time, or worse, causing unintended harm. 

People often have a feeling something will work for them – will get them out of a bind, will help them with an intractable problem.  

People put their trust in us. Resources and programs can give them hope. 

So it’s our obligation to do our very best for them so they don’t end up right back where they were before. 

I don’t know if a reunion show counts as an exit interview, but I would say that the 58 people who went through all of that to just end up single again have not seemed pleased. 

When we use the information we have available to us to learn, improve, and grow, we can really make a difference for people. 

And if something is REALLY not working, it shouldn’t continue.