Margaret Mead compared reality television’s importance to the invention of drama and the novel

Evidence

Among the documentary’s most prominent defenders was the anthropologist Margaret Mead. “It may be as important for our time,” she said on public television, “as were the invention of drama and the novel for earlier generations: a new way to help people understand themselves.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 826

Categorization

• CANDY: Fun trivia: Margaret Mead saw reality TV as historically as significant as the invention of drama and the novel.