Therapist reveals what it means if you still love high school dramas
Teen dramas may be set in classrooms, filled with lockers, first loves and breakups—but their audience often stretches far beyond adolescence. When a new series drops, many adults find themselves just as hooked as younger viewers, drawn into storylines about friendships, identity and romance.
“Relationships are at the heart of all teen drama,” Dr. Alexandra Foglia, a licensed marriage and family therapist, told Newsweek. She explained that even with the age gap, adult viewers can still connect deeply with the emotional attachments portrayed on screen.
The enduring appeal is also reflected in the success of recent releases. Off Campus, a college-set romantic drama, has quickly become one of Amazon’s biggest original series. The show drew 36 million viewers within its first 12 days, according to Forbes, ranking just behind major debuts such as The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and Fallout season one.
The series follows the unexpected love story between a music student and a university hockey star—an accessible, emotionally driven narrative that has helped it become Amazon’s largest-ever debut among viewers aged 18–34.
Americans frequently binge-watch TV, with 42 percent doing so most of the time and younger adults leading the trend, according to a 2022 YouGov survey. Nearly half prefer shows released all at once rather than weekly. Viewers are also twice as likely to favor serialized storytelling over standalone episodes, while hour-long shows are more popular than shorter formats—especially among older audiences.
Foglia said one of the most “compelling” reasons adults return to these shows is because they tap into a time when emotions were more intense and unguarded.
She explained that these stories remind viewers of a period when they were “emotionally raw and without many of the social defenses, responsibilities, and emotional walls that form later in life.”
Newsweek also spoke to Kati Morton, a licensed marriage and family therapist based in Austin, Texas, who said there are several psychological reasons why these shows remain so appealing.
One key factor is nostalgia. Teen dramas often revisit a stage of life where identity, belonging and romantic ideals were first taking shape.
Morton told Newsweek: “Even if someone’s actual adolescence was stressful or complex, watching idealized versions of that period can create a ‘corrective’ emotional experience. One where relationships feel more understandable, predictable, or emotionally intense in a contained way.”
Teen dramas also tend to follow familiar emotional arcs—clear conflicts, heightened feelings and defined resolutions—which can feel reassuring.
Morton said: “That predictability can be soothing for adults navigating more ambiguous real-life relationships or chronic stress.
"In that sense, it functions similarly to other forms of comfort media: it downshifts cognitive load while still engaging emotional systems.”
These shows also provide a safe space to explore relationship dynamics.
“They often center on first-love dynamics, rejection sensitivity, friendship loyalty, and identity formation,” Morton said. “Adults may unconsciously use them to ‘rehearse’ relational experiences or revisit attachment patterns in a lower-stakes environment.”
She added that this can be particularly relevant for people working through unresolved emotions or those who felt emotionally deprived during their teenage years.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Charlotte Nisbet and Emma Lee-Sang.