It's been said if a million monkeys were sat at a million typewriters, they'd eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare.
But what if they were instead put in front of televisions? What would they watch? Well, it wouldn't be Shakespeare - they prefer the likes of Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
A new study has found monkeys enjoy watching reality TV.
Researchers at the California National Primate Research Center and the University of California taught adult rhesus monkeys how to choose a show. Rather than the endless options available on the likes of Netflix, they had a choice between reality TV and nature documentaries.
The reality TV clips were deemed 'social', and nature documentaries 'non-social'. Each monkey had to decide between two 30-second clips 900 times.
"After monkeys learned how to pick either category of video, the group showed a preference for viewing social videos," the study, uploaded to preprint server PsyArxiv, says.
"Monkeys demonstrated an attention-related preference for social information as well. Eye-tracking data revealed longer durations watching the social, as compared to nonsocial videos, without breaking gaze. Psychological properties of viewed videos predicted the choices that monkeys made on subsequent trials."
The researchers said the results "demonstrate an evolutionary old preference for social versus nonsocial information".
As do humans, they noted.
"While nature documentaries and cartoons are viable viewing options, a huge percentage of available content is 'reality television'. Such shows consistently rank among the top 10 most viewed programs on US televisions and viewership is consistently on the rise internationally."
The conclusion? Primates - humans included - are genetically hardwired to like reality TV, often choosing it over more intellectually nutritious offerings.
As a preprint, the study - titled Monkeys Prefer Reality Television - is yet to undergo peer review.
