Anyone else notice how often a character (usually a cop) uses a flashlight inside a building when it's daytime and the windows are lit up? Just this morning, a cop is using a flashlight in a house during the day.

Ah, those tropes...

It's actually pretty standard in real life. Seeing into dark corners or under furniture, contrast for searching, disorientation. They carry super bright flashlights now, too. It's a fairly accurate trope.

It is a VERY accurate trope.

George,

I think one reason they do it on film is because it signals that they are ‘looking’ without having to come out and say it.
It also says, ‘Pay attention, this is important'

Tom

It is a real thing in real life.

This is fairly standard practice. It can do MANY things. It can give them a tactical advantage, it helps them look into places not as well lit as the rest of the room, it can disorient suspects, it can do 1,000 other things.

Maybe I misread but by him saying ‘character’ I thought he was talking about tv or movie.

My bad.

Tom 

He was asking why they do that? That was his question. The answer is because they do it in real life.

It is NOT to say "pay attention" it is because that is how life is.

There are MANY things that cops do or happen in shows that are just in the movies or TV. The automatic weapon clicking many times once empty comes to mind quickly. (I can't IMAGINE why some consultant hasn't put a stop to this!) George thought this was one of those cases.

Turns out this is actually one thing they get right.

Good question to ask, though. These kind of questions are basically the entire premise of MythBusters.
Do we get to blow something up, now?

It is a GREAT question to ask. It sure was the entire premise of Mythbusters.

Remember that part of every episode after they proved the myth was either true or false, that there was the one guy who just kept INSISTING, in spite of the evidence in front of him, that HIS OPINION mattered more than the truth? Where he just argued and argued no matter how silly he looked or how much evidence to the contrary there was he would just keep going and going because he had an "opinion" and he was entitled to it?

Oh yea I don't remember that part either.