Why binge-watch?

Young man yells at a cloud, more at 11

Art by Grace Gill

Why binge? Do we really enjoy sinking into the couch and losing ourselves in a show for some ungodly amount of time? In my oh-so-long 17 years on this earth, I’ve binged plenty of shows: Sitcoms, Thrillers, and even superhero cartoons, and a lot of those shows I’ve loved. At the same time, I’ve drip-fed a couple too, coming back to a show once a day or week. Slowly wading deeper into the ocean of plot that a show can provide. 

Recently I’ve been opting for the latter, choosing to take my time with a show–despite them being fully released and the tantalizing allure of the binge right at my fingertips. For example, I recently watched Succession. I set a rule for myself with this show: I’d watch no more than two episodes a day. While not the extremes of a pre-Netflix world, it altered my perspective on the show. Watching the show over 2 months instead of over 2 days helped me appreciate some of the smaller things, and gather my thoughts on how the show's landscape changed from episode to episode. The emotional highs peaked and their lows grew in stature–each punch that the show would throw hit my little heart a lot harder. 

I’ve thought a lot about how my binging of shows in the past has changed how I perceive them. There are some shows I can’t imagine not binging: Cobra Kai, for example, has been a go-to binge for me. I first watched it right after Season Two had finished, falling in love with its campy cross of Star Wars and anime, awkwardly crammed into a city-wide karate-fueled gang war. In short, the show is schlock, perfect for Saturday morning, afternoon, and night binge… or so I thought? I’ve binged Cobra Kai more than almost any other show, and yet the memories I hold most fondly with it have not been the binge, they've been watching it with my dad, an episode or two every other night. Sure, a lot of that can be chalked up to the heightened fun of watching a silly show with another. Still, I think the way you can feel your body decompose, your mind lull– simultaneously bored and oversaturated with noise and action–cannot be overlooked. You feel trapped.

Art by Ket Gill

Trapped. What do I mean by trapped? It's kind of silly isn’t it, you can just pick up the remote and turn it off. There isn’t a Netflix exec pushing the barrel of a cold metal gun into your scalp, ready to pull the trigger at even the slightest sign of my eyes wandering off into the undefined area of “Not-TV.” Before I try to answer, let's take a detour: how did the binge begin?

In the beginning, there was boredom, and then, Netflix. Yes of course, with streaming services came the binge. Audiences were no longer beholden to the restrictions of cable TV, with its heavy advertising and slow release schedules. With Netflix's release schedule, dropping entire television seasons at once, people could swim around in an ocean of freedom the model provided. And with freedom comes the opportunity for restraint. Humans are bad at restraint, we are impatient, anxious creatures. When given the chance, most will choose one more episode, and one more after that, even without the intent, the binge presides. 

Other companies caught on to Netflix's success, and a litany of streaming services followed. Netflix and friends have competed in a vicious battle for our attention, our eyeballs the gold of the new age. Algorithms are at work to cherry-pick the most binge-able show for each and every watcher. The goal isn’t to captivate or get us lost in a gripping show we can’t wait to talk about; it keeps us placidly entertained. 

Who cares? What's wrong with having some mindless background shows to fill an hour or a day? Nothing. I sure as hell watch and enjoy my slop. I look forward to a moment alone, of phone time in bed after a long exhausting day, but at what point does it become too much? I’ll be the first to admit, I spend too much time with screens. This isn’t just about the binge, it’s about everything. Every TikTok, Instagram Reel, YouTube video, Reddit post, and every bit of content I’m addicted to taking in. I’ve tried to use my phone less: I’ve put screen time restrictions, put it away when I work, and thought of activities to replace its endlessness, but it's so damn hard. Maybe I’m some extreme outlier, a serial screen-ager screaming to the cloud, but I can’t believe that's true. Ask most teenagers to put away their phones, and I think they’ll struggle. The average teen can spend up to 9 hours a day with electronics, and that's become my new normal, but it doesn’t have to be.

Art by Ket Gill

Anecdotally I’ve noticed changes in the attitudes of myself and my peers. Personally, as I’m sure you can tell, I’ve been increasingly frustrated with the complete saturation of the internet in our lives, and my dependence on it. I made it seem as though I've been making no progress, but–barring some setbacks–I do think I’ve started to make some changes. On a more broad scale, I’ve noticed my friends feel the same. I think people feel some of the meaninglessness of the doom scroll, and the adverse effects. In our senior year, we’ve had to do lots of reflecting and self-consideration, all in the effort of getting admissions officers to love us, and, at least for me, that's led to a realization. I can’t remember the last Instagram Reel I watched, the last piece of content I’ve consumed on my phone, I can’t remember half the details of a show I binged. What I can remember is those events that my mind had time to process. That manifests in more obvious ways: refining a skill or winning some piano competition, which of course has more meaning than some digital content, but it also has some subtle examples. The YouTube video I sat down and watched, that one book I read a year, and of course, the shows I decided not to binge. 

I don’t like binge-watching. At the moment I may be passively entertained, but just as much so, I feel trapped. Not trapped in any physical sense, but trapped in the strange sense of anxiety that fills me to get up and do something else. It accomplishes nothing I seek when I go to the TV. It doesn’t relax me, lift my spirits, or reinvigorate me for something new. Instead, I feel mentally and physically drained, in the counterintuitive state one finds oneself after a full day in bed. It’s not all that entertaining, It feels satisfyingly boring. I don’t feel challenged, intrigued, or all that interested when I binge. I find myself trying to  finish the show as quickly as possible, the silver screen equivalent of skimming the headline and pictures of an article. In an increasingly digital world, it feels like the most valuable commodity in the eyes of corporations has become our attention. I ask you, but mainly myself, why is that attention so valuable? If it’s valuable to them, it is even more valuable to us, and I say we use that asset to its greatest extent.