3 ms·
I find our cultural acceptance of "binging" somewhat troubling. I often hear about how many hours people have "wasted" watching an entire series in one sitting.
by ambivalents 9y ago
I find our cultural acceptance of "binging" somewhat troubling. I often hear about how many hours people have "wasted" watching an entire series in one sitting. There's a sort of ambivalence towards it, like the busy olympics, maybe, where people feel the need to outcompete each other in just how much time they spend on Netflix.
I notice the nights I decide not to watch TV, the evenings unfold more slowly and pleasantly. I feel like I've gotten a lot done, figuring it must be near midnight, and I check and it's only 9:30. The nights I partake in the binging, however, glide by in a flash with nothing to show for it. I wonder, how much are we losing to Netflix?
- njarboe 9y agoMost people would do this with TV before Netflix. The stats on adult TV watching back before the internet was amazing. 5-6 hours a day on average. Ads have always been intolerable for me and the recent streaming trend with no ads and all the year shows on demand is much more addictive.
- ambivalents 9y agoYes, but was TV specifically engineered to be as addictive as possible? Was it designed to give you little hits of dopamine just at the moment you were considering turning it off? There are tradeoffs here, of course. We can now customize our viewing experience to our tastes (though even that, I question the direction tastes are formed), fewer ads means more quality viewing time, etc. Huge improvements, but with many attendant costs.