The Golden Globes were on this past Sunday night and try as I might, I just can’t seem to find a way to put a research-y spin on the Best- and Worst-Dressed Lists (why, Paula Patton, why?), so I’m going to talk about TV instead!
I try as best I can throughout the year to keep up on critically-acclaimed TV shows so that when awards season rolls around, I don’t have too much catching up to do. But there’s more out there than any new parents working full-time jobs could ever find the time to watch so my husband and I also use the nominations, clips and descriptions provided during the awards shows as a shortlist of TV shows and movies to keep on our radar. This year, our haven’t-seen-yet-but-absolutely-must-watch TV shows include House of Cards, Top of the Lake and Ray Donovan.
So while we wait patiently for our friends from Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce and Westeros to return in the spring, we plan to immerse ourselves in these new series. Now, unlike Mad Men, the shows I listed don’t have six seasons’ worth of hour-long episodes to slog through to get current but we’re still talking about a pretty significant chunk of time. Thankfully, with all of the various streaming services available, it’s easier than ever to close the curtains and snuggle up on the couch with a bag of Sour Patch Kids and watch for hours. And hours. And hours.
It turns out I’m not the only one who gets wrapped up in fiction, only to be jolted back to reality once I run out of episodes. Back in June 2013, Quirk’s reported results from a Harris Interactive poll about time-shifted TV-viewing and the growing popularity of binge-viewing (watching multiple episodes of a single TV show at a time). Among those watching TV shows on their own schedules, 62 percent binge-view.
Because one just isn’t enough! TV is addicting, y’all!
But just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean I should do it too. Bill Ward’s January 5 article in the Star Tribune, titled “Binge TV viewing is a popular indulgence, for better or worse,” references the same Harris Poll and addresses the potential psychological and emotional consequences of getting lost in TV.
The aftereffects of indulging in a TV binge are not so different from a food/alcohol/drug binge and can lead to feelings of emptiness and depression. I remember feeling truly lovesick when Matthew Crawley announced his engagement to Lavinia Swire and totally disenchanted with my vanilla existence the summer we watched the first four seasons of Breaking Bad.
“If I binge-watch a reality show, I feel like I have wasted a ton of my time,” said Gabby Helmin-Clazmer of Minneapolis. But when she finishes an intense drama, “the depression and feeling of emptiness is much stronger than with a reality show. A world that I was once ‘living in’ no longer exists.”
Deb Balzer of Minneapolis doesn’t see any other way to watch her shows.
“In fact, it makes no sense to me to watch a weekly one-hour show and wait and wait all week when I can just order a show and watch it until I am done,” she said.
The good news is that Dr. James Mitchell, president of the Neuropsychiatric Research Institute in Fargo, N.D., doesn’t believe that getting deeply immersed in the lives of fictional characters and/or watching bleak fare is necessarily dangerous:
“Unless the person is particularly vulnerable for some reason. For people who are well-integrated, I wouldn’t think there would be a problem.”
Binge-watching certainly doesn’t make me feel productive but I enjoy it and plan to continue. I like the experience. I like not having to sit through commercials. I like the immediate gratification (read: not having to wait a week to find out what happens after a Homeland cliffhanger). Despite some of the complex feelings that arise when a binge comes to an end, it works for me.
But what does binge-viewing say about us as a culture? What can we learn? Why do we keep indulging if we know it’s going to make us feel unfulfilled? How is binge-viewing changing the television experience? What will it mean for marketers if more and more viewers wait until a season is finished to watch all of the episodes commercial-free? What shows have you binged on? And perhaps most importantly, what shows should I add to our list?