Which one was it? Scandal, Breaking Bad, House of Cards, Lost, Grey’s Anatomy? Because if the latest studies are any indication, you too did it at some point of your life. You binge-watched TV shows.
What a nasty
manner to define a rather harmless and dull activity like this, huh? After all,
it is human nature that makes us go nuts on what starts as pleasurable things
like food, alcohol or video games.
But unlike
other addicts, notorious binge-watchers feel no shame in zooning out in front
of the computer. According to a survey conducted by Netflix, the Promised Land of any
TV show enthusiast, typically American millennials, a whopping 73 percent survey
of respondents said binge-watching it’s a guilt-free activity. In fact, they love to brag about it.
“I watched
entire seasons of Lost in what I would call My Lost Weekends”, an anonym
commenter nicknamed ‘Curtise’ wrote on this meh.com forum. And why wouldn’t
they boast? In a “Do it all” worship era, it’s a proof of mental sanity to act
like a slob for a couple of days. Basically, an “effing” statement of freedom
shouted by the most overworked developed nation on Earth. Perhaps knowing that the binge-viewers are smart makes it more socially
accepted.
Just like
lobster, once considered a poor man’s food, TV series are no longer reserved
for the average Joe, but savor by the intellectuals as well. According to Derek
Thompson, a writer from Atlantic, “it’s no coincidence that the programs
selected to please small, educated audiences are celebrated by the small,
educated TV writers who ignore what everybody else is watching”.
TV show plots
are becoming more alluring than ever, even for people who despised television
to start with.
The offer is simply too good to pass
up: a swirling concoction
of adrenaline-inducing experiences everyone is secretly hoping to face one day.
Crash with a plane in the middle of the jungle, partake in a bank burglary, survive
in a world taken by zombies.
Admittedly,
for most of us, TV shows are the closes thing to a backstage pass to the salacious
lives of drug dealers, doctors, politicians and journalists. You don’t really
want to switch places; you want to lurk around. It's what binge-watching
is all about.
And it’s a pretty good deal if you
think about it. What
other addiction has the same soothing effect as a warm blanket, with the added benefit
of a mental boost, like you madly devoured a 400-pages manual of criminal
investigation or political strategy. Yes, you could pace yourself, digest one
episode at a time, but it won’t give you a similar high.
Besides, let’s face it. Our brains
crave quick, easy lessons about world and sometimes books don’t make the cut. Enter TV series. You’re not going to
perform an open heart surgery any time soon just by watching Grey’s Anatomy
every night after work, but some basic medical terms will stuck with you. The
same way, Breaking Bad can teach you a thing or two about looking past
appearances.
More
important, TV series deliver what “self-help” literature and Oprah struggled for
years to enshrine in modern culture. The “Yes, you can” factor.
An
inevitable sense of relentlessness gets passed onto us after watching our beloved
heroes overcoming obstacles again and again. Because no matter how horrible a
situation may be, these shows convince us everything is repairable. A brilliant
thing to get hooked on, don’t you think?
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