The overlooked power of binge-watching TV shows

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.

 

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“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?