BY: JESSICA BEUKER
Ten years ago, Netflix streaming didn’t exist. If you wanted to watch a television show, you had to tune in on a specific time of the week, where you would watch one episode of the show and then wait seven days before the next one. Today, tuning in to catch your favourite show once a week seems barbaric. Streaming has revolutionized the way we watch television and movies. Everything is instant and available to us by seasons instead of by episodes. We consume stories at an almost alarming rate. We binge, which is not only bad for our mental health, but it also ruins good television.
When I was in seventh grade, I loved watching Friends. I was competitive, so I identified with Monica. I wished very badly to find someone as sweet and sensitive as Ross, and I laughed and laughed whenever Chandler would crack a sarcastic joke. In short, I waited patiently each and every week for Thursday evening to roll around so I could hang out at the coffee house with my favorite friends. I waited a week between each episode and continued living my life normally in between. At the end of 10 seasons, I felt as if I had taken part in something extraordinary. Even if it was only a silly little sitcom, I spent 10 years with these characters; I grew up with them, and as the show changed and evolved, so did I.
But Netflix and other streaming sites have forever changed the way we consume entertainment, and the way we tell stories. In a recent study, 35 per cent of participants identified themselves as binge-watchers, and 77 per cent of participants reported watching TV for two hours or more on average per day without any breaks. Furthermore, the participants who identified as binge-watchers reported higher levels of stress, anxiety and depression than the others in the study.
Two years ago I began watching the hit series Breaking Bad. The show had already aired its finale at the time, and had recently put the entire series up on Netflix. Initially, I had put it off despite protests from my friends who insisted I had to watch it. Finally, I caved. But I didn’t just cave—I watched five seasons in five days, sixty-two hours of television in less than a week. Which, I’m now aware sounds disgusting and impossible. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t shower, but instead took baths so that I could bring my laptop into the bathroom to continue watching. If I needed a drink of water, I would carry my laptop with me to the fridge. Cooking would take time away from my Breaking Bad time, so instead I lived off pizza and cereal. But things did not stop there.
In the rare chance that I pushed pause, I would be researching the characters and watching interviews with the actors. I even caught myself thinking about how fun and easy it might be to start cooking and dealing crystal meth. It sounds ridiculous, but for those five days, I really thought I would be the next Heisenberg (for the record, my drug kingpin name would be Roxy Reinholt). I paused the show one day to go and have coffee with a friend, and the entire time I kept thinking, I wonder what Jesse is up to? What new scheme are he and Walt cooking up? My friend’s words became a faint buzzing sound behind my curiosities about my favorite drug dealers. I could not wait to get home.
Five short days after starting Breaking Bad, I finished. I sat in my sweatpants in the middle of my bed, staring down at my computer screen, and I started crying. Not because the episode was particularly sad, but because the series that I had devoted my life to for the past five days was already over, and I couldn’t help but feel a little empty.
Jonathan Fader, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor of Family Medicine, wrote a report on the effects of binge-watching. Fader explains that a reason people binge is television has become better than movies, especially in regards to character development. “In a movie we get between 90 and 130 minutes on average to bond with a character,” Fader says. “In a six-season TV show we get 70-100 hours of time to have a relationship with the people on the screen. We know their quirks and their strengths. We can love and hate them at the same time. It’s the difference between a one night stand and a committed relationship.”
Binge watching allows viewers to become attached to certain characters very quickly. “These characters are our friends. Like any relationship, it’s hard to let go and we want to stay attached,” writes Fader. “There have been many reports of sadness regarding the end of epic, character-intense shows such as Breaking Bad.”
But binge-watching is not only emotionally straining, it also ruins the entire show. “Each episode deserves time to live in my head,” writes Will Smith in an article for Tested. “To do less is not only a disservice to myself, it feels disrespectful to the show’s creators—they put thousands of man-hours into making one hour of television. Blasting through the episodes simply to see what happens at the end just feels wrong to me.” He explains his own experience with Breaking Bad. “Watching episodes back-to-back ratcheted the tension up too high. After watching two seasons of the show in as many weeks, I was emotionally exhausted and needed a break. I literally couldn’t take it.”
There is pleasure in waiting for something you’re excited for, whether that is a trip, a concert, or the next episode of your favourite show—especially after a cliffhanger. The instant gratification Netflix provides, while good in the moment, is actually stripping us of the happiness that comes with anticipation. It also takes away from the community aspect of television. Before Netflix, everyone would come into work on Wednesday and talk about “that insane episode” that aired the Tuesday before. Now, everyone watches at fragmented times, eliminating the special bonds formed over great television.
