Binge watching

History & Meaning

What is binge watching? The Digital Democracy Survey defined the activity as "watching three or more episodes of a TV series in one sitting" (Deloitte 201). However some debate this definition based on whether the definiton of binge-watching should be based on time elapsed or episodes watched. The definition of binge-watching has also changed with the development of new technologies that change the way we watch TV. Streaming services have undoubtedly increased binge-watching but the trend didn’t begin with streaming, in fact it came around with the creation of VHS tapes and later DVDs. Binge watching began when VCRs allowed viewers to record the usual once a week episode and watch them at their leisure. a quote from Mary Ellen Brown’s book Soap Opera and Women’s Talk: The Pleasure of Resistance quoted in Charlotte Steven's work "Historical Binge -Watching" mentions that a friend of hers once told her she was taking the day off to watch two tapes of episodes she recorded. The term “binge watching” was first used in 2003, however the concept really took off in 2013. As James Poniewozik says in his 2023 New York Times article “Streaming Changed TV. Is TV Changing Streaming Back?” the binge-watching model encourages streaming services to treat the first season of a show like a pilot episode and focus more on the plot of the season rather than individual episodes. In turn this promotes binge watching as the episodes aren't stand alone and need to be watched all together.

Journal “Factors Affecting the Binge-Watching Behavior of Young Consumers” found that binge watching gained the most popularity around 2012 and 2013 when Netflix provided unrestrained access to TV whenever viewers wished. Binge watching has verifiable become more poular in recent years, as shown by Netflix’s subscriber count. Netflix was the first streaming service and in 2012 it had 5 million subscribers which is modest compared to their 167 million subscribers in 2020. The journal also noted that during and after Covid-19 Binge watching had a huge spike in popularity, as everyone suddenly had much more free time and much less to do.

Traits of Binge Watchers

A study done in the journal mentioned above "Factors Affecting the Binge-Watching Behavior of Young Consumers", identified four factors that increased the likelihood of someone being a binge watcher, they were facilitating conditions, cognitive elements, promotional effect, and behavioral addictions. In this study it was found that the most likely subjects for binge watching are unemployed women aged 16-23. Outside of the traits of the viewers themselves the journal considered elements such as, “convenience, picture quality, smart television/phone and availability of time” to be facilitating conditions as well. In that article the author quotes “A Theory of Rational Addiction” by Becker G S and Murphy K M, in their book they say that often the instigator for binge-watching is boredom or the viewer trying to "cope with the adverse realities of life." There have been many studies done to find the perfect binge-watcher their results are usually similar however they have slight differences. The age range found by the studies always find that the peak age group for binge-watchers is young adults but there is debate over the actual numberrs, some say 16-23 however in another study their rane was 14-25. Some find the group with the most binge-watchers is college students while others say it is unemployed adults, since TV is a cultural landmark in America and the the actual definition of binge-watching is contested it is difficult to pin down the exact traits of a binge-watcher.

Is Binge Watching Addictive?

The study was done in “Exploring Experiences of Binge-Watching and Perceived Addictiveness Among Binge-Watchers" researchers studied 25 self-identified binge watchers and interviewed them on the effects of their binge watching. One of the effects found in this study is that the subject felt that their relationships could be improved by similar interests in shows and therefore easy topics to discuss. There were multiple positive experiences noted by subjects such as "that they were nourished and that their creativity was stimulated by the shows they watched," some felt that their capacity for empathy was increased because the shows they watched "revealed situations that could occur in real life.” Despite this they also noted negative effects such as how binge watching late into the night negativly affected their emotions the next day and some said they experienced negative emotions if they were unable to binge-watch.

In the case of an increasing amount of viewing time in avid binge watchers the study found that “participants did need to increase their binge-watching intensity or duration over time to find satisfaction” but this depended on factors sch as employment and relationship status. Students were found to gradually increase viewing time but participants in relationships and with jobs maintained their viewing time as they were more restricted by those factors.

Charlotte Stevens argues in a chapter about historical binge-watching that although the language of addiction, such terms as “overdose” and “mainline,” is often used in the world of TV it is mstly a sort of vernacular in fandom communities. In these communities the amount of time dedicated to the source of media is important and terms like these signal to other fans that they are a reliable source as they have put in thee effort. Her conclusion is that these terms are not the fans experiencing actual addiction to binge watching but instead fans legitimize their time as “productive marathons” because the effect is benificial to their fan community. Fans exchange the shame typically placed on binge watchers for the pleasure of contributing to fandom communities.

Impact on TV Aesthetics

In the book “Binge-Watching and Contemporary Television Research” contributor Tom Hemingway finds that shows that are the biggest candidates for binge watching are typically sitcoms and have gradually changed their narrative structure to adapt to the binge-watching model. One of the author’s critiques of Binge watching in the article Why I Think Binge Watching is Ruining TV is that seasons have become shorter, and this removes availability for “filler episodes.” Her issue with the new season's length of usually 6-10 episodes means there is no room for character driven episodes as everything needs to move the plot forward. Older sitcoms such as Friends or Gilmore Girls are the most binge-watched and the standrad length of sitcoms is 22 espisodes despite this the origionals created by streaming services such as Netflix or HBO are much shorter, usually being 10 episodes.

HBO is a streaming service with plenty of completed TV shows ripe for binging. However, they release their original shoes weekly, they set themselves apart with the tagline “It's not TV. Its HBO.” HBO insists it not TV because a certain look comes to mind when thinking of TV and HBO has critical acclaim over the aesthetics and storytelling. Author Michele Hilmes says in her journal “Rethinking Television” that HBO wants to separate it from typical TV aesthetics but the idea of typical TV watchers as well. She says that TV audiences are viewed as “couch potatoes,” a title that used to describe binge-watchers more often than the typical TV watcher.

Rethinking television- as viewing experiences have been trending toward becoming increasingly extravagant [author] believes that “TV would seem to have an advantage in that sheer big-screen visual extravaganza has never been an important part of its aesthetics.” Since not only binge watching has been popularized but with the creation of phones you can watch TV on grand aesthetics don’t seem to be necessary for shows to be popular.