Brooke Skiba
Television has come a long way since the days when family and friends gathered around a black and white screen for primetime showings. Even in our own childhood, which featured cable television and the beginnings of high-definition, watching television generally meant following your favorite shows on a weekly basis and fighting for the remote when more than one family member’s show screened at a time. If someone were to bring Netflix in a time machine back 20 years, the unfamiliar binge-watching habits might just be enough to drive our cable TV watching past-selves to insanity.
For us college students, Netflix has become both the best and worst thing to have happened since Facebook. While on one hand, we now have entire seasons of our favorite television shows at our fingertips on a continuous loop, we also have a built-in endless distraction on our computers and mobile devices. Just knowing that season two of House of Cards has now been up for a week haunts me during my attempts at focusing on I.S. But distracting qualities aside, I can’t help but wonder, is Netflix changing the way we watch television for better or for worse?
In the past, people have not had nearly as much power over their television viewing experience as we do now. Netflix not only gives people the power to choose when their shows are on, it also allows them to watch as many episodes of their favorite show as they want in one sitting. We are essentially children set free in a candy store to eat as much of whatever we want.
I admit, nothing about this metaphor is scaring me away, but it does make me wonder how this change will affect the way we think about TV. In my youth, I watched my favorite show (Boy Meets World,) on a weekly basis and after every episode, I obviously wanted more. But I also had plenty of time to reflect on the episode that had just occurred and to look forward to the episode the next week. In succession, much of the actual thought process of watching television is lost, and the mind-numbing effects begin to kick in as we watch episode after episode without reflection.
However, I admit that there are certainly some shows that are better watched in quick succession than others. I watched How I Met Your Mother up to season seven on Netflix before I was forced to slow down to watch the new episodes on a weekly basis. In a show like HIMYM where every small detail is intricately woven into the humor of future episodes, it’s helpful to watch them within a shorter time span to assure you’re not missing any inside jokes. However, if you watch Pretty Little Liars (from my own experience, I really hope you never start down this path) one after another you are more susceptible to noticing one of the million plot holes the show’s writers assume the weekly wait time will cover up.
In conclusion, I have not come to any real conclusions. But I do encourage everyone to think about the way your Netflix habits are affecting the way you think about shows and use your time. If you’re feeling nostalgic, as I now am, grab a group of friends and go flip through the cable television channels together – you’ll find some of the classics like Full House or Friends on some channel at almost any time of the day.