We are all guilty of bingeing every once in a while, maybe you are feeling burnt out from your day-to-day responsibilities and want to relax, or perhaps you are trying to catch up with the show all your friends keep talking about before someone spoils it?

 There are many reasons as to why we binge watch, it could be argued that is down to the accessibility and encouragement we get from streaming sites, such as Netflix and their tactics like season dumping, meaning we can watch an entire show in one sitting, this removes the ‘liveness’ of television by removing the concept of temporality. Another technique used by Netflix to keep us engaged is the ‘Are you still watching?’, addressing us directly and encouraging us to continue with our binge.

iPhone, for examples, now enable users to watch Netflix as they’re scrolling through Instagram or checking their emails by creating a small window at the bottom of the screen that streams Netflix. We are allowing ourselves to consume more than one media form at once, this can lead to a lack of attention being paid to the media we are consuming.

Smartphones are very compact pieces of technology that allow us to be able to binge wherever we are, even without the use of wifi by predownloading a show, film, etc. We immerse ourselves into a world of our own by using audio and visuals to keep us entertained, often ignoring our surroundings.

Mareike Jenner views online video services as a threat to traditional industry structure, this is down to the fact that platforms such as Netflix and Youtube have a sense of availability that no other platform does, you can search up whatever you want to watch at any time of the day and there is a high chance that you’ll end up finding what you are after. Unlike traditional television and cinema, where you must wait for the exact time provided to watch it.

References:

Netflix and the Re-invention of television by Mareike Jenner

Portals: A Treatise on Internet-Distributed Television by Amanda Lotz

By Gabriela Vadcard