By Parul Ohri

When assignments for the week include watching pop culture hits like Stranger Things, you do not procrastinate at all. The ‘essential viewing’ was S1Ep1, but I ended up binge watching the entire season, and then one more. I stopped just a few episodes into Season 3, when the loop of the same strange and stranger things kept repeating. But while I was knee deep into the story, the ‘high’ of the suspense, cliffhangers and the anticipated satisfaction of closure kept me going well beyond ‘just one more episode.’

My viewing behaviour aligns perfectly with concepts of binge watching and the illusion of control. When you have the entire series at your disposal – a vast distinction from traditional linear television with fixed schedules and weekly waits, you feel you will decide your viewing pattern, much like the old Netflix promo ‘What You Want, When You Want’.

But am I, as the viewer, really empowered? Scholars including Lotz (2014) and Jenner (2016) suggest that this sense of control is misleading. Rather than increasing autonomy, binge-watching frequently leads to a loss of control shaped by platform design and viewing habits. Mareike Jenner (2016) points out Netflix features such as auto-play, countdown timers, and continuous episode flow that reduce the effort required to keep watching, making binge-watching feel natural and inevitable. Amanda Lotz (2014) places the new technologies at the centre of the reorganisation of the way viewing is experienced, with control becoming less conscious.  

However, Jenner accepts that there may not be just one definition of binge watching. In another approach, that deviates from the impulsive, low effort behaviour discussed above, binge watching can also be a consciously planned exercise. Lu, Karmarkar, and Venkatraman (2024) suggest that reducing binge-watching solely to impulsive behaviour risks overlooking the agency of viewers and the intentionality embedded in their media practices. They reframe binge-watching as a dual process in which calculated planning coexists with moments of reactive extension during viewing.

Once again, my own viewing behaviour can illustrate this. While one part of the much awaited Season 4 of Bridgerton has dropped and however compelling the trailers and social media chatter about the gilded opulence, romance and scandals of the new season may be, I haven’t watched it. I am waiting for the next part to drop so that I can enjoy all episodes in a ‘planned binge watch’ of uninterrupted storytelling.

Whatever the approach, binge watching is best viewed as a designed practice, an experience that feels free but is constantly informed through platform technologies.

Jenner, M. (2016). “Is this TVIV? On Netflix, TVIII and binge-watching”, New Media and  Society, Feb 2016, 18 (2): 257-273

Lotz, A. D (2004). “Television Outside the Box: The Technological Revolution of  Television”, in: The Television will be Revolutionized, 2nd edition, NYU Press, 2014, 53- 94

Lu, J., Karmarkar, U. R., & Venkatraman, V. (2024). Planning-to-binge: Time allocation for future media consumption. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 30(1), 169–186.

Netflix “‘What You Want, When You Want’ Promo” YouTube video, posted January 8, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-90OwZtzT4 (accessed 7 February, 2026).

Netflix ‘Bridgerton Season 4, Trailer’ YouTube video, posted December 25, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqaXNwAzSmQ (accessed 7 February 2026)