Binge-watching

Binge-watching, also called binge-viewing or marathon-viewing, is the practice of watching television for a long time span, usually a single television show. In a survey conducted by Netflix in February 2014, 73% of people define binge-watching as "watching between 2-6 episodes or more of the same TV show in one sitting."[1] Researchers have argued that binge-watching should be defined based on the context and the actual content of TV show. [2]

Binge-watching as an observed cultural phenomenon has become popular with the rise of streaming media services such as Netflix, Amazon Video, and Hulu through which the viewer can watch television shows and movies on-demand.[3][4] For example, 61% of the Netflix survey participants said they binge-watch regularly.[1] Recent research based on video-on-demand data from major US video streaming providers shows that over 64% of the customers binged-watched once during a year.[2]

History

The word's usage was popularized with the advent of on-demand viewing and online streaming. In 2013, the word burst into mainstream use when Netflix started releasing episodes of its serial programming simultaneously.[5]

In November 2015, the Collins English Dictionary chose the word “binge-watch” as the word of the year.[6]

Cultural impact

Actor Kevin Spacey used the 2013 MacTaggart Lecture to implore television executives to give audiences "what they want when they want it. If they want to binge, then we should let them binge". He claimed that high-quality stories will retain audience's attention for hours on end, and may reduce piracy,[7] although millions still download content illegally. Binge-watching "complex, quality TV" such as The Wire and Breaking Bad has been likened to reading more than one chapter of a novel in one sitting, and is viewed by some as a "smart, contemplative way" of watching TV.[8]

ITV Director of Television Peter Fincham warned that binge-watching erodes the "social value" of television as there are fewer opportunities to anticipate future episodes and discuss them with friends.[9]

Research conducted at the University of Texas at Austin found binge watching television is correlated with depression, loneliness, self-regulation deficiency, and obesity. "Even though some people argue that binge-watching is a harmless addiction, findings from our study suggest that binge-watching should no longer be viewed this way," the authors conclude.[10]

Research conducted by media scholar Emil Steiner at Temple University isolated six motivations for binge-watching.[11] The author concludes that while compulsiveness is possible, most binge-viewers have an ambivalent relationship with the nascent techno-cultural behavior. Furthermore, he argues that the negotiation of control in binge-watching is changing our understanding of television culture.[12]

Research conducted by Technicolor lab in 2016 found that a binge-watching session does increase the probability of another binge-watching session in the near future. In the meantime, the majority of people will not immediately have another binge-watching session. This indicates that binge-watching is not a consistent behavior for real-world video-on-demand consumers.[2]

See also

  • Snack culture – viewing media for short periods, typically on mobile devices

References

  1. 1 2 West, Kelly. "Unsurprising: Netflix Survey Indicates People Like To Binge-Watch TV". Cinema Blend. Retrieved February 12, 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 Trouleau, William; Ashkan, Azin; Ding, Weicong; Eriksson, Brian (2016). "Just One More: Modeling Binge Watching Behavior". Proceedings of the 22Nd ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining. KDD '16. New York, NY, USA: ACM: 1215–1224. doi:10.1145/2939672.2939792. ISBN 9781450342322.
  3. ↑ Poniewozik, James (July 10, 2012). "Go Ahead, Binge-Watch That TV Show". Time. Time. Retrieved September 7, 2013.
  4. ↑ Jurgensen, John (July 13, 2012). "Binge Viewing: TV's Lost Weekends". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved February 26, 2017. Using streaming and DVRs, TV viewers are increasingly gobbling up entire seasons of shows in marathon sessions
  5. ↑ "Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2013". OxfordWords blog. Oxford Dictionaries. November 19, 2013. Retrieved December 15, 2013.
  6. ↑ "Binge-watch is Collins' dictionary's Word of the Year". BBC News. 5 November 2015. Retrieved 11 November 2015.
  7. ↑ BBC News. "Kevin Spacey: TV audiences 'want to binge'". BBC News. BBC. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  8. ↑ Barton, Kristin M. (2 Mar 2015). A State of Arrested Development: Critical Essays on the Innovative Television Comed. McFarland. p. 228. ISBN 9780786479917.
  9. ↑ Plunkett, John; Sweney, Mark. "Kevin Spacey's MacTaggart lecture prompts defence of traditional TV". The Guardian. Guardian Media Ltd. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  10. ↑ Sung, Yoon Hi; Kang, Eun. "A Bad Habit for Your Health? An Exploration of Psychological Factors for Binge-Watching Behavior". American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Retrieved 23 August 2015.
  11. ↑ Steiner, Emil; Xu, Kun. "Binge-watching motivates change: Uses and gratifications of streaming video viewers challenge traditional TV research". Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  12. ↑ Baker, Brandon. "Infrequently Asked Questions: Why do we binge-watch?". Philly Voice. Retrieved 26 July 2016.
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