Put down that remote: Why binge-watching might ruin your favourite show
A new study suggests you might enjoy those episodes more another way.
It's hard to resist. An entire season of a show drops instantly on a streaming service and you have the whole Sunday to yourself - why not deep dive headfirst into the entire thing? Binge-watching has evolved the way television is both presented and consumed (for instance, you can stream the entire first season of Crawford online before it even airs on CBC television). It seems like binge-watching is perfect for a more passionate view of programming, but is that actually the case? According to a recent study, our binge-watching proclivities might actually decrease our enjoyment and memory of our favourite shows.
The study, from the University Of Melbourne, aimed to test the viewers' relationship to a program they binge-watched versus one that was traditionally appointment-viewed. To do this, they took 51 university students and made them either watch an entire program in an one-episode-a-week, one-episode-a-day, or binge-watching fashion. The program was The Game, a critically acclaimed BBC America drama, consisting of 6 hour-long episodes that none of the participants had previously seen. Immediately after watching the final episode of the series, each participant was quizzed on their comprehension of the series, including their perceived enjoyment, how well they understood the show and how challenging they found the content. The next day, participants were quizzed on their recollection of the show, answering questions pertaining to specific episodes. A week later, participants were re-tested on their comprehension and recollection and then re-tested again 140 days later.
One of the biggest takeaways from the results was that on average, the binge-watching group enjoyed the program noticeably less than both the daily and weekly watching groups, a trend that continued in week-later and 140-day-later re-testing. Researchers believe this result was, in part, affected by the controlled environment — being made to sit for 6 hours in a day versus being spread out over days or weeks, and also that the program was originally conceived for appointment watching rather than binging, which may also alter a binge-watcher's enjoyment. However, this finding may support a larger trend; previous research suggests that viewers enjoy the streaming service more than the actual shows, meaning that binge-watchers may enjoy the ability and autonomy to binge, rather than the actual act itself.
With regards to viewer recollection, binge-watchers displayed the best memory in the day following viewing; by the time they were re-tested 140 days later, they had the steepest recollection decline. Conversely, the weekly watchers scored the weakest on the memory portion the day after viewing completion, but their memory declined the least during the 140 day re-test. This supports the common conceptions of "cramming" versus sustained information learning, in that gradual consumption leads to a greater (but less intense) longevity than short-term intake.
Though by no means conclusive just yet, understanding the mental implications of the binge-watching trends is interesting as we also uncover the physical effects. A binge-watching (and sitting and staring) session can also be pretty terrible for your body. Regardless of the drawbacks, the binge shows no signs of slowing down; more and more media services are getting into the streaming game and Netflix's binge-watchers grew from 200,000 in 2013 to as many as 5 million last year.
From a creative standpoint, these patterns may have implications on the way shows are conceived, written and marketed in the future. Shows may play more like multi-act plays rather than standard episodes; there'd be less reason to have cliffhanger, tune-in-tomorrow-type endings. There's also the rebirth of the anthology series (like Black Mirror or American Horror Story), that strive for the best of both worlds, managing to present self-contained episodes and seasons that are tied together by a larger theme or mythology.
For the viewer, more findings mean opportunity to wisely control and customize how we consume content, to you know, enjoy it as much as possible. It may be that just because we can binge-watch doesn't mean we should. Less Netflix, more chill?