[The researchers conducted a survey on 316 18- to 29-year-olds on how often they watched TV; how often they had feelings of loneliness, depression and self-regulation deficiency; and finally on how often they binge-watched TV. They found that the more lonely and depressed the study participants were, the more likely they were to binge-watch TV, using this activity to move away from negative feelings.
The findings also showed that those who lacked the ability to control themselves were more likely to binge-watch. These viewers were unable to stop clicking "Next" even when they were aware that they had other tasks to complete. Little empirical research has been done on binge-watching since it is such a new behavior.
Psychological factors such as loneliness, depression, and self-regulation deficiency have been known as important indicators of binge behavior in general. For example, people engage in addictive behaviors to temporarily forget the reality that involves loneliness and depression. Also, an individual's lack of self-regulation is likely to influence the level of his or her addictive behavior. Therefore, this study tried to understand binge-watching behavior from this set of known factors.
"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," Sung said.
"Physical fatigue and problems such as obesity and other health problems are related to binge-watching and they are a cause for concern. When binge-watching becomes rampant, viewers may start to neglect their work and their relationships with others.
Even though people know they should not, they have difficulty resisting the desire to watch episodes continuously. Our research is a step toward exploring binge-watching as an important media and social phenomenon.”]
Opinions are many, this is a real potential problem, and in many cases can be another catalyst to further deepening ones depression. Easy to talk about, harder to take action if you see your loved ones slipping due to the nature of how easy it is to keep clicking forward, thus pulling away from responsibilities associated with taking care of yourself, working, providing a respectable quality of life.
Know when it is necessary to get help, ask questions, find out what is really happening so that you can get back to your standard of leading a productive life. There is more to living your life than Mad Men, Breaking Bad, etc.
binge bad photo by www.nyfa.edu