The numbers just hit me...

I was reading up on how much the average person actually watches per week and saw that the typical binge session is something like 3-4 hours at a go. That's almost a whole school day for my students... just parked in front of a screen. I found the stat on a news site about streaming habits and it kind of threw me. Anyone else ever stop and think about how many total hours you've sunk into a single show?

3 comments

3 Comments

alex_nguyen2mo agoMost Upvoted

Oh yeah, same here. I caught myself the other day realizing I spent like 6 hours straight on a Sunday watching some old crime drama, and I barely even remembered half of it.

nelson.nancy2mo ago

You sure this is actually a problem worth worrying over? I mean, people used to park in front of TV sets for hours back when I was a kid, nobody freaked out about it then. Streaming just makes it easier to track the time, but we've always had our lazy weekends. Plus a lot of those "binge sessions" are people half watching while scrolling on their phone or doing other stuff too. Not saying it's totally fine, but comparing it to a school day feels a little dramatic.

jake_owens1mo ago

That actually reminds me of something funny that happened at my buddy Dave's place last year. He had this old VHS tape of a show he recorded back in the 90s, and we spent the whole afternoon watching it because the remote was broken and we were too lazy to get up. Nelson.nancy, you hit on something real about how we always found ways to zone out, even before streaming came along. I remember my parents would plop me in front of the TV with a bowl of cereal on Saturday mornings and not check on me until noon for lunch. The difference with streaming is it just feeds you the next episode automatically, so you don't get that natural break where you have to get up and change the tape or wait for commercials. Half the time I'm binging something, I'm also scrolling Reddit or texting, so it's not like my brain is fully engaged anyway. Still, there's something weird about how these platforms are designed to keep you clicking next without thinking, even if we've always been lazy about our free time.