What causes us to not get enough? Netflix release Orange is the New Black all at once! That is correct – the entire season in one fell swoop. 'The Netflix Binge' has become a cultural phenom for us. So what causes us to binge? Are we addicted to our characters? Does it fall under immediate gratification? Suggestions?
The term "binge" has become more and more relevant as viewers gained more access to the liberty of watching what they wanted when they wanted. 'Television Marathons' were often special events that occurred on television encouraging a person to glue themselves to the tele if they wished to watch the entire event. A binge is basically a self-regulated marathon where it is done on a keepers own time and comfort. – Kevin Mohammed9 years ago
There are no more cliffhangers in television shows when it's all released at once. Anyone who's been hooked on a weekly show (Lost? Breaking Bad? Etc) can attest to that feeling of a cliffhanger when an episode ends and just leaves you itching for the following weeks episode to see what happened. Well, Netflix and Amazon are destroying that model by releasing an entire season on the same day. We no longer need to wait for the next week- we can now binge the entire season over a weekend! I believe the only difference between binging and not binging is when the show is available to us- if it's all available, we will binge. If not, we won't! – thewritefilm9 years ago
"Binging" is definitely more convenient. It's easier to wait for an entire season of a show to be on Netflix so we can watch it repeatedly on a day that we are not busy. That's more appealing than watching one episode every Monday night at 8pm. I usually forget about TV shows I'm watching unless I'm binging them on Netflix. – carleydauria9 years ago
For me, I find that I'm too busy to watch shows when they air in real time, especially since I feel like I HAVE to sit down when a given episode airs. Of course, I can record it and watch later, but lately that runs the risk of having it spoiled, and more often than not, I just let my recorded episodes build up until I'm five or six episodes behind anyway. I like to stream shows because I can set the time for myself to watch as much as I want, when I want. It's also easier for me to follow a story line if I binge watch, because half the time I don't even remember much of what happened the week before when I watch in real time. – Christina Legler9 years ago
Different people will have different amounts of free-time in their schedule, depending on if they are going to school, whether they have a full-time or part-time job, and whether they have no job and may be stay-at-home parents. Whatever the case may be, this will allow them either to binge or not to binge. And honestly, I would think most people WOULD want to binge on their favorite show, because the only reason we didn't see the concept of binging very much back in the day is because that's just how things were. You'd get a new episode each week, every two weeks, or every month, and you'd have to wait patiently for the next one. The only time you could binge otherwise was if you bought a series on DVD and watched an entire season on the couch. The only difference now is that we can do it with fresh, brand-new series rather than old one that now have a DVD release. So in answer to your question of why do we binge, I think it's pretty obvious. When we find a show that we like and that draws us in, we want to see more and more of it. That's the whole purpose of a tv series: to tell a story across multiple seasons of episodes. The reason we want to see more and "can't get enough" is built right into the structure of the writing, and the prime directive of the medium. Excellent characters plus captivating storytelling equals deeply rooted interest and desire to see how these characters make it through their trials and past all of their obstacles. Or if it's just a sitcom or comedy series, we want to see more because we like spending time with these wacky funny people. Simple as that. Not a whole lot to it. Just a little psychology, a little clever producing, and a form of media that lives off of audience viewership. – Jonathan Leiter9 years ago
I love how Netflix releases the episode all at once. I am so impatient and hate watching every week. TV shows can last months, and that's not even counting the holiday/mid-winter finales. I would much rather watch all episodes on my time and wait a year for new ones. – diehlsam9 years ago