Has Binge-Watching Made Us Worse Viewers?

Once upon a time, television made us wait.

Not because we wanted to. Because we had no choice.

Thursday night at eight meant Thursday night at eight. Miss your favorite show and you'd better hope somebody remembered to record it. If your family owned a VCR, somebody also had to know how to program the damned thing.

There were nuclear submarines with less complicated controls.

But something wonderful happened while we were waiting.

We talked.

A cliffhanger could occupy an office, a school cafeteria, or the family dinner table for an entire week. People argued about what happened, what it meant, and what might happen next. There were theories, predictions, disagreements, and occasionally someone who insisted they knew exactly what the writers were planning.

That person was almost always wrong.

Today, the next episode begins before we've finished arguing with the last one.

And sometimes before we've finished going to the bathroom.

The Lost Art of Looking Forward

Think about someone you once watched television with.

Perhaps it was your father, who claimed he wasn't interested in the program but somehow knew every character's name. Perhaps it was your mother, who could identify the villain fifteen minutes into a mystery and considered the remaining forty-five minutes a formality.

Maybe it was a friend, a roommate, or someone you loved.

The show mattered, certainly. But so did the ritual.

The familiar seat. The snacks. The running commentary nobody had requested. The ridiculous predictions. The comfortable silence when something genuinely moving happened.

And knowing that next week, same time, you'd do it all again.

Years later, you might barely remember the episode. You might not even remember how the series ended.

But you remember who was sitting beside you.

That's the part of television history that doesn't show up in streaming statistics.

We didn't simply watch stories. Sometimes we built little pieces of our lives around them.

And occasionally, those little pieces became precious without our realizing it.

The Terrible Tyranny of the Next Episode

Now consider the modern miracle of streaming.

We can watch what we want, when we want, where we want. We can pause a program to answer the telephone, rewind a brilliant scene, or abandon a dreadful series without waiting for the network to mercifully cancel it.

These are genuine improvements.

But streaming introduced an intriguing new feature: entertainment that refuses to take a hint.

An episode ends. You're still absorbing the revelation that a beloved character has betrayed everyone, possibly including the family dog.

Then a countdown appears.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Apparently, the streaming service has decided that processing complicated emotions is an inefficient use of bandwidth.

Before you've collected yourself, another episode begins.

Well, now you have to watch it. You can't leave everybody in that predicament.

Three hours later, you're negotiating with your alarm clock.

"How many episodes did you watch last night?"

"Seven."

"Was it good?"

"I think so. I can't remember which episode anything happened in."

We've all discovered how remarkably easy it is to confuse finishing something with enjoying it.

And that raises a question worth considering.

When entertainment becomes effortless to consume, does it also become easier to forget?

In Defense of the Glorious Binge

Before we indict binge-watching for crimes against civilization, let's acknowledge that the prosecution has a few problems.

Some stories are magnificent when experienced without interruption.

A complicated mystery can become easier to follow when the clues remain fresh. A character's transformation over several episodes can feel more immediate when we experience it in a concentrated stretch.

And there's real pleasure in surrendering an entire rainy afternoon to a wonderful story.

No commercials. No arbitrary scheduling. No desperate attempt to remember what happened seven days earlier.

Also, let us not pretend that waiting was always delightful.

Sometimes the cliffhanger was magnificent. Sometimes the writers simply stranded somebody on a ledge for a week because they couldn't think of a better ending.

Then there were season finales that promised answers in September and delivered additional questions in October.

We weren't always anticipating the next episode.

Occasionally, we were being held hostage.

Streaming liberated audiences from all that. It gave us control over our entertainment, and there's no reason to surrender that freedom merely because some of us remember television antennas with sentimental affection.

The point isn't that binge-watching is wrong.

It's that the freedom to watch everything immediately is also the freedom to watch something slowly.

And perhaps we've forgotten the second half.

What We Lose Between Episodes

A story doesn't always end when the screen goes dark.

Sometimes it stays with us.

A difficult choice made by a character might remind us of one we once faced. A family reconciliation might bring someone to mind whom we've been meaning to call. A scene that seemed inconsequential might become unexpectedly important several days later.

Good storytelling doesn't merely occupy our attention. It occasionally follows us into our lives.

But reflection requires something our entertainment technology rarely encourages.

A little room.

Room to wonder. Room to disagree. Room to laugh about an absurd plot twist or sit quietly with a heartbreaking one.

Room to turn toward someone and ask, "What did you think?"

And perhaps that is what I find most interesting about the debate over binge-watching.

We can now consume a season in the time it once took to anticipate a single episode.

Yet the technology that has made watching so wonderfully convenient hasn't necessarily improved the conversation afterward.

That part is still up to us.

The Choice Is Ours

There is no correct speed at which to enjoy a story.

A person who devours a season over a weekend isn't necessarily less thoughtful than someone who watches one episode every Tuesday.

And a viewer who savors every installment shouldn't receive a medal for self-restraint.

Although, if we are awarding medals, the person who manages to avoid spoilers for six months deserves a rather large one.

What matters is whether we're experiencing entertainment on our own terms or simply following the pace that convenience sets for us.

Watch three episodes tonight if you like.

Watch one and think about it tomorrow.

Invite someone over. Argue about the ending. Recommend something wonderful. Defend something everyone else hated.

Call the person who used to watch with you.

If you're fortunate enough that they're still around, perhaps ask whether they'd like to watch something together again.

Because years from now, you probably won't remember how quickly you finished that series.

But you might remember the company.

Your Turn, Critics

Has binge-watching made television better, or simply made it easier to consume?

Do you miss the anticipation of waiting for the next episode? Or are those memories just nostalgia wearing its Sunday best?

And here's the question I'm especially interested in:

What's a television show you remember not simply because it was good, but because of the person you watched it with?

The credits roll.

The conversation starts.