I Just Watched a Whole Season of Breaking Bad and It Is 3 AM

I generally watch relatively little TV. When I do, it’s usually a news program or documentary. On the other hand, I often take online courses and follow favorite live streams. But there is a type of possibly unhealthy TV consumption that I have at times engaged in over the years. Even before I had encountered the term “binge-watching”, I had, unwittingly, already adopted the practice. It may have started with quickly watching all three seasons of the 1990s DVD series Millennium, or perhaps it started even further back, with a VHS collection of the original Star Trek series. With the advent of videotapes and DVDs, it was possible to watch episode after episode of an old show without the distraction of advertisements or the limits of fitting my schedule to that of the networks.

Things really took off when high-quality TV shows became available in DVD sets. As I recall, the series, Rome (from HBO) was the first time I really felt the “addictive” power of watching episode after episode of a wonderful program. Then these shows became available on-demand and I re-watched the first several seasons of Game of Thrones multiple times. More binges would follow with In Treatment, Six Feet Under, True Blood, True Detective, The Tudors, Twin Peaks, and still others. There are now even online lists of the best shows to binge-watch. And it's not just young people who are binge-watching. Middle aged folks and seniors are doing it as well. Being bleary-eyed from this behavior knows no age limit. In fact, a recent survey found that 88% of adults overall and 95% of younger, 18 to 44-year-old adults in the United States, report having lost sleep due to binge-watching.

And now, there is a new, additionally compelling, way to binge-watch. For me, it began with the show The Expanse. In my opinion, and that of many others, it is one of the best science fiction shows to have ever run on TV. It was first available on the SyFy Channel, was canceled, and then was picked up by Amazon Video after a major fan effort to save it. Amazon Video released the entire fourth season all at once. So it is now possible to go ahead and watch an entire season in a few, or possibly, even in one, albeit long, sitting. No longer do watchers need to get their new episodes fix on a one-per-week schedule. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Binge-watching can be defined as "the practice of watching television for a long time span, usually a single television show,” and involves watching multiple episodes in a single sitting, according to Wikipedia. In many ways, this seems like a potentially beneficial way to consume multiple-episode programs. We have all probably had the experience of not being able to put down and turning page after page of a great novel. Being able to consume multiple episodes seems a lot like this.

I do agree with those that believe we are in a “Golden Age” of television because of the many shows with very high production values, complex plots, and complicated characters currently are produced. For someone like myself, with a demanding schedule, little time to devote to following a series, and great difficulty arranging to be in front of a TV at a set time, on-demand and streaming allow me to enjoy programs that I could not have watched in the past. Being able to quickly follow a story arc also has the advantage of helping keep complex plot lines fresh in memory.

But, as with any beneficial technology, there can be a downside as well. In the clinical practice of psychology, we often become aware of new technologies’ negative impacts on people’s lives. For example, binge-watching can decrease the kind of interaction and discussion fans used to have either in real life or on-line. The anticipation of a new episode and the discussions of how it might unfold are lost when it is possible to finish off a whole season in a few nights or even in one night of binge-watching.

There are also indications that binge-watching may be associated with certain negative psychological states, such as loneliness and depression. Fatigue and increased obesity may also be associated with binge-watching. Some research has indicated that more binge-watching is associated with reduced ability to self-regulate. This may be because addictive-type behavior develops in which bingeing is used to escape from negative emotional states and the desire to “just watch one more episode” is not resisted.

Providers of streaming content are also working to make their products as addictive as possible. The CEO of Netflix apparently considers sleep to be a competitor of content streaming services. Examples of increasing the ease of addiction to streaming are the provision of nearly limitless amounts of content and the auto-play function that starts the next episode of the series immediately. This gives the viewer an endless universe of potential shows to explore and helps diminish the self-control mechanism by eliminating the decision to stop watching at the end of the show. In some cases, the auto-play doesn’t even finish the credits or show the previews of the next episode, it just cues it up and begins it immediately. This can result in more bingeing and the failure to perform more important activities, such as sleeping.

It has been recognized that binge-watching can negatively affect sleep due to cognitive arousal. Compelling situations and shocking turns of events in the storylines of well-made shows are stimulating. Another factor that may contribute to wakefulness is the alerting effect of blue light. Blue light is a product of the electronic devices we are using to consume most of our media today. The effect of binge-watching on sleep is a significant enough issue for sleep health that it has been addressed by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

Sleep Essential Reads

Is Daytime Cannabis Helpful After a Bad Night of Sleep?

On the Benefits of Napping

The major study in this area was conducted by Exelmans and Van den Bulck (2017). They looked at the prevalence of and possible causes of sleep disturbance in people who binge-watch. In their study 423 adults (of which 61.9% were women) with an average age of 22.17 years, completed an online survey. They were recruited through Facebook and were asked about their viewing habits. They also responded to a number of questionnaires used to measure sleep quality, fatigue, insomnia, and arousal levels prior to sleep. These data were analyzed and 80.6% of the respondents identified themselves as binge-watchers with 20.2% having binged several times in the previous month. Of those with poor sleep, 32.6% had poor sleep associated with their binge-watching. A higher frequency of bingeing was associated with increased insomnia, poorer quality of sleep, and greater fatigue. This relationship was not found for regular television viewing as compared to bingeing. Of note, increased cognitive arousal prior to bedtime fully mediated these associations. In other words, the nature of binge-watching results in increased cognitive arousal, which then reduces the amount and quality of sleep and results in increased fatigue. It is easy to see that binge-watching results in greater involvement with the material as more is consumed in one setting leaving the viewer with more to think about, especially given that shows typically binge-watched are of the “golden age”, high quality, high production values, complex plot, and deep character development, type. It is easy for viewers to become immersed in the worlds created in these programs, to identify with the characters, and to hypothesize potential plot lines. All of this creates increased cognitive arousal that may be very pleasurable, and unfortunately for sleep initiation, is also highly stimulating.

A number of changes in behavior, some easier than others to implement, can help us better control binge-watching and thus improve sleep. Apps like StayFocused can be used to block streaming sites such as Netflix and Amazon Prime when using Chrome as a browser. Logging out of accounts each time we finish watching helps us be mindful of starting to binge-watch as we have to consciously log back in between binges. Likewise, disabling the auto-play function helps restore some degree of mindfulness and decision making to our watching. Another change that can help is to not binge-watch alone but only with friends. This is similar to drinking socially rather than drinking alone. Also recommended is the use of standard good sleep hygiene practices such as not binge-watching TV in bed or in the dark. Preset a limit on how long to watch so as to prevent the “just one more episode” effect.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has argued for binge-watching responsibly by balancing health and entertainment. Some additional tips for doing this include being sure to get seven hours of sleep per night and not allowing binge-watching get in the way, deciding on an episode limit before starting to watch, downloading episodes in advance as a way of limiting the number of episodes watched, scheduling time on weekends to binge-watch rather than doing it at night before bedtime, using blue light blocking apps when watching after dark, watching on a TV rather than at close range with a bright hand-held screen, not using electronic devices in bed, and giving yourself at least half an hour of relaxing non-screen after turning off the show before turning out the lights for the night. Finally, Exelmans and Van den Bulck (2017) recommend the use of relaxation and mindfulness techniques to reduce arousal prior to bedtime.