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Binge watching is bad news for depression, loneliness.

If you are a total binge addict take a long hard look at your relationships -apparently they are on shaky ground.

o-WATCH-LAPTOP-NIGHT-facebookIt’s bad news, people. Apparently those of us who enjoy a good binge session are more prone to be depressed and lonely than those who don’t.

Yep, this comes from a survey via the University of Texas (I guess the University of Phoenix was too busy sending out email spam) that asked 316 people ages 18-29 how often they watch TV; how often they had feelings of loneliness, depression and self-regulation deficiency; and how often they binge-watched TV.

It concluded that people who are lonely or depressed were more inclined to binge watch, using the activity to move away from negative feelings.

“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,” said Yoon Hi Sung told Deadline. “Physical fatigue and problems such as obesity and other health problems are related to binge-watching, and they are a cause for concern.”

The findings also showed that those who lack the ability to control themselves were more likely to binge-watch, unable to stop clicking the next episode even when they were aware that they had other tasks to complete.

“When binge-watching becomes rampant,” Sung said, “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.”

So far there are no details about whether fans of a particular show exhibit different levels of anxiety (lookin’ at you Lost fans).

11 Responses

  1. wow 316 people eh, yeah thats a huge sample…not

    @feistyb exactly! i bet the study was sponsored by a FTA network to try & convince us we need commercial tv!

    @karebear & dalmanic, i can relate, my dad was a cricket fanatic & we only had the one tv when i was a kid. Dad refused to get a 2nd tv stating he didn’t want us to be ‘one of those families that watch tv in separate rooms’, something to do with trying to be one big happy family. Instead we were one of those families who had to watch what the dad was watching or nothing! lol

  2. Funny. Binge watching makes me very happy and whenever I’m forced (very rarely) to watch commercial tv I become extremely depressed having to sit through bloody commercials. How about a study and a survey on that.
    Is there actually one person on the planet who genuinely loves, jumps around with excitement and enjoys ads?
    Binge watching is freedom.

  3. Does binge watching include watching cricket? My husband watches it for hours and hours. He doesn’t seem depressed but it sure has that effect on me… 😛

  4. 1) If you live alone, it’s easier to binge watch.
    2) Correlation is not causation. Many depressed people may binge watch, but that doesn’t mean most binge watchers are depressed.
    3) Binge watching is still too new a pastime to draw such serious conclusions.

  5. Jingoes, the folks who watched all the episodes of the US copy of the UK made House of Cards in one go must have been positive nut cases after they’d finished watching that. 😀

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