Written by Jacob Liu | Edited by Kevin Liu
Photo by Ron Lach
It’s 3 am. The “Are you still watching?” pop-up grays the screen momentarily as you hit Season 4 of your Stranger Things rewatch marathon. If only you were still awake to hear Kate Bush’s ballad and see Vecna’s terrifying persona through your closed eyelids. It seemed only a little while ago you were sitting down to eat dinner in front of the television after a long day of work. But this sequence of events is not so unfamiliar; it’s so common that Netflix refers to this as binge-watching [1]. This term has been loosely defined across varied studies into the behavior, wavering between freeing, fun entertainment and a problematically-risky addiction. Though commonplace in today’s digital streaming world, binge-watching has been proven to be linked with various adverse health effects [2]. Ongoing research concerned with lifestyle changes during the COVID-19 pandemic saw an enormous uptick in binge-watching and exacerbated binge-watching habits [3]. With an increased prevalence of binge-watching during the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing research has observed exacerbated effects on human health [4]. This has led research groups across the world to ask variations of the question: what are the negative effects of binge-watching on the human body?
Though binge-watching is much more enjoyable than sitting in an office cubicle at work, both activities involve prolonged sitting. Researchers with the American Heart Association have found that prolonged sitting encourages sedentary behavior and further leads to unhealthy lifestyle practices. They found that regularly spending four or more hours a day watching television can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and early death by 50% [5]. Researchers at the University at Buffalo also linked binge-watching with higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression [6]. Additional studies during the COVID-19 pandemic under John Hopkins University School of Medicine have found that those increased stress levels, coupled with binge-watching, leads to obesity as a coping mechanism [4].
Beyond just physical health effects, binge-watching also takes a toll on mental health, as demonstrated in a study by National Taiwan Normal University. In this study, self-reported values on a scale of 1 to 10 of depression, social interaction anxiety, and loneliness tended to increase with time spent binge watching [7]. However, researchers at Swiss universities have found that binge-watching itself is not a problematic behavior. Rather, they concluded that it serves as an indicator for other problematic addictive behaviors including loss of control and social impairment [8]
As research continues into the phenomenon of binge-watching—made all the more prevalent by the onset of lockdown lifestyle changes—more will be known about its health effect. The apparent goal in the coming years will be to come to a more decisive verdict on whether binge-watching generates lasting negative health effects in the long run. Who knows what the future of media consumption will look like? For now, we might want to get up off that couch and maybe work out a bit and stretch before getting some more sleep.
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