The Case For Binge Watching Research Paper Samples

Television is a modern entertainment platform par excellence. The medium's growing popularity over years does not only indicate how invasive TV has become but also how influential over lifestyles and patterns. Set centered in living areas and homes, TV has become an integral part of household life. Often, whole layout designs are centered on a TV set. The positions at which TV's are set seem to enhance a sense of exhibitionism and watching. Further, as TV became a regular in households, modern workplace contexts began to embrace "screens" as not only on-wall projections but also as a means of entertainment per se in an increasingly more relaxed workplace in which work-life do not seem to conflict but to replace one another interchangeably. This invasion into public and private space has come at a price. Not only has TV changed behaviors and habits unfavorably but also apparently irreversibly. The case for watching has exacerbated still as digital content emerged as an increasingly dominant mode of watching TV, online. A case in point is binge watching. By offering popular TV series in full, not sequentially, digital platforms such as Netflix (Cook) are not only ruining watching experience (Pagels) but also breeding habits detrimental to health. The case is further exacerbated for younger generations whose conceptions of eating habits and body image are largely formed by watching soap operas and music TV (Anschutz, Engels, Van Leeuwe, and van Strien). This paper aims, hence, to explore major negative influences performed by TV on watching experience and eating habits.
The experience of watching TV has changed dramatically over years: from few hours on broadcast TV to several hours in a row on digital networks, watching habits show drastic shifts. Not only has watching hours and habits have changed but media for TV consumption have witnessed unprecedented explosion as well. Interestingly, whole season experiences are compressed into few day experiences, a practice which has reduced watching experience and character empathy into mere cramming efforts and 24/7 uncolorful "peering" experience (Pagels). Indeed, a great deal of watching as entertainment is lost to watching as consumption. The experience of prolonged sessions of watching TV becomes one of a competition for image and virtual experience rather than one for value, if any, internalization.
Further, by watching whole seasons or for several, uninterrupted hours, TV watching experience becomes one of a nervous entertainment, so to speak, rather than relaxed enjoyment over extended periods. Ironically, movie and video production seems to not only influence watching behaviors but also to respond accordingly. In response to exponential demand for full-season content, digital networks, for example, prime viewers on TV series upfront (Cook).
Meanwhile, TV has been reported to be associated with unhealthy habits. As a matter of fact, TV watching habits and behavior are confirmed to cause eating disorders and binges (Burmeister and Carels), unsteady dietary intakes among adolescents (Feldman, Eisenberg, Neumark-Sztainer and Story) and restrained eating and body image dissatisfaction for young girls upon watching soap operas and music TV (Anschutz, Engels, Van Leeuwe, and van Strien). Against such a background of unhealthy dietary intakes – and hence overall health problems – TV's detrimental impact on health cannot be overemphasized. Further, new unhealthy habits are not restricted to eating binges but extend as to cover issues of usability, gaming and addiction. Thanks to an explosion in new media and online streaming applications, interactivity has come to complicate TV watching from a reception, one way communication into a double-lane communication process by which humans and machines exchange responses.
The TV has gone a long way from a mere entertainment, limited watching option platform to one whose potentials – positive and negative – far exceed initial expectations. True, TV remains a form of great popular enjoyment and entertainment. However, ubiquitous mobile devices are revolutionizing how TV is being watched. The new media and online streaming platforms are, in fact, converting watching habits into consumption habits. By consumption, moreover, instances of watching no longer become mere acts of entertainment but further examples of consumption and declining morale. As well, as interaction gets hold of parties of watching experience reciprocity becomes a means by which watching experience is interpreted.
In conclusion, TV has become recent decades' premiere mode of entertainment par excellence. Taking center stage in modern entertainment, TV has impact in different, negative ways on viewers' perception of entertainment as well dietary habits. The emerging online streaming platforms escalate consumption of soap operas, music videos and popular TV series broadcast on typical cable networks. By consuming more, viewers' reproduce – as well as contribute to – values embedded in TV programs. Still, watching TV remains of undecided potential. Further insights are needed in order to explain away TV watching myths.

Works Cited

Anschutz, Doeschka, Rutger Engels, Jan Van Leeuwe, and Tatjana van Strien. " Watching your weight? The relations between watching soaps and music television and body dissatisfaction and restrained eating in young girls." Psychology & Health 24.9 (2009) : 1035-1050. Taylor & Francis Online. Web. 29 Jan. 2015.
Burmeister, M. Jacob, and Robert A. Carels. " Television use and binge eating in adults seeking weight loss treatment." Eating Behaviors 15.1 (2014) : 83–86. ScienceDirect. Web. 29 Jan. 2015.
Cook, Camila Isabel. "Netflix: A Stepping Stone in the Evolution of Television." Diss. University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, 2014. Journalism & Media Studies Graduate Student Culminating Work. Web. 29 Jan. 2015.
Feldman, Shira, Marla E. Eisenberg, Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, and Mary Story. "Associations between Watching TV during Family Meals and Dietary Intake Among Adolescents." Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior 39.5 (2007) : 257–263. ScienceDirect. Web. 29 Jan. 2015.
Pagels, Jim. " Stop Binge-Watching TV." Slate. The Slate Group, 9 Jul. 2012. Web. 29 Jan. 2015.