According to research from Northwestern University, 73% of people surveyed by Netflix reported they have positive feelings when they binge-watch.
This is a surprise to absolutely no one, although I have to admit that I’m surprised about that other 27% who said they didn’t experience positive feelings while binging.
That’s because binge-watching is dope.
Not dope as in “cool,” but dope as in addictive. It’s the reason streaming services make sure to start the next episode within seconds of the previous one ending. They know that, like potato chips, it’s hard to stop at one. 😁
Dopamine does that. It’s the “feel good” chemical that gets released whenever we do something pleasurable, and helps ensure that we’ll likely do it again.
For some activities, that’s a good thing. On our recent trip to New York City, The B99 found a handbag in a thrift store for $12; it retails for $205. Dopamine was definitely involved in that little transaction. Cha-ching! 😀
Sunlight can release dopamine, as well as a good workout, or getting enough sleep. Smelling chocolate chip cookies? Yep. Eating said cookies? Uh-huh.
And that’s where it gets a little tricky because the same dopamine release that tells you to “do that again” is also going to make it harder to stop and wait to do that again.
I’m talking to the person who finds himself eating 4 or 5 freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. It’s me. The person who eats too many at one time is me.
More fun dopamine facts. You get a release of dopamine from telling someone about a goal you’re going to try to achieve, even if you never actually attempt it. Studies have found that the dopamine release is stronger when you tell about the goal than when you actually achieve the goal, especially if it’s a long-term achievement.
How does this relate to binge-watching, and does it necessarily have to be a bad thing? I’m glad you asked.
Disclaimer: I’m not an expert on all things neuroscience. I’m fascinated by it, and things seem to be lining up for me to pursue a Doctorate of Ministry in it, but for now, these are just a non-doctor’s thoughts.
Whoa! I got quite a rush of dopamine just telling you about my plans to get a doctorate! Maybe I should stop there, save some money, and just go bake some cookies? 😂
Sorry, I digress. Dopamine is great until we get addicted to how great it is, and can’t stop doing the things that make us feel great, or need to do a lot more of the things that make us feel great because just one cookie doesn’t make us feel as great as one cookie used to.
If you made it through that long sentence (that Grammarly hated, by the way), congrats! I’m happy to have provided a little dopamine for you.
Back in the day before binge-watching was a thing, we’d watch a show and enjoy the feeling associated with it. Then, we’d have to wait a whole week to watch that same show again, and we’d enjoy it then. But in between those shows would be plenty of other things that allowed our levels to normalize.
But now? We watch, and watch, and watch, and watch, and scroll, and scroll, and scroll, and scroll (it’s literally called doom-scrolling), and our dopamine levels are so jacked up that we don’t know how to respond when we aren’t in front of a screen. Ran out of things to watch? There’s a word for that. You fell into the “show hole” and will have a hard time getting out.
The remedy? I don’t know, since I’m not a doctor, but my guess is that some screen downtime would go a long way to helping us return our bodies to normal levels of a chemical that was intended to help us attach to real things.
People. Exercise. Creation. The presence of God. Not screens.
So end the binge, bake some cookies, and eat one (or two) outside in the sun. Your body and soul will thank you for it.
