Binge watching and college students: motivations and outcomes

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of the paper is to explore various motivations that influence college students to spend more time binge watching and the subsequent gratifications. Video streaming websites such as Netflix and Amazon Video have changed the viewing habits of consumers. Viewers have more control and can enjoy on-demand content as per their convenience. This has resulted in viewers watching multiple episodes of television shows in a compressed time frame – a phenomenon termed as binge watching. College students engage in binge watching because of the various gratifications that it promises. This paper investigates the various triggers and consequences of binge watching. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected through a mixed method approach. The first stage involved qualitative interviews and focused group discussions with college students to understand the phenomenon of binge watching. The second stage involved administering a questionnaire to address our research question. Findings Findings indicate that social interaction, escape from reality, easy accessibility to TV content and advertising motivate college students to spend more time binge watching. If students are negatively gratified after binge watching, then they intend to spend more time doing it. Originality/value The findings have important implications on the overall wellbeing of college students and strategic implications for video streaming companies.

Neural correlates of response inhibition and performance monitoring in binge watching

“…Provided our ERN result is replicated, this would indicate an internalizing component of BW that seems consistent with the vicious circle account (Panda & Pandey, 2017). Additionally, ERN amplitudes were more pronounced in the loss compared to the gain context which replicates previous studies (Endrass et al, 2010;Potts, 2011;Potts et al, 2006;Riesel et al, 2012).…”

“…Based on statistical modelling, Trouleau and colleagues identified a cut-off of watching 2 episodes in one session to define a BW session regardless of the length of TV show, the day of the week, and the medium used. Up to now, only few theories have attempted to explain why people indulge in watching TV Shows (Panda & Pandey, 2017;Walton-Pattison et al, 2018). One example is the description of a vicious circle, in which BW serves as a short-term maladaptive coping strategy to avoid unpleasant feelings and daily life problems (Panda & Pandey, 2017).…”

“…Up to now, only few theories have attempted to explain why people indulge in watching TV Shows (Panda & Pandey, 2017;Walton-Pattison et al, 2018). One example is the description of a vicious circle, in which BW serves as a short-term maladaptive coping strategy to avoid unpleasant feelings and daily life problems (Panda & Pandey, 2017). However, BW as avoidance behavior may increase negative states and problems which in turn leads to further BW.…”

Binge-Watching: What Do we Know So Far? A First Systematic Review of the Evidence

“…We identified considerable variability in the operational definitions proposed for bingewatching, with some articles even specifying two different options [17,23,29,30,33,39], thus bringing the total number of distinct possibilities to 19 across the 28 definitions listed in the studies directly operationalizing binge-watching (22/24). These operationalizations almost systematically consist of the following sequence of sub-components: (1) a quantity basedindex; (2) the characterization of the content; and (3) a time pattern.…”

“…These operationalizations almost systematically consist of the following sequence of sub-components: (1) a quantity basedindex; (2) the characterization of the content; and (3) a time pattern. With respect to the first feature (i.e., quantity-based index), it appears that binge-watching is predominantly understood as the amount of episodes (n = 19) and programs (n = 1) [17, 18, 20, 21, 23-25, 28-32, 34**-40] or, more rarely, of hours spent viewing (n = 2) [22,23], comprising an underlying notion of multiplicity [18,21,27,30,31,37] or the genuine specification of quantitative cut-offs, ranging from watching more than 1 episode (n = 3) [17,20,28], to 2 episodes (n = 6) [17,23,25,32,35,40], and 3 episodes (n = 7) [24**, 29, 34**, 36, 38*, 39], or watching for more than 1 hour [23] [40], "in several days" [17,30], and "within a week" [39]. A graphical overview of these operational disparities across studies is provided in Figure 2.…”