How to Break the Habit of Watching Binge on Netflix
Vegetarianism in front of the TV can be fun on a lazy Sunday, but while you avidly watch every episode of Jessica Jones, the weekend passes you by. On Monday, you wonder where all the time you planned to use to fix your house, read a book, and hang out with friends has gone.
Watching TV is inherently good and a great way to unwind after a long day, but too much of it hinders your productivity. Before you know it, watching a couple of episodes of your favorite show can turn into six hours of inertia. If you’re looking to cut back on your continuous streaming marathons, these tips can save you time.
Walk on your own; It makes the show more enjoyable.
You watch the show too much because you like it, but what if you could enjoy it even more? According to research by Jeff Galak, Ph.D. and published in the Journal of Consumer Research , the faster you consume media like TV shows, the less enjoyment you get from them. You get bored with the show and miss out on the subtle nuances that make it so great. It’s the same with other things, like food. The first few bites of the dish are a fun journey for your taste buds, but on the last few bites, you’re just trying to finish what you started. When you are addicted to TV shows, you give yourself the opportunity to reflect on what you have watched. You will have time to come up with your own theories about what will happen next. You will also be looking forward to the next episode, which will make it much more exciting when you finally sit down to watch it. A short distance makes the heart grow affectionately, so treat it like a treat that you only eat from time to time and you won’t get bored.
Additionally, Galak suggests that playing catch-up with a new favorite show could make the wait for the next upcoming season far more excruciating than usual. You may have just completed five seasons of Game of Thrones, but now you have to wait months to get the fix.
Avoid “brushing watch”: only watch what you love
Sometimes overeating is the result of your basic desire to see things through. Maybe you feel like you’ve already wasted some time and don’t want it to be a wasted sunk cost , or maybe you just don’t like quitting smoking. Usually, wanting to finish what you started is a positive trait, but it can be negative when it comes to things like semi-decent TV shows that you’re not even sure about. Vulture’s Adam Sternberg calls this “brushing oversight.” Basically, you follow through to finish the show and get them out of line. It could be because someone told you to watch it and you feel obligated, or because everyone else seems to like the show and you don’t want to feel left out. Whatever the reason, do yourself a favor and just give it up.
If the show hasn’t completely hooked you by about Episode 5 or 6 , this may not be your cup of tea. This is wonderful. You gave it a chance, and now it’s time to move on. The more warm shows you can take away from your life, the less desire you will have to watch the cleaning and keep filling your never-ending line .
Stop looking during the lull
With a little knowledge of how most TV shows work , you can avoid the plot hooks that these epic five-season marathons encourage. Watching booze involves watching simultaneously episodes that were likely to have been shown seven days apart (excluding a few pop-up streaming shows). Their script is designed to get hooked and come back every week, but when you have immediate access to every episode, it can be really hard to get out of their hands.
Break out of this endless loop of gripping plot-cliffhanger ending by finding a loophole in the series’ narrative. Just look for a break in the narrative arc in each episode. It could have been in the middle of the episode, or somewhere around three quarters of the total. Once the action dies down, go back and save the breathtaking breathtaking view for your next viewing session. The next time you launch it, you will immediately see something exciting and see how it resolves, before stopping on the cusp of another exciting event.
Disable autoplay for your streaming services
If streaming services like Netflix and Hulu have yet to make it easier to watch binge, then with autoplay it is nearly impossible to skip it. An entire 10-season series can be delivered to your brain in one monstrous session at the push of a button. This is why Michael Hsu of The Wall Street Journal recommends turning off autoplay on all of your streaming services.
For Netflix:
- Go to the Netflix website in a browser.
- Log in and go to the “Your Account” page.
- Find the Playback Settings link in the My Profile section and click on it.
- In the Preferences section, uncheck the Play next release automatically check box.
For Hulu:
- Go to the Hulu website in your browser.
- Log in and select the series and episode to watch.
- When playback starts, move your mouse over the video and click the gear icon.
- Find the Autoplay section and set it to Off.
For Amazon Video:
- Navigate to the Amazon Video website in a browser.
- Login and go to Settings.
- In the Player Settings section, you can turn off autoplay.
Turning off autoplay gives you a natural break where there was none before. It suddenly becomes apparent that you prefer to overeat rather than just let it happen. With autoplay disabled, you have a moment between each episode when you must make a conscious decision to keep playing. At this point, you have a chance to think about other things that you might want or should have done.
Set an alarm
Quitting the drinking habit doesn’t necessarily mean quitting the TV. You just need to set how much time you spend in front of the screen. The easiest way is to set a timer or alarm on your phone when you sit down to watch. When the alarm goes off, you’re done! You will have more time tomorrow.
However, if you don’t think you can hold on to it, you can create a TV limiting system with an Arduino baseboard . You can set it to turn off the TV after an hour, or set it up so that the TV can only work for a certain period of time each day.
Earn for every episode
Sometimes the fight is too great. Let’s say, for example, Netflix just released a brand new series and you want to watch it all before spoilers are everywhere. In such cases, there are still ways to make watching overeating somewhat productive. Bustle’s Kathleen Smith invites you to find a way to “earn” each episode while watching:
Earn your next episode. If you feel like you’re going to die if you don’t see the next episode of The Walking Dead, think of an incentive for yourself, such as finishing your laundry or calling your grandmother. You will be proud of your accomplishments and by the end of the night you will not turn into a TV zombie.
You still get instant gratification in knowing what comes next, but you are also achieving your goal, so it doesn’t feel like a complete failure. It’s just enough for you to be able to sleep at night knowing that you are not a complete slacker.
At the very least, exercise while watching the drink. Alice Park at Time invites you to turn your favorite shows into drunk-like exercise. Every time your favorite character appears, instead of firing a shot, jump for one minute. Or, every time a character says one of his phrases, do 10 push-ups. Whatever your regime is, shape it around overeating so you can double Jessica Jones’ strength by watching her ass. if you save your favorite show to watch in the gym during your workout, you will have an incentive to train for both you and you, and you will definitely feel like you are making your progress with this series. Of course, if you know you can’t trust yourself to exercise, you can always create something that gets you going .