After they finish classes for the day, many students drop their backpacks, kick off their shoes, sit back and watch episode after episode of their favorite television show for the next several hours on Netflix. The increasingly common act of “binge watching” is one with which many college students are familiar.

Binge watching occurs when viewers watch multiple episodes of a show in the same day. Websites such as Netflix, where viewers enjoy more than 1 billion hours of TV shows and movies per month, help make TV more convenient for those catching up on their favorite shows or watching movies. The online subscription network exploded in popularity during 2010, reaching 20 million viewers, and currently has 33 million viewers in 40 different countries, according to the Netflix website.

Kayte Childers, a junior majoring in secondary education, said the convenient ability to watch episodes one after the other contributes to her binge watching.

“I can’t control myself most of the time; I don’t even think about it. It’s so nice to be able to click ‘next episode’ and know what’s going to happen without having to wait,” Childers said. “I hate having to wait a week when an episode ends so suspenseful.”

Netflix has started releasing new TV shows by the season instead of weekly episodes. The latest show, “House of Cards,” a Netflix original series, allowed viewers access to all 13 episodes immediately.

Childers said she believes binge watching is the only way to watch online TV and loves the uninterrupted convenience that is provided. Though some binge watchers are known to multitask during their shows, Childers finds it hard to focus on anything else.

“Very rarely do I do anything else,” Childers said. “I get really wrapped up in the story, almost brainwashed. I generally can’t do anything but pay attention.”

Shuhua Zhou, a telecommunication and film professor, said added binge watching doesn’t just interfere with daily routines, it can also be detrimental to the viewer’s eyes.

“Anytime there is ‘binge’ involved, it is not good. Binge implies excess. When it is excessive, it is not good to the brain and hardly beneficial to the body,” Zhou said. “Binge watching probably has more to do with suspense: TV series love to leave the audience hanging in a cliff at the end of an episode, so they will come back to watch the following episode. We as human beings love certainty, and if there is something we don’t know the answer to or don’t know what will happen, we feel a ‘psychological discomfort,’ and we want to have that uncertainty removed by continuing to watch until we find out what happens.”

Zhou said binge watching comes down to whether a viewer practices self-control and whether they are mature enough to handle the uncertainty of an unfinished episode.

With the technological advances and the addition of an instant gratification generation, TV is quickly accessible and easy to watch for hours on end.

“It is not just Netflix. Today’s technology really makes media available at a single click of the mouse,” Zhou said. “I don’t think we should point a finger at the media. Regulation of behavior is [a] personal matter.”

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