What I learned from Binge-watching Netflix shows for 168 hours.
24 hours x 7 days = 168 hours
I did this experiment to see how Netflix affects the human body and mind, as binge-watching Netflix is something most people do today. So to carry out this experiment, I had to disconnect from my regular life, tell people I was going out of town for a week, and make sure that people in my life were not affected by not talking with them for one week.
Before you jump and call me out on saying it’s impossible to watch without a break. And yes, I slept for 6 hours daily, and I ordered food online for the whole week. You may ask, is it technically 168 hours of Netflix without a break? Apart from sleeping for 6 hours daily, I was on Netflix pretty much the rest of the time. I even watched Netflix in the bathroom while carrying out daily human tasks.
TV shows I covered:
- Stranger things
- Queen’s Gambit
- Ozark
- Dark
- Squid Games
Conclusions on how this affected me after one week of binge-watching:
I am not taking shots at Netflix; some of the shows are good and award-worthy. These are my observations from binge-watching Netflix.
- Physical effects: First, I want to mention the Headaches I had from watching continuously for one week. Some of them lasted for as little as 30 minutes, and other episodes lasted almost half a day. Back pain is the following symptom I had from bad posture because of prolonged hours of watching on the couch and on the bed. Watery eyes from staring at the screen for the whole week, be it the TV screen, monitor, or the Ipad, as I was constantly watching the screen even while eating. I gained a total of 1.7 kgs of weight in 1 week, which is a lot, and some of it can be attributed to the junk food as I have ordered everything online. My dark circles became even more prominent, and now I look like a raccoon at this point.
- Mental effects: My sleep cycle is disturbed, and sometimes I dream about characters from TV shows, and even worse, I played roles of a few episodes in my dreams. There is definitely general and mental exhaustion and also poor cognitive functioning. Some of the season finales had good cliffhangers that got me excited, and I had to binge even further after the one week I initially intended to watch. My drive to socialize has definitely decreased after this experiment, as the first thing I want to do is watch Netflix shows. Insomnia is one problem I had to work hard at as I had trouble falling asleep after one week of binge-watching.
Final thoughts:
It took me another 1 week to reverse almost all the effects that are mentioned above. After that, I got back to working out in the gym, and I lost the weight I had put on. It was a daunting task, but I had to do it. I started meditation to fight my insomnia, and to some extent, it was helping me.
Would I recommend binge-watching Netflix? Hell no.
There are so many articles already making rounds on how to unplug from Netflix and how Netflix is bad for productivity. There is some truth to that, but at the end of the day, most of us are not willing to give up on watching tv shows or movies entirely as this is one primary source of entertainment for humans
I would recommend planning what to watch on Netflix rather than mindlessly scrolling through all the titles and ending up wasting your time. Always log out of your account once you are done watching your favorite show/movie. This way, when you want to watch again in the future, you will have to log in again, and I know this is not a difficult thing to do, but at least there is a small barrier now. One day you might be lazy enough to log in again, so you might skip watching Netflix. Just a thought.
