1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,400 I can easily watch an entire series in a single day, two days. 2 00:00:03,400 --> 00:00:05,800 Ten hours of television a day. 3 00:00:05,800 --> 00:00:07,400 And I didn't even like it. 4 00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:32,000 Hello. 5 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:40,000 Binging started by accident. 6 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:43,000 Netflix had realised that loads of people were gravitating 7 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:45,000 towards watching shows in bulk, you know, 8 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:47,000 be that shows that you've seen before, 9 00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:50,000 Friends, Seinfeld, Law & Order, ER. 10 00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:53,000 That's the surprise about it. It's led by the consumer. 11 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:56,000 The way that Netflix tries to nudge you to watch more, 12 00:00:56,000 --> 00:00:58,000 it's very subtle little tricks. 13 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:01,000 They work out very quickly when a show launches, 14 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:03,000 which thumbnail's working, why. 15 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:06,000 Also, you know, getting to the very end of an episode 16 00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:08,000 and immediately the credits, they minimise it 17 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:11,000 right to the corner of the screen straight away 18 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:13,000 and automatically load for the next episode. 19 00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:16,000 That's how you sometimes get sucked into watching a show 20 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:19,000 for three hours without even noticing. 21 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:25,000 I have found that people are deeply embarrassed 22 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:27,000 by how much they watch TV, 23 00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:30,000 deeply embarrassed to not be productive 24 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:32,000 and take time off and say, 25 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:35,000 actually, I watched six hours of television today 26 00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:37,000 because I needed to not look 27 00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:39,000 at five different tabs on a work computer, 28 00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:41,000 I just needed to... 29 00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:45,000 We also binge to be part of the public conversation. 30 00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:52,000 Yeah, I love sleep bags. 31 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:56,000 So I think there is an anxiety about being caught up 32 00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:58,000 about this content, 33 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:01,000 which is forcing people to binge more also. 34 00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:06,000 When we can identify with a character, 35 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:10,000 it leads to the release of the love hormone, oxytocin. 36 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:12,000 It creates a bond. 37 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:16,000 We have had such a wonderful morning. 38 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:18,000 A series like Big Little Lies, 39 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:21,000 which allows you to look at the same event 40 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:24,000 through the eyes of very different characters, 41 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:27,000 you're bound to be able to find a character 42 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:30,000 that you can relate to and go on the journey with. 43 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:33,000 If you ever touch my little girl like that again, 44 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:35,000 you're going to be in big trouble. 45 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:42,000 If we're making time to watch a series end-to-end, 46 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:45,000 we are potentially creating hours of space 47 00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:48,000 to work with our emotions, our relationships. 48 00:02:55,000 --> 00:03:00,000 I have probably watched television with over 700 people, 49 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:04,000 and so I've experienced a lot of people having big emotions. 50 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:06,000 No one's fun anymore! 51 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:08,000 Whatever happened to fun? 52 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:11,000 The episode Splat of Sex and the City, 53 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:15,000 which is the one where Kirsten Johnson falls out of a window, 54 00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:17,000 causes people a lot of emotions 55 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:21,000 because it's an episode about moving on from something. 56 00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:27,000 I want to go to Paris. 57 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:33,000 Our brains don't discriminate between real activation 58 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:36,000 and activation due to imagined events. 59 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:42,000 Binge-watching means that you're activating yourself 60 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:45,000 to a high degree for much longer periods of time. 61 00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:49,000 That's going to take longer for you to come down from that. 62 00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:51,000 Episode 4, Game of Thrones, 63 00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:54,000 where Missandei is beheaded, a much-beloved character, 64 00:03:54,000 --> 00:03:56,000 it's a very graphic death, 65 00:03:56,000 --> 00:03:59,000 will have triggered the sympathetic nervous system. 66 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:03,000 It wouldn't be conducive to a good night's sleep. 67 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:10,000 What makes Netflix stand out so well 68 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:13,000 is the fact that they're able to really experiment 69 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:16,000 with the number of characters that are in, the number of story arcs. 70 00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:19,000 Netflix knows that you're never going to watch a show 71 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:22,000 midway through, you're never going to start in the middle, 72 00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:25,000 you're always going to start from the very beginning. 73 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:27,000 So that's why you've got Orange Is the New Black, 74 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:29,000 which has a cast of about 40, 75 00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:32,000 so you're able to have that level of depth 76 00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:35,000 over an eight-hour series than what you would normally do 77 00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:38,000 if it was separated into eight 60-minute chunks 78 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:41,000 and shoved on on a linear broadcast channel. 79 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:45,000 Binging is a word that has very negative connotations to it. 80 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:49,000 Binging is to shovel yourself. 81 00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:51,000 We don't say, I binged a book. 82 00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:54,000 But the reality is that some of the greatest writers 83 00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:57,000 of our generation are writing television. 84 00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:00,000 I wouldn't be the last person to say, stop binge-watching.