The Relationship Between Television Binge Watching and Personality Type.
Jennifer Borja
Fullerton College Abstract
This study examined the relationship between television binge watching and personality types. Specifically, we assessed whether extroverts would have less desire to binge watch television compared to introverts. Community college students took part in an anonymous online survey that collected some information for demographics, documented their TV viewing habits, as well as measured their social activity. While the final results of this study demonstrated no correlation between TV binge watching and personality type, future studies should be implemented in order to determine the possible connections between personality and
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The sample size should be expanded to a wider population as our study was limited to community college students, specifically those enrolled in psychology research methods courses. A larger sample size with more participants at the university level, as well as to all majors, across the country can prove to be more useful. In addition, future studies can use varying age groups, such as the adolescents or middle age adults, to be useful for seeing who is more likely to participate in binge watching. Younger participants with more time on their hands may find it more desirable to binge watch their television content compared to older participants. In addition, ethnicity was not measured and future studies can explore a potential relationship between ethnicity and binge watching. Furthermore, a more equal sample between genders can also play a factor in future research, as in our study there were significantly more females among the participants compared to males. A longer evaluation of the participant’s personality type can also be useful to more accurately define whether they are truly introvert or extrovert. Since our survey was self-report, participants may have answered in a certain way in order to appear more favorable to others, as well as may have recalled their past TV viewing habits …show more content…
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The United States is the biggest economical power in the world today, and consequently has also the strongest and largest media industry. Therefore, it is essential to take a look at the crucial relationship between the media and the popular culture within the social context of the United States for a better understanding of the issue. For a simpler analysis of the subject we shall divide the media industry into three main branches: Entertainment, News and Commercials (which is the essential device for the survival of the industry, and shall be considered in integration with Entertainment). Researches have shown that the most popular reason behind TV viewing is relaxation and emptying the mind.
Primarily, the domination power television has on its viewers is incomparable to the one drugs have over their addicts. First, addicts to television are not dominated in the same level addicts to drugs are. Hamill says that television absorbs its viewers in the same way drugs absorb their users because both television and drugs cultivate asocial behaviors in people (63, 64). Departing from this idea, it may seem reasonable to say that addicts to television and drugs both portrait unsocial attitudes, but doesn't this happen with any other kind addiction? Here Hamill is isolating a generalization which intention is to proclaim an assumption to be true. In his example, Hamill explains how some Americans fight their loneliness by leaving their TV sets on as companion (63). Instead of support Hamill's idea this example shows how Americans fulfill their vacancy of company rather than how Americans become lonely due to television. Second, independent studies on television do not qualify to determine the relation betwe...
Binge watching: “viewing multiple episodes of a television program in rapid succession”, is a phenomenon that television enthusiasts have embraced with the introduction of new technologies like SVOD, streaming video on demand, television consumption platforms unique to the digital age (“binge-watch,” def. 1). Services that offer SVOD such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime are even encouraging binge watching through their marketing practices and content creation (Greenberg). So why is binge watching, or rather binge viewing, an activity that people are participating in under the false assumption that it is a socially unacceptable guilty pleasure; an indulgence, just as eating an exorbitant amount of high-calorie foods is.
Human beings require their pleasures for a daily need be filled, whether it be a guilty one or not, the pleasure is there. In Jennifer Pozner’s Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV we step through where reality TV has taken our guilty pleasure on another level. TV is one of every Americans center of attention at some point during the day or week, which provide us with the visualization of what we watch to become a consumption of our life and views. Jennifer’s aim is intended to have readers look at our social trends with an analytical lens so that people don’t dismiss what they are seeing as meaningless, and her point being not to stop these activities, but to understand what we are seeing and watching on TV.
Robert MacNeil began his article the, “The Trouble With Television,” with the overwhelming statistic that the average television viewer squanders one thousand hours per year watching television programming (MacNeil). One thousand hours is a tremendous amount of time squandered watching programs with unchallenging content, this time could be better spent earning a college degree or perhaps earning various languages (MacNeil). I concur with MacNeil that television does “discourage concentration and applied effort” for the reason that viewers spend an excessive amount of time watching unsophisticated and undemanding programming rather then engaging in activities that will further develop the viewer’s critical thinking.
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Binge-watching series can contribute towards depression and sedentary behaviour but it is not the sole factor. There are some positives that come out of binge-watching one of your favourite series; you don’t have that anxious wait for an entire week to see what the outcome is of the cliffhanger you were left with, in the previous episode, you get immediate satisfaction, you can view your favourite shows anytime and it gives you the opportunity to bond with your peers and friends as you discuss the series with all of its intrigues, plots and
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In “Television Addiction” by Marie Winn, the author suggests that TV addiction and Drug and Alcohol addiction are similar in many ways. First she explains what she considers to be a serious drug addiction, such as not feeling normal without them, the need to repeat it, ignoring other pleasurable experiences, never being satisfied, damaging one’s life and ruining relationships. Then she asks us to consider the television addiction in the same light and explains why she feels that it should be. In my experience I can see how television viewing would be considered an addiction and why Winn would too. When someone allows an activity to negatively affect their productivity, relationships and
After a long day of classes, I just like to lie down on the couch and relax while watching my favorite television show. Like me, this is how many college students end the day. After conducting a series of surveys and interviews, I realized that, even though we all like to watch our favorite shows, we prefer different shows and watch them at different times in different ways. My overall goal was to determine if there was any difference in television viewing based upon gender. In addition, I hoped to learn: how much TV college students watch per day; if viewers look forward to watching a particular show; if college students use TV as an escape from the everyday pressures; and, if they “channel surf” or remain with one channel throughout an entire program.
For most of us, it has been said that everything related to watching television carries more harm than good. Is not a secret that today 's TV shows programs over the past years have becoming more engaged and entertained than never were. Nevertheless, the precept of a deteriorated pop culture is still among many of all there. Experts, scientist, parents and society altogether, through the last decades has been asking the same question, is watching TV beneficial in some way or not at all?
Like many modern Americans I prefer to spend my free time just relaxing and catching up on my favorite television shows, until the day I wondered to myself, does watching too much television have a negative effect on people? After finding many excellent sources I have learned that watching excess amounts of television has a number of negative effects that I will discuss. Television has been proven to have negative effects on people’s physical health, intelligence and physiologic health. I will also discuss the repercussions of television in productivity and in modern social lives.
First, television has made reality seem second best. The real world is filled with many emotions including anxiety, depression, and stress. Who wants to deal with any of these problems? You’ve had a hard day at work, so why not flick on the television and not worry about anything? As Marie Winn describes, “the television experience allows the participant to blot out the real world and enter into a pleasurable and passive mental state.” For some people life without a television is less than complete. Winn says television will lead to the addiction of it because it becomes part of your life, and soon the real world is too boring to live in all the time. Winn observes a heavy viewer and they find the television irresistible, when it’s on they can’t ignore it, and can’t turn it off. Winn also says that with television pleasures available and other experiences seem less attractive. The viewer eventually gets so addicted that they put off all other activities and feel that they can live in a less careless style. On the same note Rita Dove agrees with Winn by saying, ”It’s not that we confuse television with reality. But that we prefer it to reality-the manageable struggle resolved in twenty-six minutes.”(Dove p408) People like to see the climax, stress and problem solved in a short period of time. Dove says that television an easier tale to tell, her daughter can recite a t...
With television, people who run broadcasting organizations know how to grab a curious viewer 's attention. Just like worm on a hook to a fish, television has different ways to lure us in. Some shows use jump cuts, camera tricks like pans and zooms and sudden noises. As humans, we tend to pay attention to orienting responses because they can take us by surprise. To study the addictive nature of the television, Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi ran an experiment where participants are watching television. Both authors observed that while the participants were watching television, they feel relaxed and were passive. When the television was turned off, though, they were still passive but were not relaxed anymore. The participants felt as if the television it drained them of the energy they have. Just like a narcotic, television can give you somewhat of a high, but is short and can leave your body, with a bit of withdrawal for the person who is using the drug. Another author by the name of Cary W. Horvath ran a similar experiment in his article, “Measuring Television Addiction”, but in Horvath 's case, he ran two separate experiments which were used to measure the addictive nature of television. One of the experiments involved participants were around adult age, ranging from 18 to 82, each was personally contacted at four locations: a flea market, a restaurant, and 2 fire stations. The scale of measuring
When I was growing up I was always taught that television was a privilege – one that could be taken away if I neglected other important things in my life. Some of my earliest memories of my mother’s control on my television watching consist of a small basket in which we would “deposit” our TV slips each time we watched a program or a movie. Each week she would give my brother, my sister, and I slips of paper with a certain amount of “time” available for us to watch TV written on them. We had to be careful not to use them all up in the first couple days of the week or else we wouldn’t be able to watch anything else all week. I can’t remember exactly how much time she would give us, but I remember it varying depending on the season (she gave us more time in the summer) and our age (as we got older, the more time we were allowed). My mother’s ingenious idea to establish this system upon us not only controlled how much TV we watched, but also taught us some very early lessons on time management.