With season two of Netflix\u2019s breakout hit Orange is the New Black now airing, I\u2019m struck by a profound change in the psychological calculus of entertainment. Netflix has changed the game, and I don\u2019t just mean the game of how shows are served to hungry eyes. I mean the game going on behind our eyes \u2013 the dynamics of restraint and gratification that our brains have for decades been trained to tacitly obey.<\/p>\n

In case you haven\u2019t watched the show, or other shows original to Netflix (like House of Cards), let me briefly explain. Netflix films an entire season of the show and then\u2014against every convention inscribed onto the holy tablets of television\u2014releases the entire season\u2026all at once. When season two of Orange is the New Black aired on Friday, June 6, the whole season aired, front to back.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of thousands if not millions of fans waiting for the new season were free to binge on every episode\u2014and I\u2019m willing to bet that by now a hefty percentage of those fans have re-binged, with many warming up for a third gorging.<\/p>\n

Before Netflix introduced this format, we were still in the mode of weekly allotments of entertainment. HBO long ago christened Sunday nights as the time to receive our weekly dose of quality, commercial-free shows of choice, whether it\u2019s The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Sex in the City, or more recently Game of Thrones (to name just a few of many legendary shows). All of the major cable and traditional networks offer something similar, but only the premium channels can offer the premium prize of hour-long, commercial free entertainment.<\/p>\n

For all of those shows, we were (and largely still are) forced by the format to exercise delayed gratification. Even if you pirate episodes of the shows online, you are still, for the most part, restricted to imbibing only the shows that have already aired. Is that because HBO and Showtime and other networks are busy shooting the shows as the season rolls along? No. With few exceptions, seasons of those shows have already been shot from start to finish. The imposed restraint all of us viewers must obey is exactly that\u2014imposed.<\/p>\n

Think about that for a moment in terms of a laboratory experiment. If researchers wanted to test ways of increasing rats\u2019 ability to delay gratification, they would place the rats in some sort of observational lab environment and provide them with disincentives for charging after a treat. Since all rats like a good treat, they would start with virtually zero ability to resist the urge to pounce on whatever tasty morsel is within eye or scent shot. But, with time, and with the right combination of disincentives (like slowly convincing the rats that the longer they wait to pounce, the more of the treat they\u2019ll receive), even hungry rats can be trained to delay gratification.<\/p>\n

In a sense, that\u2019s what the Sunday night entertainment dosing model is for humans: delayed gratification linked to quality. We wait for the best shows on our weekly docket because we\u2019ve come to believe that they are worth waiting for. An hour of well-written, well-acted, commercial-free entertainment is our weekly prize, and we\u2019ve been trained to steady our appetite until it arrives.<\/p>\n

For the sake of argument, I\u2019ll submit that the standard delayed gratification model is a good thing for a few reasons. First, it provides us with something to look forward to each week, thus injecting a little more light into each of our days by knowing we\u2019ll see our favorite shows come Sunday. That sense of anticipation provides a neurochemical boost\u2014a sort of naturally occurring antidepressant.<\/p>\n

Our continued desire for scheduled servings also keeps us involved\u2014and it keeps us talking to others about the shows. As a catalyst for social interaction, the weekly dose brings us together. We are communally caught up in the narratives, and I think a sound argument could be made that even though the topics are fictional, we feed from the communal energy of knowing that thousands of people are thinking through the same plot lines we are.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the more basic upside of not spending hours linked together like sausages watching every episode of the season (but on that point I\u2019ll concede that whether we spend the hours all at once or once a week, we\u2019re still spending them in front of the screen).<\/p>\n

So what happens when Netflix releases an entire season of shows every bit as good as anything on premium cable channels? It\u2019s as if all of the disincentives enforcing delayed gratification in our hypothetical lab rats have suddenly disappeared. The boundaries are cast to oblivion. The tasty treat is right there for the taking, and in a quantity that hardly any rat can resist.<\/p>\n

Let me be clear: I love Orange is the New Black, and I\u2019m nearly as big a fan of House of Cards. And to be frank, I\u2019m personally struggling with the desire to binge on season two of Piper\u2019s compelling travails. This is where I\u2019m torn. Am I merely reacting to my years upon years of training to wait for my weekly reward, or is there something valuable lost in the binge?<\/p>\n

For me, this is an intriguing if not troubling psychological spot. So let\u2019s open the floor to opinions. Is entertainment binging a liberating break with decades of delayed gratification training, or are we giving up something worthwhile by dispensing with the restraint structure that dominated television until only recently? Is having it all upfront the way it ought to be, or a little too good for our own good?<\/p>\n

By David DiSalvo
\nSource: Forbes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With season two of Netflix\u2019s breakout hit Orange is the New Black now airing, I\u2019m struck by a profound change in the psychological calculus of entertainment. Netflix has changed the game, and I don\u2019t just mean the game of how shows are served to hungry eyes. I mean the game going on behind our eyes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,3],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n