In the News (Newsweek): “At the University of Texas at Austin, researchers surveyed hundreds of millennials to find out what psychological factors lead people to watch three or more TV episodes at a time. What they found was troubling—people who binge-watch are more likely to be depressed and lonely, two factors that are also in harmful binge behaviors such as eating and drinking.

“The authors, who concede that they too binge-watch, were correct: they discovered a correlation between binge-watching and loneliness, depression, and having self-regulation deficiency, which is an inability to control compulsions.

“For people who feel lonely or depressed, the authors suggest, binge-watching allows them to escape from negative feelings. And the more episodes someone watches, the longer that person can escape. Experts call this an avoidance coping strategy.

“Original programming on streaming sites seems made for binge-watching. Netflix has been dropping an entire season’s worth of new episodes at once since the American premiere of Lilyhammer in 2012; House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black and Netflix version of Arrested Development all premiered the following year.

“The University of Texas researchers are joining a growing field of academia taking on entertainment. One study from last June suggested that binge-watching increases a viewer’s risk of early death. In September, a communication research expert told the Huffington Post that it’s hard to break from a marathon viewing because humans are hardwired to watch for changes in environments, including images on a computer screen.”

My Comment: In the near future,when people have more free time, this will be the only accepted pastime until suffering raises a person from the couch and throws him into the arms of others!

By disseminating the method of integral connection, we will prepare the environment, making it possible for all the people who spend time sitting on the couch to enter into this environment.
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