Paper Example - Binge-Watching TV

Binge-watching is the act of excessive watching of two or more episodes of the same television show in just a single sitting. It is also known as binge-viewing. Binge-watching is a significant issue in today's society because it has a direct effect on the behavior, health, character, and the general attitude of most people in society. As opposed to the traditional television watching, binge-watching has come with attached negative impacts on those indulging into it. Among the most experienced negative impacts of binge-watching include lack of proper quality of sleep, insomnia, and even obesity due to lack of indulgence in physical body exercise. Walton-Pattison, Dombrowski, and Presseau (2018), in their article entitled "Just one more episode': Frequency and theoretical correlates of television binge-watching," bring up important findings on binge-watching. This critical review examines the findings derived in the article above in relation to its significance to society at large. Walton-Pattison et al. (2018) present an icebreaking insight into the issue of binge-watching, thereby setting the pace in the investigation opportunities into the matter.

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Summary of the Article: "Just One More Episode': Frequency and Theoretical Correlates of Television Binge Watching" By Walton-Pattison, Dombrowski, and PresseauIn this article, Emily Walton-Pattison, Stephan Dombrowski, and Justin Presseau carried out investigative research to determine the frequency of, as well as the possible modifiable factors associated with binge television watching. The research survey was carried out among 86 volunteer persons to whom the researchers sent online questionnaires examining self-reported binge-watching, proximal goals, automaticity, anticipated regret, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, goal conflict, and goal facilitation aspects of television binge-watching. During the research, the authors assessed various demographic components, including marital status, age, body mass index (BMI), sex, and the number of children.

Authors' Research Question/Hypotheses

The authors observed that the anticipated regret, automaticity, and goal conflict and facilitation represented the most important construct which could help in understanding binge television watching more comprehensively. For this reason, they hypothesized that variance in binge television watching is accounted for by automaticity, anticipated regret, as well as goal conflict and facilitation while controlling for constructs from social cognitive theory.

Therefore, these hypotheses guided their research questions to further investigate these factors. The research questions inquired about the number of consecutive episodes of the same television show watched, the number of hours spent in watching the same show, the number of box sets they owned. The research also sought to determine the number of online streaming services used in the past month and how often the respondents let the streaming services continue automatically to the following episode. Furthermore, respondents were asked to describe where, when, and how they watched television shows.

Major Arguments/Ideas

Informed by the respondent's answers, the authors derived the following major arguments. First, that goal conflict, anticipated regret, and automaticity all contribute significantly to the variance in binge television watching beyond standard factors of social cognitive theory. Second, having determined the major modifiable factors contributing to binge-television watching, the authors proposed that binge-watching should be defined as watching two or more episodes of the same television show in one sitting. Third, to get the clear meaning of binge-watching, and separate it from the standard sports watching, the authors proposed that binge-watching should be confined to watching multiple episodes of the same television show. Thus, suggesting that, for it to be considered binge-watching, one must have watched three consecutive episodes of many other episodes of the same television show.

Strengths/Weaknesses and Conclusions

There are two major strengths of this article. First, it is the first study ever conducted to investigate theoretical correlates of this social issue, binge television watching. Therefore, it presents icebreaking insights upon which many other future studies shall build. Second, the article provides self-reported findings from the target respondents. Therefore, the data presented can be considered as specific, measurable, attainable, and realistic.

Nevertheless, the research also had a few weaknesses. First, the data collected during this study were cross-sectional. Therefore, more prospective or experimental research design would be necessary for well-rounded findings. Second, the study employed a self-reporting strategy which might be susceptible to bias. There is room for future studies to conduct more objective measures of binge television watching.

The authors conclude this article by pointing out the following. First, that apart from social cognitive factors, binge television watching is also associated with automaticity, anticipated regret, as well as perceptions of goal conflict. Second, they recommend coming up with suitable interventions to reduce time spent in binge television watching as an effective strategy for achieving behavior change.

Critical Evaluation

In this article, the authors have presented three main ideas. First, they have come up with the formal definition of binge-watching. According to Walton-Pattison et al. (2018), binge television watching is the watching of two or more consecutive episodes of the television show in a single sitting. Second, the authors have determined the estimated binge television watching frequency. According to the study carried out by Walton-Pattison et al. (2018), the respondents binge-watched at least once every week. Third, the authors also identified three main modifiable correlates of binge television watching. The three correlates include automaticity, goal conflict, and anticipated regret.

The article documents high-quality research work given that the study was based on primary data collected from self-reported respondents. Therefore, the findings can be said to be specific and reliable. Primary data is the original data collected from the specific target population. The study employed questionnaires for collecting data from respondents. Questionnaire is one of the primary methods of data collection. Hence, the data presented is original.

The study presented by this article is relevant in contemporary society since binge-watching has become one of the societal concerns. Problems experienced by people such as poor quality sleep or insomnia, obesity, among others, can be attributed to binge-watching because it limits time for physical body exercise. Apart from that, the findings have been well presented in a clear and concise manner.

The article has two main strengths. First, it provides relevant insights that are important for informing further studies. Second, the article provides self-reported findings from the target respondents. Therefore, the data presented can be considered as specific, measurable, attainable, and realistic. The two main weaknesses of this study are that the data presented are cross-sectional and susceptible to bias due to self-reporting strategy employed during the study.

Conclusion

Binge-watching has become a new social behavior where people watch two or more consecutive episodes of the same television show. It consumes a lot of time, thereby, impairing other vital activities such as physical body exercise, house chores, among others. Many people binge-watch at least once per week, making this behavior recurrent. Binge-watching is associated with not only social cognitive factors but also automaticity, anticipated regret, and goal conflict. The article has enriched our knowledge about the underlying causes of some of the social problems we see today, such as insomnia, obesity, among others. Therefore, suitable interventions targeting binge-watching should be designed to reduce sedentary social behavior.

Reference

Walton-Pattison, E.,Dombrowski, S. U., &Presseau, J. (2018). 'Just one more episode': Frequency and theoretical correlates of television binge-watching. Journal of health psychology, 23(1), 17-24.