This was the theme of the Gavel Club’s meeting in Dubai. The Gavel club is designed for teenager’s and I’m glad I can talk about something relatable to the younger generation.
Having a meeting with bunch of teenagers it has a different vibe for me. I am realizing that time is changing and people are evolving. That is an undeniable fact.
We are all interacting with media in different ways. From what I remember my childhood was me holding a tangible book and learning to read and then learning about different topics. Meanwhile today’s generation have grown up interacting kindle and e-books. While I had a bookcase for my books, the kids of this generation have access to thousands of e-books in their IPad. My mind was blown when I discovered e-books. But now it is not only books that are available on the IPad or your computer. We have now access to a plethora of TV shows and movies at our finger tips.
When I came across the term binge watching and I had to learn all about it. What is binge watching all about? Immediately I opened my google and checked the meaning. To my surprise it was something that I have been participating in without knowing the meaning of it!
Binge watching is a term defined by Netflix, one of the world’s largest video streaming services. It means watching 2-6 episode of the same production in a single sitting. The term ‘binge-watching’ made it to the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year short list in 2013. This type of behavior has had a central role in the lives of many consumers of media including mine.
Binge Watching is something which I have been unknowingly participating in over the past few years especially during the pandemic. Be it a web series on Netflix, Amazon Prime or even YouTube.
After learning the term, I realized that life is moving by so quickly and our attention span has changed so much. My mind went back into time during 1990’s where any series we use to watch on TV was an event. We used to wait for a week to watch an episode once and probably not ever seeing it again. We always come back to same channel weekly to see what is happening next in the series. The suspense of what will happen next in the story kept us driven. I realized that the current life of teenager moves fast. They are always curious and impatiently want to grow up faster than ever. They have grown up in such an environment that every episode is on their fingertips, suspense is short-lived, and characters are loved and then forgotten. If you are an avid binge watcher can you name all the characters from all your favorite shows?
Binge Watching has been molding the minds of teenagers. When you watch a web series in one go, you are being entertained and experiencing the release of a lot of serotonin and dopamine in a short period of time. Binge watching can give you an escape to multiple worlds and experience unique stories, whether it’s a drama, comedy, science fiction or fantasy.
But do you think Binge watching be has had a positive and negative impact? It is a term used in association to loneliness and depression when you are sitting with your favorite web series without realizing the change in time, behavior patterns and habits of eating and drinking. I think that is an entirely different topic to dive into.
This concept of binge watching inspired me to illustrate binge watcher and created digital art. However, personally I feel binge watching has been a great way for me to escape to a new world and live through characters that often have rather exciting and dramatic stories that I sometimes wouldn’t like to deal with in real life.
Thank you.
Pari Sagar
www.parisagar.com
