Last Tuesday, my plan was quite simple. I finished work, sank into my armchair, and settled in for a show to help me unwind. Little did I know that my day would end with me trying to figure out how to unwind during a particularly stressful time of the year. Tax season was certainly creeping up on me, but it wasn’t all that troublesome.
Fast forward three hours, I was still scrolling. All 7 streaming services were showing the same set of suggestions that over the years had been painfully outdone. I can’t fathom how each and every one of them failed to provide at least reasonable content. After skimming through an almost endless list of offered shows, I turned to the trailers of a few, and was left struggling to find anything of taste.
There I was still with the remote, completely blanking on what I had the pleasure of choosing to view. To my utter astonishment, the time was now 11 PM. Quite an astounding achievement considering I had not watched a single minute of content for the entirety of the evening.
This, dear readers, is the great paradox of our streaming age: when trying to decide something to tune into on a particular night, there is an overwhelming number of options, which in this case is one million. One can only fathom how absurd it would be to instruct kids of this generation to choose a singular song from a mere five available on Youtube—simply ludicrous. I ostalgically remember the good old days when the television had three to four channels and options were limited.
During my free time, I would go ahead and pull a knob on the television set looking for something eye catching and worthwhile. I distinctly recall my friends giving me strange looks when I mentioned I only ever needed to exert eight seconds of mental energy to change the channel. What my friends failed to grasp is the fact that I genuinely preferred watching it this way.
Going through endless options takes far more time, especially when boredom sets in. Back then, although missing out on countless shows did feel a bit off, it is indisputable that the world was a lot more peaceful without all the restrictions. You were still able to enjoy life and comprehend the simplicity of it.
As a part of the executive branch in marketing, I can confidently say that we live in the golden age of content, and even so, the north themed baking shows has all triggered me. What next? Competitive baking in space?
Services like Netflix and Hulu have sprung like weeds in a lawn. They began as a couple of extra options to the cable package and have now transformed to something that charges a monthly fee like bloodsuckers in your checking account. It’s almost like there’s a new service invented each week that allows a monthly deduction from your credit card.
I conducted a review of my subscriptions and to my displeasure, I found out that instead of my previously preferred cable services, I was paying for streaming services – and a lot more. It’s the first time I heard of a subscription TV service, and ditching them due to maintenance fees renders them services anything but perfect. The endless drainage of finances is a cause of concern.
I find it rather astonishing that I have so many subscriptions that I don’t even consider using for months at a time. With some of them, including the delightfully simple, the providers sprinkle concern through its financial costs, but the main reason worried me the most was what one could refer to as cognitive financial spend. In other words, you puzzle over whether you actually want to watch it or not, but to get access you first need to participate in some absurd mental contortion battles, forcing you to engage with stimuli that are beyond outraging, and take a significant toll not just on one’s mind but on our anxious brains.
In the context of calculating the time a single farmer might need to solve streaming night’s marathon disorder, think of it as an equation. The first problem that needs solving first is which service to use next. Each of these, including the simplest, has a uniquely crafted interface metaphorical to a Rubik’s cube and people find navigating through the metadata no easier than figuring out a cube while blindfolded!
Once you have chosen the platform, you are now confronted by a grid of thumbnails that guarantee our attention, but result in a type of paralysis. “Because you watched a documentary about cheddar cheese back in 2019, here’s some Korean Zombie Thriller movies we think you’ll enjoy.” The recommendation does not make sense. Then the analysis phase comes.
How many seasons does this show/cartoon/series have? Was there a cliffhanger ending? (Nothing screams trust issues to me quite like being invested in fictional characters who’s story lines remain unresolved.) Is it well rated on the common platforms? What is the general consensus of those reviews? Do they have a negative, a positive, or a neutral bend? Should I devote attention to watching this now, or later, when I feel like doing something productive, or when I’m in a worse state of headspace/when I’m in a better state of mind? You have done your homework, and now you have customized half the time that you reserved for wait and binge watching the show.
The opportunity cost of my time is extremely high, and now becomes disturbingly low. Somehow, the initial problem begins to accumulate; a small amount of leverage is necessary. This makes sense because of the preposterous selection process you were forced to endure, whatever content was manufactured has to meet the criteria you almost painfully placed.
Economists might label this scenario as “choice overload” or “analysis paralysis.” In a nutshell, you overexert yourself and the available content has to justify your effort. Having too many options complicates the ability to make a decision because mental strain gets so incredibly high that the alternative becomes outright decision avoidance.
This makes me think of a stubborn donkey that eventually dies of starvation after gallantly standing between two haystacks because he can’t decide which he prefers more. To combat this issue, I created this,”Three Minute Rule.” When faced with the challenge of making a selection, I set a personal deadline of three minutes. Should nothing come to mind in 180 seconds, I have a go to comfort show that I always default to which I really enjoy.
It’s like running into an old acquaintance whose tales I’ve spun a million times in my mind yet still get to thoroughly enjoy every single retelling. Are there errors with this method? Yes.This makes me think about other shows that could have been favorites as well. Although, I have ‘saved’ numerous hours that I would have spent otherwise if I didn’t have the time restriction. The paradox of streaming expands much further than personal viewing behavior. It is now changing social patterns on a large scale.
Having a certain television set back then meant being a part of a collective. While owning a set back in the days of network television. You were confident the people around you talk about the episode that aired the previous night during office tea-break. Now, television conversations start with diplomatic caution: “Have you seen…?”
As much as we tend to overuse The Office. I think all of us are busy watching different shows at different time slots. Hence as a global society we tend to fret showing too much of something as they are worried to be shut down. Even when a show gets popular and evolves into a cultural phenomenon, it tends to not last long.
After binge-watching a season over the weekend, we discuss it non-stop for an entire week before completely moving on, similar to how a swarm of locusts voraciously devours everything in sight before shifting focus to new stimuli. Some streaming services have recognized the issue, which is why they reverted to a weekly schedule for selected shows. It is a form of conceding that perhaps the all-you-can-eat buffet approach to reality consumption does not work for everyone.
What remains questionable are the shows themselves. In an industry full of competing services, the paradox of lower quality content emerges. On one end, beautifully crafted programs that were inconceivable during the network era are now available.
We also have the incredibly bad, slapdash, half baked experiments that were poorly executed and scheduled frames of ‘boundless freedom.’
So, recently, I spent an entire night tuning into a particularly dull episode of a show and I must admit, it felt incredibly rude and devoid of all decency at once. I powered through three episodes before conceding that there was no way things were going to get better. The plot was endlessly contrived, the characters were paper thin, and the dialogues felt like they were scripted by a failed AI trained on B-grade soap operas.
What’s of far greater concern is why am I actively engaging in pursuits I so clearly don’t enjoy? For one, I did squander a good 20 minutes on searching for the perfect movie. For two, I’ve read a couple of overly optimistic reviews (which I hope were not authored by someone in deep stress).
I would also say that if I were to change to a different movie, I would have to go through those hellish choices all over again. And there is the downside of the more recent explosion of streaming services: it’s not only the lack of ability to make a decision, but also the self-destructive assumption of benefiting from spending – in this case, streaming – a positive investment, which turns into a parasitic cycle of content addiction. We do not have to fully suspend streaming today and return to the limited options of yesteryear, which exacerbates this issue.
As unreasonably high as the number of TV services might seem, I do believe that the array of content available will continue to expand. What we need to do, however, is implement more effective methods to manage the abundance in a way that’s useful. Starting with Netflix and Amazon Prime, these services could do better at identifying users’ interests, which currently aren’t sophisticated at all.
It is important to improve the searching functionalities of different user accounts so users don’t have to log in every time they look for a different movie. We need to rethink our relationship with these kinds of platforms. There are people trying to solve issues such as overconsumption of digital content.
We should step back and remember that consuming media shouldn’t be stressful. We could take a page from the design of restaurants: The longer the menu, the more intensely people are satisfied, while shorter menus produce much more pleasant satisfaction responses.
Most successful restaurants in the world have a very small number of dishes on the menu, but those few ones are very carefully crafted and curated. Perhaps that would need to be the approach with television: we stop giving so many options and instead provide viewers with a carefully selected limited number of options. Personally, rather than relying on algorithms, I trust my friends and have started to create watchlists based on their recommendations. I also decided to limit myself to three streaming services at a time which I can rotate.
It’s not flawless, but some order has been brought back to my evenings. To unwind at the end of a long day should mean relaxing with a show, not scrolling through numerous options like one is selecting a life partner. One should have the luxury to disengage for a couple of minutes and autoplay something mindless, knowing that seconds later they’re already watching.
If I really have no other choice, there is the cheese documentary. I vaguely remember it being quite amusing.
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