Binge-watching is bad for sleep, science says so

In a world where the availability of online streaming television content is boundless, the binge-watchingor the prolonged viewing of a large number of episodes of the same TV series in a single session, it is an increasingly popular pastime among adolescents and young adults.

“Are you still there?”
“Yes, Netflix. It’s only 2 in the morning. Don’t ask me again and start the next episode of Wednesdaythat tomorrow I have a wake-up call at 7 and I have no time to waste”.

For some years now, these “binges” of episodes have become research object by psychologists and sociologists who study, in a manner empiricalthe different ones causes of binge-watching and its possible negative effects on mental health of spectators. From the scientific literature on the subject emerges, in particular, an association between binge-watching and five forms of mental distress: depression, loneliness, anxiety, stress and sleep problems.

The relationship between poor sleep quality and binge-watching was also explored in a recent study conducted by some Italian researchers from the La Sapienza University of Rome and the University of Parma, who conducted an experiment involving about 460 participants. The results of this work – where the first signature is by Valentina Alfonsi, a PhD student at the La Sapienza University of Rome – have highlighted a relationship between a specific type of binge-watching, which the authors define problematicand sleep problems.

Not a bundle of all the grass

Before delving into the results of this study, it is good to specify that binge-watching it’s a phenomenon heterogeneous and multidimensional which does not necessarily imply the existence of a behavioral addiction or mental health problem.

Scientific evidence they show, in fact, that there may be behind these television marathons a wide range of reasons. In some cases, binge-watching is aharmless habit which arises from the desire for entertainment, curiosity and social integration. In short, having a feast of episodes from time to time does not necessarily imply that there is a problem.
Conversely, binge-watching becomes a problematic model of relationship with the television medium when it turns into one strategy to fight loneliness, escape negative emotions ed escape from an unpleasant reality. Some studies have shown that for those who use the content offered by streaming platforms to overcome annoying or stressful life experiences, binge-watching risks taking on the contours of a dependence behavioral, negatively affecting mental well-being and the ability to concentration.

Sleepers don’t watch Netflix

The one conducted by Alfonsi and co-authors is the first study to have investigated the correlation between sleep deprivation and binge-watching in all its complexitythus distinguishing between the pathological and the healthy dimension of this pastime. Through a series of special questionnaires, each participant in the experiment was asked to evaluate and report their own relationship with television and streaming platformsthe level of emotional and psychological well-being and the quality of sleep.