The magnitude of binge watching

Back in our February issue in the article Staying in is the new going out; welcome to Generation Homebody, we mentioned that binge watching was one of the activities keeping people home. Then in the article Binge watching is for lovers in the next month's issue, we reported that research is finding that couples that binge watch together stay together.

So just how prevalent is binge watching? New research by YouGov has found that binge watching is the new normal for Americans with 58% of Americans binge watching. Almost one half (48%) binge watch three or more episodes of the same show at one sitting.

Binge watchers are divided on their reasons for preferring to consume as much of a show at once as possible. The suspense of waiting a week to find out what happens drives 48% to binge watch. The fear of spoilers was a factor for 28%. The most popular reason for binging was seeing the whole story at once (59%).