Netflix is a part of our every day lives.
Bored and need something to do? Netflix.
Feel like catching up on a movie you never got around to seeing earlier? Netflix.
Have a free weekend to binge on a whole season of something or other? Netflix.
Just looking for a chill night on the couch? Netflix.
I'm pretty sure there are some severe illnesses that could be cured by Netflix at this point. That's how often we go to the well and rely on Netflix to melt our troubles away.
The problem with such a dependency issue though is that there are other areas of our lives that then suffer, falling into afterthought territory so we can make sure we saw AREA 51, even though we didn't really want to see it, but hey… it was there.
And a new study is pointing out all the things we've shoved onto the backburner in order to make room for more Netflix in our daily routine.
Right now, the average Netflix subscriber watches about 90 minutes of streaming content per day. (See… viewing habits have changed.) Now that might not seem like a lot until you understand all the things we are doing throughout our day that are consuming far less time – things like eating (only 70 minutes), childcare (25 minutes) and sex (almost 2 minutes).
Yep, we are doing more Netflix than doing it.
Only three things top Netflix on the list as far as what we spend more time on, with sleeping and working (500+ and 300+ minutes respectively) the obvious frontrunners. "All other leisure activities" also managed to get higher in the study, clocking in at nearly 200 minutes, but we all know that such activities are typically talking about all the things you still need to see on Netflix, so it might as well be the same thing.
I'm a solutions-oriented guy, so I say we should get some of these numbers up in order to make our American society more well-rounded. Forget about some nice slow jams. Have sex with Netflix on. It'll at least help intimacy match those PORTLANDIA numbers. We only read about 49 minutes out of our day, so every once in awhile, select a foreign film with subtitles out of your queue and get those averages up.
Needless to say, we're watching a lot of Netflix, and there isn't anything wrong with that. We should just be figuring out ways to do more of some of the other stuff that would typically be important to a human being's existence, too. It's a difficult balance to find, but one that might benefit us all in the long run.
How much Netflix are you typically watching?