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Sales account representative Adam Searl enjoys a variety of active and relaxing hobbies during his personal time. Alongside snowboarding and playing team sports, Adam Searl also spends time binge-watching series from Netflix and HBO.
Streaming services have popularized binge-watching by releasing whole seasons of new content at once, which enables people to watch a show over multiple days, rather than several months. This compressed and on-demand viewing time has impacted how content creators approach storytelling.
In traditional media, the viewer experience was also often interrupted by commercial breaks. To minimize the temptation to channel surf during these periods, writers had to incorporate multiple cliffhangers in each episode, which could result in sometimes preposterous events or situations. However, services like Netflix and HBO eliminate many of these obstacles, which has freed writers and directors to allow plots to unfold more naturally.
Viewers remain engaged throughout the entire episode, which heightens the sense of immersion and the desire to keep watching. Likewise, since audiences are more likely to watch episodes back to back, series creators can more effectively incorporate complex narratives and timelines that require the viewer to retain more information about the fictional universe.
