Photo by Cory Wyman ’16 – Binge-watching has become an increasingly common pastime of both students and teachers.

By Graham Armknecht ‘18
THE ROUNDUP

Today, TV and movie streaming sites dominate web usage as more and more students are starting to binge watch new shows that have just come out, and old favorites.

According to The Wrap, a website that reports on entertainment news and statistics, 70 percent of Internet traffic in North America is from TV and movie streaming sites. The largest streaming site, Netflix, accounts for 37.1 percent of Internet traffic in North America.

Last spring break, students had a large chunk of time to watch what they wanted.

Shane Kirshner ‘16 had his wisdom teeth removed over the break, leaving him bedridden for the majority of the week. Naturally, he needed something to do without leaving the house.

“I’d gotten my wisdom teeth out and I had nothing to do, so I decided to watch ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,’” Kirshner said. “It was a pretty legendary binge watch session. But one other session that came close was me, Cade [Knox ‘16], and a bunch of ice cream binged two seasons of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ in three days.”

Some people binge watch out of necessity. Whether it be to not have the newest season of “House of Cards” spoiled, or because everyone is talking about it and people like to be included.

Shows are a huge source of conversation on campus, and the majority of people won’t give much time to catch up before they talk about spoilers.

Mr. Ian Munro said he was tired of being behind in the conversation of “Lost.”

“When ‘Lost’ came out when I was in college, I missed the whole first season,” Mr. Munro said. “I went home for the holidays and all of my friends were talking about ‘Lost.’ One of my friends had the DVD set of season one and I watched every episode in 24 hours.”

While some people need to put aside time for a binge watch session, some people multitask and binge as they work on something else.

Zach Mattson ‘18 has two screens that he uses at the same time.

In an email to The Roundup, he said he uses his Mac for homework and his iPad to watch shows and movies at the same time.

He said that his most epic binge watch session was watching two seasons of “Revolution” in a single day.