Abstract
In recent years, binge-watching becomes a highly popular way of spending free time. Even though binge-watching usually is related to entertainment, there are concerns about some negative and unhealthy outcomes of excessive form of this behavior. The study examined the predictive value of anxiety-depressive syndrome in explaining the symptoms of problematic binge-watching and the tendency to adopt a specific motivation to watch series. Research group consists of 645 Polish young adults. The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Depression Measurement Questionnaire, Viewing Motivation Scale, and Questionnaire of Excessive Binge-Watching were used in this study. The results of the path analysis show that anxiety-depressive syndrome and motivation to watch TV series are the significant factors in the manifestation of all symptoms of problematic binge-watching. Moreover, there is a significant relation between anxiety-depressive syndrome and motivation to watch TV series, which especially concerns escape motivation and motivation to deal with loneliness. Furthermore, motivation to deal with loneliness, escape motivation, and motivation to spend free time have mediating effect on the relationship between anxiety-depressive syndrome and problematic binge-watching. Results of this research show that there could be not only normative binge-watching behavior but also unhealthy and problematic form of this behavior.
Highlights
In recent years, there have been numerous changes in the way media is consumed, an example of which is the development of streaming platforms and the growing popularity of bingewatching (Flayelle et al, 2020; Jay, 2021)
No significant direct effect of the anxiety-depressive syndrome on the frequency of binge-watching sessions during 1 month was observed, the results show that it has weak indirect impact through the motivation to spend free time (β = 0.15*) and motivation to deal with loneliness (β = 0.11*)
The results of the analysis show that there is a significant direct impact of the anxiety-depressive syndrome on the symptoms of problematic binge-watching
Summary
There have been numerous changes in the way media is consumed, an example of which is the development of streaming platforms and the growing popularity of bingewatching (Flayelle et al, 2020; Jay, 2021). According to the definition given by Netflix (2013) itself, binge-watching is a phenomenon of watching at least two episodes of a TV series during one session. The phenomenon was defined in this way in this article. It is worth noting, that in the constantly expanding literature on the subject, there are many definitions of this phenomenon, which refer to both the number and length of watched episodes and the way they are consumed (Flayelle et al, 2020). Binge-watching can be a positive way of spending
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