How Real Is A Netflix Addiction? Should You Fight It? Do You Need Therapy? Or Should You Just Give In To Online Binge-Watching?

Plenty of businesses have been pushed to the brink or gone under since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Not the popular online streaming platform Netflix, which instead gained millions of new subscribers and has been doing quite well on the stock market, despite the fact that they do have trouble getting new seasons of pretty much every show out to their loyal viewers. 

Whether you were one of the many brand new customers or you'd already been immersed in online streaming before the world as we know it was so suddenly transformed, you are most definitely not alone if you've been spending way more time glued to Netflix and similar services in recent times. You might even have been a binge-watching pro before you ever heard the word "coronavirus". 

How we cope with stress: Fight, flight, and escapism

Adults in developed western nations were already under significant levels of stress — often caused by their jobs, financial worries, relationship troubles, health, and even (perhaps ironically in the context of this article) "media overload". The stress we're all routinely exposed to has only grown exponentially more serious since the pandemic kicked off. 

Ideally, we find healthy ways to cope with serious stress: eating well, sleeping enough, exercising regularly, trying to eliminate our stressors and problem-solving in creative ways, and of course leaning on our friends and family for support. Tackling stress head-on would be a healthy representation of the "fight" in "fight vs flight". Fight can also become unhealthy, in the form of externalizing your stress by taking it out on others, for instance. 

We can't, however, always fight or change the sources of stress in our lives, and at that point, we can also choose "flight" — escapism. You've got any number of emotionally and physically dangerous forms of escapism to choose from as you try to get away from the stress in your life:

• Simply pretending nothing changed and sticking your proverbial head in the sand.
• Passively blaming someone or something else for the source of your stress, often in unproductive and even hateful ways.
• Turning to alcohol, or drugs, or both. 

You can also escape into a different world. 

The concept of escapist entertainment — then television, cinema, and very much even radio — has been around since at least the 1950s, when the world was facing a tough period of rebuilding after World War Two. Research has described this kind of media consumption as a way to temporarily run from our daily worries. At least for a time, we can immerse ourselves in someone else's world. We can experience the joy of schadenfreude as we follow someone in a much worse situation, imagine we're reveling in some utopia, or simply just get a break from our own daily reality. 

Today, Netflix, Hulu, and similar online streaming programs, where we can often watch whole seasons of our favorite shows in one go (if it were a full-time job, we could all happily work overtime), fill that role. Online gaming experiences, of course, join streaming in offering us a way out of this COVID-19-ridden world. 

What are the clinical symptoms of addiction?

While Netflix, binge-watching, and generally spending a lot of time with online streaming platforms aren't the worst way to escape an unpleasant reality that we can't really inherently change, this form of escapism can turn into a problem. The fifth edition of the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5) offers no diagnostic criteria for a "Netflix addiction", of course, but that doesn't mean you can be facing one, in an informal sense of that term. 

The diagnostic criteria for addictions are rather similar across the board, whether we're talking about substance addictions (addictions to alcohol and drugs) or behavioral addictions (for instance, shopping or gambling). These universal symptoms of addiction can certainly help you determine whether or not you have an addition-like relationship with online streaming.

Here, we'll replace words like "cocaine", "alcohol", and "gambling" with "Netflix":

• Do you spend more time engaging with Netflix than you wanted to or planned to, more often than you would like?
• Have you tried to quit Netflix or reduce the time you spend consuming online streaming platforms, only to find that you couldn't?
• Do you spend a significant amount of time watching shows or movies, thinking about Netflix even when you are not watching it, trying to get access to Netflix, or recovering from your latest Netflix binge?
• When you can't watch Netflix, do you feel anxious or restless until you get your fix? In other words, would you say you experience cravings?
• Do you continue watching too much Netflix even though it harms your productivity, social relationships, physical fitness, or emotional wellbeing? 

If you can answer "yes" to most of these questions (and please — do be honest with yourself), you are displaying addiction-like behaviors. 

A Netflix or streaming addiction could well join a whole list of related addictions recognized by various research studies but not officially included in any diagnostic criteria anywhere. These probably-real-but-not-official behavioral addictions include gaming addiction, smartphone addiction, social media addiction, and of course the umbrella term to cover it all — internet addiction. 

Has your online streaming habit become a problem?

Is your binge-watching a problem, or merely an intensive hobby? The amount of time you spend watching shows and movies online isn't the only factor that plays a role in determining the nature of your relationship with Netflix, Hulu, or wherever you get your fix. 

You likely don't have a psychological problem with Netflix if:

• You only watch things you are genuinely excited to watch. 
• You are perfectly happy and able to meet your daily responsibilities. 
• Netflix hasn't become your sole way to cope with stress.
• You watch Netflix out of boredom, yes, but if you had something better to do, you would — in an instant. 
• You engage in intelligent discussions about the things you watch with people, using Netflix and online streaming platforms as a launch pad for social connections.

You may have a problem if:

• You watch Netflix even when you really don't want to, quite compulsively. 
• You have work to do, actual people in your life you need to care for or socialize with, and chores to complete — but because you spend all your time watching Netflix, you don't do those things.
• You perceive Netflix to be the only good thing in your life right now.
• You actively use Netflix as a tool to stick your head in the sand about problems in your life that you could fight in productive ways.