Binge-watching series — why ‘one more episode’ turns into four

Binge-watching series isn’t a problem in itself — watching several episodes of something you enjoy is one of life’s simplest pleasures. It becomes a problem when it happens against your will: when you’ve decided to watch just one episode and find yourself looking up at the clock at two in the morning. What happens then isn’t a weakness but a design choice. The next episode starts automatically, and each episode ends with a question that demands an answer. The solution is to decide where the evening ends before it begins.

Autoplay shifts the decision

In the past, every new episode required an action. You had to change the disc, wait a week or at least press a button. Each such action was a moment when you could ask yourself whether you wanted to continue.

Autoplay turns that on its head. With a countdown of a few seconds, the next episode starts if you do nothing. Continuing becomes the default choice, and stopping becomes the only thing that requires an active decision — made by a person who is tired, relaxed and in the middle of a story. It’s the same principle that makes endless feeds difficult to leave, something described in more detail in the article on quitting TikTok.

The cliffhanger is designed to keep you hooked

As early as the 1920s, the psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik described how unfinished tasks linger in the memory and mind more vividly than completed ones. The strength and reliability of this phenomenon have since been debated, but the basic idea — that something unfinished captures our attention — is one that storytellers have been using long before anyone measured it.

A cliffhanger is a deliberately interrupted narrative. The episode ends just before the question is answered, and the unease caused by the unfinished nature of the story is strong enough that the next episode feels like a relief rather than a choice. Combined with autoplay, you have two forces pulling in the same direction: it costs nothing to carry on, and it feels uncomfortable to stop.

What this does to sleep

Sleep is usually the one that pays the price. Liese Exelmans and Jan Van den Bulck asked adults about their viewing habits and sleep. Those who binge-watched more often reported poorer sleep quality and greater tiredness the following day. The explanation they found was not just that they went to bed late, but that their brains were more wound up when they went to bed — the tension of the story followed them into bed.

The study is based on questionnaires and shows a correlation, not a cause-and-effect relationship. It may be that people who already sleep poorly watch more. But the pattern matches what most people recognise: after four exciting episodes, it’s hard to fall asleep, even if you’re tired. Why evenings so easily drag on, even without TV series, is explained in the article on putting off bedtime.

Decide when to stop before you start

The most important change is to make the decision before the first episode starts, whilst you’re still thinking clearly.

Turn off autoplay. Most services have a setting for this. Then every new episode becomes a decision again, and that’s all you need.

Decide on the number in advance and say it out loud. “Two episodes, then brush my teeth.” It sounds trivial, but a rule decided before the story has drawn you in is easier to follow than one you have to decide in the middle of it.

Stop in the middle of an episode, not at the end. It sounds counterintuitive, but the end of an episode is where the cliffhanger lies. If you switch it off partway through the next episode, during a quiet scene, the pull is weaker.

Set a time, not just a number. If you know you want to go to bed at eleven, count down. If it’s a quarter to eleven when the episode ends, that’s it.

When it’s not a habit

Binge-watching a series you’ve been looking forward to at the weekend is nothing to worry about. It’s worth changing your habits when it happens against your will, when it robs you of the sleep you need, or when it becomes a way of avoiding thinking about something else. It’s worth being honest about the latter: TV series are an effective way to escape a feeling, and that escape only works whilst the episodes are playing. The full picture of how screens take over the evening can be found in the guide on how to stop scrolling.

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