Binge viewers forget the detail, says neuroscience expert.
Watching an episode a week is a more satisfying experience for viewers who have time to process it.
- Published by David Knox
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Viewers who binge TV shows have less memory recall on their details than those who watch an episode once a week, according to one expert.
Dr Jared Cooney Horvath, an expert in educational neuroscience at the University of Melbourne, told ABC Radio “You have maybe 72 hours and then your memory for everything starts to tank.
“Whereas, if you watch a show once a night or once a week … your memory for everything increases, it actually gets better.”
He said sleeping between episodes gave your brain time to consolidate the information.
“So when you come back the next day to watch something, it’s actually fresher in your mind than when you sit down and try to do it all at once.”
Binge watching affects both a person’s ability to recall plot details and their capacity to recognise characters and locations.
“They’ll [only] remember that one big event in the show — such-and-such died or the building exploded.”
His conclusions were sparked by students who binge watched videos of university lectures before exams, having less recall.
“What you see is the people who watch one a night or one a week tend to enjoy the show far more than the people who binge it,” he said.
3 Responses
I would say if you’re watching a show weekly you are only remembering the detail you need to in order to stay interested on the show – and as soon as you watch the next episode that is replaced with new detail to remember until the next one and so on. With binging there is no need. Just finished the season of Wentworth last night watching weekly and I would say I remember the major plot lines not all the main points and I dare say that would be the same binging or not.
Another point that could be argued is that if you don’t remember all the detail, you’re more likely to watch a show again later as a repeat – and isn’t that what they want you to do anyway?
I read his science paper all in one go. I can’t remember much about it but it was something to do with binge-watching TV affecting people’s recall of finer detail. Oh, and The Freak died… or am I confusing it with something else?
Is it always about the detail? And is the level of enjoyment necessarily tied to the amount of information you consolidate?
It’s TV – I’d argue that its rarely about the detail. 90% of it is caricatured representations, to the point where what little detail is left isn’t necessary to remember – you can derive it from the gross structure.
Take away the detail, and the enjoyment can come just as much from letting the mindless pap flow over you mindlessly (aka “Binge-watching”).
And that’s leaving aside the loaded question of how much TV watching is ‘enjoyment’ and how much is ‘habit’…