The Student News Site of Quinnipiac University

The Quinnipiac Chronicle

The Student News Site of Quinnipiac University

The Quinnipiac Chronicle

The Student News Site of Quinnipiac University

The Quinnipiac Chronicle

Netflix Addiction

No matter how much of a workload you have, the majority of college students today will find time to open their laptop, plug in their headphones and dive into a Hollywood movie or show.

One episode leads to the next, and before you know it, four hours have gone by. None of your homework is finished none and you didn’t get any studying done.

It is your best friend when you are bored, don’t have much work and your roommates are too busy for you, but it is your worst nightmare when you have a paper to finish but you are procrastinating.

And you know it is bad when your friends ask to hang out after class but you know you have the next episode of House of Cards waiting for you.

And let’s be honest. When you sit down for one episode of a show you know it is not just one episode.

Netflix has this fancy trick where after one episode finishes, the next one just magically appears for you and you don’t even have to click anything to made it work.

For the Netflix creators, kudos to you because I know it makes me keep watching. And I know those hour long episodes of House of Cards episodes starting immediately makes me keep watching. Also keeps me up much later in the night and the next day I’m complaining about no sleep.

So now for the big question. Yes everyone uses Netflix in college, but is Netflix really an addiction?

According to Psychology today, symptoms of an addiction include the following.

No. 1, the inability to limit use beyond need leading to clinically significant impairment. OK, a little extreme but there are so many times where you know all you want to do is run back to your bed after class and watch a good two or more hours of your favorite show.

No. 2, a craving or compulsion. A couple weeks without Netflix when you know there are more episodes of your show online, you begin to get ancy. Winter break and you worked for a week straight, you are begging to go back to school just to watch Netflix.

And No. 3, recurrent use causes you to need more to get the same desired effect. At first just watching 30 minutes of Netflix was okay, but now you can’t close your laptop screen without at least watching an hour.

Am I addicted to Netflix? Maybe. Honestly I don’t have as much time to watch it as I would actually like, but I have and heard stories from friends and other students on campus talking about their battles with their netflix addictions.

So there you have it. Netflix is an addiction. Not drugs or alcohol, but a Netflix addiction in college I guess is a better road to go down.

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