How Netflix Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Binge

Binge is not a particularly positive word – binge eating and binge drinking come to mind as just a few poor applications of the term. But with a new survey, Netflix is embracing what everybody sort of knew, deep-down: binge-watching is A-OK.

Binge is not a particularly positive word – binge eating and binge drinking come to mind as just a few poor applications of the term. But with a new survey, Netflix is embracing what everybody sort of knew, deep-down: binge-watching is A-OK.

Because guilt and stress be damned: According to a new survey by Harris Interactive, 61 percent of users say they binge watch regularly, where the term is defined as two to three episodes of a single TV series in one setting. On top that, 73 percent see binge watching as a positive thing. The Wall Street Journal said that many are still tweeting about their binge-watching, sheepish on this social media walk of shame.

Despite the term's ubiquity, Netflix brass sort of hated when people talking about "binge-watching" a show, but they recently surrendered. "We've never been able to come up with a better euphemism," Netflix spokesman Jonathan Friedland told Journal.

And do you watch alone? Well, FOMO no mo'! Thirty-eight percent of those surveyed said they binge-watched by themselves, though they said 51 percent would have rather had someone else there with them. Seventy-nine percent say binge-watching actually makes the show better.

That's an especially easy statement to make since Netflix stock has enjoyed its biggest year ever on the heels of three original series loosed to the world all at once: House of Cards, Orange Is The New Black, and the fourth season of Arrested Development.

So celebrate the results of this lifestyle-affirming survey this weekend by breaking out the sweatpants and rewatching all two seasons of Sherlock, which airs new episodes on BBC on New Year's Day (Jan. 19 on PBS) and just came out with a trailer, in case anticipation wasn't already high enough.