Binge-Watching Netflix Is Making You Lonely And Depressed

I love Sunday?mornings, spent in bed until 1pm, watching House of Cards or Friends or some other show that catches my attention. I also enjoy nights, at home and relaxing, with a movie playing and a quiet drink in hand. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

There’s nothing wrong with relaxing, you work hard, you deserve it. There is however a problem when that relaxing turns into full seasons in one sitting. A sedentary lifestyle is an unhealthy one, and can cut years off of your life.

Turns out there’s another negative involved with this lifestyle–loneliness and depression. A study in the Huffington Post shows that those negative emotions are directly related to binge-watching:

The researchers conducted a survey on over 300 millennials, asking how often and how much they watched TV, how often they felt lonely, and examining various measures of depression and self-regulation. Those who lacked self-regulatory skills reported being unable to stop clicking “next” even though they knew there were other things they needed to do, indicating a lack of self-control. The data also showed that feelings of loneliness and depression were directly correlated with binge-watching.

So if that time to unwind at the end of the day is starting to turn into late nights of reruns and weekends of full-season streaming, it might be time to break the loop and?go get some socializing done! Read the rest of the article for more information about the study.