Binge watching TV shows might be making you depressed :(

By Heaps Gay Staff

Shows like Game Of Thrones and Breaking Bad are the crack cocaine of television. You’ll sit there for hours upon hours, eyes fixated on the screen, in a zombie-like state, staring at Omar Little robbing drug dealers or Walter White in a state of panic.

In fact, in the aftermath of an epic Mardi Gras, I’ve been bingeing on the latest season of House Of Cards, just out on Netflix.

If you were to observe somebody on a TV marathon without the knowledge there was a television or computer screen in front of them, you’d think they were in some kind of drug induced trance.

And what’s something that often results from excessive drug consumption? Depression! Yay!

In a recent study conducted at the University Of Texas, researchers found that people who binged on television suffered higher rates of depression, loneliness and an inability to control their behaviour.

So next time you interrupt your housemate’s third hour of an L-Word marathon, you’ll know why she goes absolutely mental and starts throwing stuff at you.

“Our… research shows that those who feel more depressed tend to watch more programs,” said Yoon Hi Sung, the lead researcher in the study.

Proving the connection between depression and binge watching is difficult right now – the habit of consuming entire seasons of a show in the space of one weekend is a relatively recent phenomenon. There’s also a bit of a chicken/egg situation here; people prone to depression and isolation are naturally going to be more likely to sit in front of a screen all week rather than going out and meeting people.

Another study on binge watching conducted last year, Media Bingeing: A Qualitative Study of Psychological Influences, came to one particularly interesting conclusion when determining why people become addicted to HBO or Netflix: people form genuine relationships with the characters.

“The results propose the forming of one-sided, unconscious bonds between viewers and characters. We believe this bond is one of the main factors influencing bingeing behaviours,” Raj Devasagayam, the author of the study, noted.

So next time you’re girlfriend she’s in love with Daenerys Targaryen, she might not actually be joking.