Netflix And Isolation Analysis

Remembering the hard times before Netflix is extremely difficult and many may not even recall the horrifying tragedy that was waiting an entire week until the next episode comes out. Only 90’s kids will remember how difficult it was to wait 6 months after the intense cliffhanger of one season to the exciting premier of the next. In 1997, Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph founded a company that would soon change the way movies and television shows are watched. Over 86 million people are subscribed to Netflix, and this does not include account sharing between several viewers. Sidneyeve Matrix (2013), a writer about young cultures, noted, “In 2013… 63% of households in the United States used a video streaming and delivery service such as Hulu, Netflix,
or Amazon Prime” (p. 119). Netflix is used by households everywhere, and this is not bad. Watching Netflix can lead to many things, such as a broader imagination, a greater understanding of the universe, or knowledge of topics in which one would not previously be interested in. Netflix could also lead one down darker paths like loss of friends, or even sociopathy. Netflix creates sociopaths because people who watch Netflix binge watch, which causes isolation, which leads to a false sense of reality, which leads to antisocial behavior. Everyone has fallen victim to binge watching, whether it be a Harry Potter marathon on ABC or a House Hunters marathon on HGTV. With Netflix however, a new era of binge watching has risen. No commercials, no breaks, no problems. A person can watch Grey’s Anatomy for 6 hours if they really wanted to and they would not even have to lift a finger. Every personality type can find a show that fulfills their binge watching needs, as Netflix has over 1,000 shows. History fanatics, drama fiends, or classic movie watchers all have a place in the Netflix database. This is awesome in moderation, but at some point there becomes an issue. Watching too much Netflix can lead to a loss of motivation physically, emotionally, and socially.
Isolation can be okay if the person realizes that being social and getting work done is still important. For many however, watching 6 hours of Grey’s in the comfort of a bed can easily outweigh going out to coffee to do homework with peers. Isolation is defined by a list of attributes that describe what a person who is isolated may look like. These attributes include having a social network that is not stable or quality, no sense of belonging or need in society, and a lack of meaningful interaction with others. Fundamentally, isolation is the opposite of socialization (Leming, 2016). Isolation and solitude are two things that need to be differentiated between by the person who is having the issue. What may seem like solitude to them, may actually be isolation. Others around the person may notice this as well, and that is when watching Netflix can become a big issue. When an isolated person starts to forget about the outside world, their reality starts to become
altered. With no contact to the outside world, it is easy to become so engulfed by a show that a false sense of reality starts to set in. Someone’s own personality might start to mirror that of the main character’s personality. They might start thinking like them, talking like them. They might forget about real world problems, rules, and norms. Watching The Office could possibly make the viewer think that acting like Michael Scott as a boss is okay. Or maybe watching a show like Dexter might make the viewer forget that while Dexter might be able to easily get away with these murders, a regular person cannot. Grey’s Anatomy is another perfect example of this. Many people think they understand or know the medical field after watching the show. This can be troublesome because if something happens in real life, the person might tell others that they are a professional medical person when they are not. It’s all possible with someone who has lost touch with true reality. A false sense of reality can lead to behaviors that stray from the acceptable norms of society.
Antisocial behavior is a serious disorder that can stem from several circumstances. Ignoring friends and not going out is one thing, but becoming someone who completely disregards the norms of society is another. Antisocial behavior is really just behavior that disregards the norms of society in terms of emotional stability, remorse, and disregard for laws or social standards. Being antisocial also means that a person is not empathetic towards others in any way, i.e. ditching friends, making plans and not fulfilling them etc. Arizona State University Psychologists Paul Miller and Nancy Eisenberg (1988) examined that “a history of antisocial behavior is the result of a deficiency in perspective taking” (p. 326). Those who fail to put themselves in others’ shoes to understand how they might feel about the situation are showing signs of antisocial behavior. So here is the real question of it all: how does this lead to sociopathy? Of course, there are only a small amount of cases that would genuinely become sociopaths from this, but it is possible. A sociopath is someone who does not conform to the norms of society in a bad way. For example, sociopaths often find pleasure in torturing small animals like cats or squirrels. The symptoms of sociopathy and antisocial behavior are very similar. “Morally disengaged” is a phrase that Scott Risser and Kathy Eckert (2016) of Montana Tech
University used many times in describing the relationship between the two disorders. The two are quite the same, except sociopathy is far more extreme and could lead to severe consequences. Many well-known serial killers are sociopaths, or some form of it. It is hard to fathom, but this is how watching Netflix too much can lead to sociopathy. Of course, millions of people watch Netflix every day, but it does not affect their daily lives or emotional stability. The reason this could be an issue though, is because many people have a predisposed biological makeup that could lead them to becoming someone who has a mental disorder. While sociopathy is not something that is hereditary or biological, psychopathy is. Sociopathy usually stems from experiences or chain of events, but psychopathy can be rooted into someone’s brain without them even knowing. It is estimated that psychopaths make up 1% of the world’s population. This may seem like a minute number of people, but if 40 million people watch Netflix daily, this means that .005% of the world’s population is watching Netflix daily. Multiplying 1% by .005% lets us find the percent of 40 million that could be a psychopath. This number is about 21,000 people that watch Netflix daily. That is a significant number, so for someone to say watching Netflix could not cause the chain of spiraling that a predisposed person needs to become a sociopath or psychopath is absurd. If this is true, that Netflix can cause sociopathy, Netflix subscriptions would plummet. This could mean that people might get evaluated to see if they are predisposed to being a sociopath, and self-fulling prophecies could occur. This could mean that Netflix might set viewing limits so people cannot binge watch. This could mean so many things, so it is important to understand that binge watching Netflix is great, but in moderation of course. It is an oxymoron by any standard, but people need to help themselves. Becoming isolated from their friends and family is extremely unhealthy, and if the young people of today continue down this path, we may have a lot more sociopaths on our hands than ever before.