Binge Watching

By Thomas Morrone CFP®, CPA

I hate to admit but I am guilty of binge watching some television shows or made for TV series. In my younger days you were lucky if you had rabbit ears to get better reception. I remember one time we had two TV’s in the same room and they were stacked on top of each other. The reason for this was one TV only had the picture working with no audio. The other did not have any picture and only had the audio. You had to synchronize the two sets. Of course we had fun watching one station while listening to another. It seems so silly now but we were so thrilled to be connected. Then the real big deal was the motorized control to change the direction of the antenna on the roof to get better reception. Then came color television and finally the remote control. We could change channels and adjust volume without ever leaving the couch. Wow that was cool.

Now, to be connected has an entirely different meaning. With a SMART television, the world of Netflix, Amazon video and Hulu are merely a click away. There are so many series that are entertaining where you can sit and watch several episodes in one night and fly through an entire season in just a few sittings. This is much different than having to wait a week for the next episode which can be extremely frustrating. Besides the ability to binge watch shows, being able to fast forward through the commercials is awesome. When watching a regular TV show, it is amazing when forced to watch the commercials how impatient I become at the frequency and the length of the interruptions. Of course, when binge watching and fast forwarding through the unwanted commercial breaks, your quality watching time is increased. Some series can be addicting and binge watching just comes naturally. Of course your taste in entertainment is important. Cathy has some of her own favorites as do I. Of course we have many shows that we enjoy watching together.

As adults, we have two TV’s once again. They are not stacked on top of each other and they are in two different rooms in the house. The picture and audio works on both. They both have remote controls. Life is good and we are all set to binge watch.

Until the Next Tom’s Take...