By ETHAN AMASON
Contributing Writer

There is no doubt that Netflix has made an impact in the United States. In fact, Netflix has made a huge impact around the world. Currently there are over 30 million users of Netflix in the United States, over 50 million internationally. Netflix pulls in nearly 4 billion dollars a year. How could a college student not like Netflix? You can stream videos quicker than ever. You don’t have to leave your home to get a movie. You can even get entire seasons of television shows with the click of your finger. For a college student, this is a dream.
Everything about Netflix seems perfect, but some people might disagree. Recently, it seems like the words “Netflix” and “binge watching” go hand-in-hand. Binge watching is defined as someone watching more than two episodes of a show in one sitting. Why does that matter? What’s the big deal with watching Netflix for long periods of time?

College is the issue with watching Netflix all of the time. Students come to college to get an education. It just so happens that when we go to college, many of us have plenty of down time. The issue comes down to what we do with our free time. Is it a bad thing to watch Netflix on your down time? Of course, it is not. The issue comes when you let Netflix become all you do when you have free time. Students become so enticed in Netflix that they begin to forget about their obligations as a student. Since many students say it so hard to watch one episode of a show on Netflix, it seems to be hard to do school work instead of watching Netflix.
Another issue with binge watching Netflix is the privacy of watching. When arriving to college, students are told to focus on networking and getting involved, but it is hard to get involved with college if students are spending much of their time watching Netflix in their rooms.

All students on campus suffer from issues from Netflix. Even students who do not watch Netflix still suffer. The problem is that Netflix streams videos instantly. This uses massive amounts of bandwidth, and this can have a huge effect of the speed of the internet. The more students that stream videos at the same time, the slower the internet. This wouldn’t be a problem at other places, but since this is a college, the Internet is crucial to students and their work.

Professor of mass communications Jennifer Arbitter has her own opinions about Netflix, too.
She said, “Even as a ‘grown up,’ I understand the appeal of binge watching Netflix.”
She even admitted to binge watching Netflix on occasions, too.
She said, “It is so easy to get caught up in watching, it’s like a rabbit hole.”
Most of the time, we don’t even know how much Netflix we have watched.
Arbitter agreed that there is such thing as too much Netflix. She also said she thinks that Netflix has good aspects as well.
She said, “I do like how Netflix has the ability to expose the younger generation to older shows before their time.”
Will college students continue to binge watch Netflix?