I admit, I could not resist and had to tear through the new Netflix Daredevil series. What can you expect from a comics geek? Since I did manage to take a few breaks for things like teaching class, doing yard work, writing, and sleeping, I’m not in terrible shape. Plus it’s only 13 episodes, not 22 or 24. But I am thinking about the odd shifts in our viewing habits thanks to things like dvd sets and streaming video services like Netflix.

Binging on a television series is a unique sort of addiction. Our “instant gratification” culture rewards an intense focus and a marathon attention span (which would seem to run counter to the prevailing attitude that the “younger generation” can’t focus on anything for more than 30 seconds – unless it’s just the pretty pictures and moving lights that entrance them).

In some cases, though, what we really have is delayed instant gratification. I myself am a DIGer – someone who can wait to watch the season until the whole thing is done. I have all the episodes for this season for several shows piled up on my dvr. I didn’t really set out to delay my viewing; I just have three jobs right now and so kept thinking, “I’ll watch these over Christmas break.” Then life intervened, and Christmas break became a crazy hell, and my time disappeared.

Then it reached a point where I no longer want to watch just a couple of episodes. I’d rather let the whole season record and then view it in rapid succession. This is like people who miss part of the season due to something (there’s that pesky life again) and simply say, “I’ll wait until the dvd comes out/it’s on Netflix.” So DIGers have some restraint in that we can wait to have it all at once. But we know that we will want it all at once. We won’t want to stop. So we delay smaller experiences of a couple episodes here and there for a larger experience of everything in a few days.

In a way, it’s about the story. That’s always the agonizing part of television shows (or book series – dammit, Butcher!) – waiting to know what happens next. Yes, we get that at the end of the season, but we know it’s coming. The week to week delay feels worse somehow. By storing it all up, we can follow the line through to the end. We are the people who start a novel and stay up all night to finish reading it because we must know how it ends.

But to be a DIGer, you must be able to live with spoilers. Most everyone else doesn’t wait. If you can’t have a pretty thick skin about hearing other people talk about the show, don’t try to wait. You’ll just become an annoyance to your friends.

The binge viewing is, though, merely a prelude to a later, slower viewing. You’re taking everything in so quickly that you don’t have time to process and consider the material. Once it’s over, you start thinking about details and want to go back.

And this is now the case with Daredevil. When the rush to view has finished and the flurry of excitement is subsiding, the analysis starts. A friend of mine made a comment about the first episode, and I thought, “Really? Where did you see that?” Because I didn’t think that/remember that. But in starting to think about the series, I can see where the argument can be made. So I had to watch the first episode again.

But I am resisting another binge.

Really, I am.