The Netflix Conundrum

Welcome to Stars Hollow, a fictitious town that I have had the honour of re-visiting a thousand times over on my laptop screen, thanks to the American comedy-drama television series, Gilmore Girls. I’m spoiled for choice on Netflix – an array of new television shows and movies are added almost every other week. Yet, I find myself re-watching another episode of Gilmore Girls, and then another.

In 1968, social psychologist Robert Zajonc published a landmark paper on the mere exposure effect. To put it simply, the mere exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon that explores the tendency to prefer certain things, only because we are familiar with them. Also known as the familiarity principle, the mere exposure effect explores how encountering a stimulus repeatedly somehow makes one like it more. The mere exposure effect plays into moments where you might hate a specific song the first time you hear it, but have it grow on you after listening to it a couple of times - for you may have started to like the lyrics or the tune despite your initial aversion. However, the mere exposure effect doesn’t guarantee you liking everything that you are repeatedly exposed to - how often you encounter something and the gap between each occurence plays a role as well.

The pleasure of rediscovering or restoring a memory from a certain movie, book or TV series which might have been partially forgotten is appealing to some people. To others, it could be looking out for subtle nuances or perceiving the same episode from a different lens. This phenomenon of reconstructive consumption is explored in a study by Russell and Levy (2011). They proposed the term reconsumption to refer to the consumption of experiences that consumers actively and consciously seek to experience again. Reconstructive consumption is motivated by this desire to ‘reconsume’, in order to refresh or reconstruct one’s memory of the object experienced. If you’ve found yourself watching videos such as ‘10 things you might’ve missed while watching XYZ series’ on YouTube, you are re-consuming the series through a more nuanced lens, keeping an eye out for the minor details you might have missed before.

Watching an all-time favourite movie or a show for the nth time could also be a nostalgia trigger. In an interview with Huffpost, psychologist Neel Burton said, “The things that we do feel compelled to re-watch or re-read are those that provide us with either comfort or perspective”. You get to revisit the experiences you associated with a series or a movie, for it may have been a source of joy and comfort during tough times, or could highlight a moment in your life that you would not want to forget easily.

Moreover, certain TV shows or movies, songs or videos might have a positive nostalgic experience attached to it - an experience you are well acquainted with, which makes you want to revisit that experience in order to bring back similar feelings. To understand nostalgic experiences better, there is auto-biographical nostalgia which simply means that you are remembering a specific time in your life associated with the consumption of a TV show or a movie. Then, there’s historical nostalgia, which is a general sense of longing for the past - whenever I watch the animated movie Rio, I go 8 years back in time, thinking of how my baby brother and I watched this movie together.

While watching a TV series or a movie that we have seen a few times over, our emotions tend to flow in a manner that we are familiar with, which is an immensely comforting experience. Russell and Levy have called this experiential control which provides people with emotional regulation. Experiential control refers to the ability to navigate within and across reconsumption experiences. Due to the familiarisation of a plot or the characters in either a book, TV series or a movie, a person can find it more relaxing or comforting knowing what is going to happen next and not being left in suspense or shrouded in mystery, thus watching the series or reading the book over again. The choice of re-consuming the experience and the timing of it, are factors that drive experiential control.

People tend to have a comfort movie or a book they can always return to when they feel a certain way, knowing that re-consuming that movie/book will cheer them up or help them feel better. Circa 2015, at a time in my life where everything seemed beyond my control, watching the TV series Modern Family cheered me up day after day. It became a source of comfort, for it gave me several reasons to laugh. Fast-forward to 2020, during the lockdown enforced due to the pandemic, it felt like a good time to revisit Modern Family - I introduced my parents to the award-winning sitcom and yet again, it helped us end the day with a smile on our faces. Knowing the manner in which the show progressed, re-watching Modern Family helped me stay in control of my emotions during a period of time filled with uncertainty.

However, Russell and Levy state how experiential control is essential in helping one prevent overconsumption and maintaining the freshness of the experience. In their study, several participants mention how they keep themselves from re-consuming too soon. Over exposure to a song, for instance, could be a classic example of the re-consumption experience turning sour. We might end up listening to a song on repeat, only to get tired of listening to it for the nth time - thus, having experiential control could help prevent the re-consumption experience from becoming addictive or predictable in nature.

For some, decision making can be a hard process - leading people to re-watch something rather than choose something new to watch. Being indecisive can contribute to the reason people prefer watching a show they’ve previously loved. Let me explain this by drawing attention to the famous jam experiment conducted by Prof. Sheena Iyengar and Prof. Mark Lepper in 1995.

As part of the experiment, Iyengar and Lepper set up a tasting booth at a local food market. On day one, 24 different kinds of jams were kept on display whereas on day two, there were only 6 different kinds of jam made available. What Iyengar and Lepper found was that only 3% of the people bought jam they sampled from the large assortment. Conversely, 30% of the people who sampled jam from the small assortment decided to purchase a jar of jam.

Through their research study, Iyengar and Lepper conclude how several alternatives can often lead to us feeling dissatisfied. Personally, I have been overwhelmed by the amount of new TV series and movies that have popped up on my Netflix screen - the inability of deciding what to watch next can put me in a tizzy. My internal monologue before choosing a TV series sounds something like this: “Should I watch The Crown… or Dark… or maybe Peaky Blinders… what if I spend so much time and not enjoy this show… will it meet my expectations? Never mind, I’ll just go back to watching another episode of Schitt’s Creek - that won’t disappoint.”

Correlating this to the decision making process while watching a TV series, people might find it easier to settle for a rerun of their favourite show if at all they feel overwhelmed by the inordinate amount of TV series and movies portals like Netflix or Amazon Prime offer their viewers on the daily. The act of choosing, undoubtedly, becomes a factor that affects the decision making process of viewers. Spoilt for choice, are we?

There is an abundance of movies and TV series waiting to be discovered by viewers, you and me alike. I, for one, am excited about everything on OTT platforms that I’m yet to explore. However, if you ever find yourself questioning the act of watching the same show again and again - don’t forget to embrace the comfort, familiarity and joy that it brings you. For the next time Netflix asks me if I am still watching Gilmore Girls, I will be sure to click ‘continue watching’ and browse new TV serials some other day!