The Relationships Between Television Viewing Behaviors, Attachment, Loneliness, Depression, and Psychological Well-Being

With the rise in streaming products such as Netflix and Hulu, there is a need to investigate the new trend of “binge-watching” television programs. Though this phenomenon has been pondered widely in the popular media sphere, little, if any, psychological research has investigated this phenomenon. The present study investigated college students’ television-viewing behaviors, including binge-watching television, television affinity, and television-viewing motivations, and assessed the relationships between these television-viewing behaviors and relationship attachment, loneliness, depression, and psychological well-being. Participants completed several measures, including the Experiences in Close Relationships: Revised (ECR-R), the UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3), the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), Ryff’s Psychological Well-Being Scale, the Television Viewing Motives Scale, the Television Affinity Scale, and items created by the current researcher to measure television viewing habits and binge-watching behaviors. Results showed significant positive associations between binge-watching television and attachment anxiety and depression. Results also showed that binge-watching behaviors were positively associated with television affinity, instrumental TV viewing motives, and ritualistic TV viewing motives. These results contribute to our understanding of the psychological correlates of television viewing behaviors, and are relevant in today’s world with the increased use of television and movie streaming forums such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Instant Video