On Demand? I'm not so sure.

So we all know about how watching television has slowly become a part of the internet instead of something we watch on the actual television set. We have all these great things like Netflix (watch everything ad free!!!) and it’s just a small fee per month. Gone are the days of scheduling your life around that favorite show. Now we can watch on demand without interruption. Before I start sounding like an advertisement, I want to address how all of this pertains to me. Being of the generation where everything is (mostly) instantaneous, I love the idea of not having to sit through ads. And what student doesn’t love being able to watch their shows on their off time instead of spending class time worrying about if their favorite character on Game of Thrones finally kicked the bucket? But there always seems to be a catc
h with these things.

 It is so incredibly easy to ignore schoolwork and put aside what I should be doing in favor of catching up on the latest episodes of my various shows. These days it seems like procrastination lurks in every corner, and having almost unlimited access to online media encourages it to leap out. I know that I find myself tempted to switch screens and start a bit of an episode with the promise to myself that I will stop after a certain time. But somehow it never seems to go that way. I end up wasting so much time entertaining myself and subsequently causing myself a ton of unneeded stress when I realize how much less time I have to complete assignments. 

Being able to watch television shows online becomes a burden and a temptation instead of a treat when I finish work. I’ve gotten to the point where I can say, “I’m not going to watch this until I reach this little goal” and still be able to do what I want to later. But I know that there are plenty of other students out there who are incapable of avoiding Netflix and Hulu+ and other streaming services. I’m not saying that streaming is the “ultimate evil”, but I do recommend thinking it through before you start on the next episode of Vampire Diaries with a huge list of stuff to do sitting nearby.

(photo borrowed from http://nolannabiblog.wordpress.com/ )