Keeping up with the time-use diary has taught me a lot about my viewing habits over the past semester. Based on the programs, platforms and devices I have engaged with, I will analyse my viewing in terms of the following four areas: YouTube in the place of TV, binge-watching on video on demand, family rituals and the power of televised movies.

YouTube is a huge weakness of mine and, as evidenced in my time-use diary, I spend more time on it than any other viewing platform. I have many subscriptions that I engage with regularly – primarily vloggers– and I find it difficult to lessen that engagement once engrossed with their channels/lives. Through the direct address of their viewers, vlogs effectively “establish conversations between the vloggers and their audience” (Aran et. al 2015). As a result of this, viewers feel connected to vloggers through them being their authentic selves and the affective dimension of their expression (Soelmark 2015). I think I also find myself spending more time on YouTube than watching TV or Netflix because watching one eight-minute video on my phone feels like less of a distraction when studying than a 40-minute episode of a TV series. However, this simply means I end up watching more YouTube videos, so either way I end up being counterproductive. Alex Juhasz describes YouTube as a “private postmodern TV of distraction,” which has proved accurate in my experience.

Binge watching is another mode of viewing which I found myself falling victim to. While I usually try to refrain from giving into the temptation during uni, I fell into a relapse over the mid-semester break as I watched a solid eight episodes of Breaking Bad in a single day (a little late to the game, I know). Lisa Perks refers to binge watching as a “media-focused floating holiday, one that affords a break from everyday drudgery through an immersive escape to the fictive world”(2014). This notion sums up my experience with binge watching as I love being so immersed in a program that you feel the need to watch consecutive episodes. Perks also notes that this mode of watching can be either motivated or accidental, and ultimately made easier by streaming services. Netflix and the like enable instant gratification as they immediately load and play the next episode before you have time to re-evaluate your life.

I also became aware of the fact that the little amount of traditional television I watch is almost always with my family. My parents and I tend to find ourselves getting hooked on two genres: Australian dramas and competition reality shows. We engage with these programs as per their weekly scheduled slot and work our nightly routines around their basis. While some scholars argue that television is disruptive to the family’s socialness, others have more of an open mind suggesting it can bring the family together and provide a topic of conversation, rather than supplant it (Morley 2005). Viewing in this sense for me is as much about spending the time with the family as it is about the programs themselves.

Finally, the last form of televisual content I found myself engrossed by was televised movies. I have a love-hate relationship with televised films as so often I wind up watching movies that I either own on DVD, or that I’ve seen many times before. For example, the other night I returned from work to find the Bourne Identity screening on Channel Nine. Despite being a quarter of the way through and aware of the fact that we own it on DVD, I persisted to watch the film on television, ads and all. While I acknowledge the absurdity this viewing habit, there is just something strangely appealing about films that are slotted into the daily television broadcast. It feels like more of a ‘special event’ than if I was to fish out the DVD or source the content online.

Evidently, the time-use diary has led to some interesting realisations about my viewing practices – the good, the bad and the questionable. It’s interesting to note the shift towards video on demand services and consequently the lessened level of engagement with traditional television. This is likely indicative of a broader cultural shift in viewing habits resultant of the evolution of viewing devices and platforms. Nevertheless, the traditional television still holds merit in the family household and will likely continue to be relied upon for years to come.

References

Aran, O, Biel, J & Gatica-Perez, D, Broadcasting Oneself: Visual Discovery of Vlogging Styles, IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, Jan. 2014, Vol.16(1), pp.201-215

Laytham, B 2012, ‘Youtube and U2Charist: Community, Convergence and Communion,’ IPod, Youtube, Wii Play: Theological Engagements with Entertainment, Wipf and Stock Publishers, p.50-71

Morley, D 2005, ‘Television in the family,’ Family Television: Cultural Power and Domestic Leisure, Routledge, p. 7-29

Perks, L. 2014, ‘Behavioural Patterns,’ Media Marathoning: Immersions in Morality, Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, p. 15-39

Soelmark, N 2015, ‘Circulating Affect’, Structures of Feeling: Affectivity and the Study of Culture, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, p.199-255