Skip to main content

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Lena Headey in season 5 of Game of Thrones.

In the age of on-demand television, watching the latest season of House of Cards is no longer an innocent thing we do after a long day. Instead, any time we watch more than two episodes in a row, we have begun to practise the extreme act of "binge-watching." Sometimes that act is seen as ruining popular culture. Other times binge-watching is killing us, as if modern civilization never parked its behind in front of a TV before the invention of Netflix.

Let's not conflate cultural overconsumption with serious afflictions such as binge-eating or binge-drinking. Reports find somewhere between 600,000 and 990,000 Canadians suffer from eating disorders, while one in five Canadians over the age of 12 are heavy drinkers (having too much alcohol has myriad health consequences). A Game of Thrones marathon has never killed anyone. It's just TV – not life or death.

Follow related authors and topics

Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following.

Interact with The Globe