Ellen has taught me a lot through the years. Like, who is the coolest of all the Spice Girls (Baby Spice, duh), or how to dance in a car without endangering myself and others. But perhaps the most enduring skill she ever taught me is how to binge-watch. Harder than it sounds. It takes real strength of will to spend 36 straight hours watching the first two seasons of The Vampire Diaries, but at the end of it we emerged, unshowered and victorious. We’ve been self proclaimed world-class binge-watchers ever since.

But recently I’ve started to wonder if binging is the best way to watch TV (at least in terms of, you know, mental health and productivity). But even this wasn’t enough to make me consider changing my watching habits. As long as I was still able to drag myself away long enough to go to work and earn enough money to feed my habit (and myself) I deemed everything else a totally just sacrifice to the TV Gods. Then I discovered The Americans and officially hit rock bottom.

Maybe it was when I forgot what decade I was living in. Or maybe it was when I almost referred to another human as capitalist scum. Either way, two days later I was caught up and all I had to show for it was 48 misspent hours and some pretty worrying Soviet sympathies.

I realized that just because I was addicting to binge watching doesn’t mean that I enjoyed it. Maybe the binge just isn’t for everyday watching. Maybe TV was designed as a way to tell broad stories in short bursts. Or maybe I just need more of a social life.

Agree? Disagree? Too busy cramming Breaking Bad to care? That’s fair.

-Whitney