I subscribed to Netflix from the days leading up to the broadcast, when it was just a DVD messaging service versus Blockbuster [from the DVD rental network]. In our dating days, my wife and I have consistently watched all five glorious seasons of Friday Night Lights. Today, five years after the wedding, we are often captivated by episodes of The Crown or The Great British Baking Show on nights when we are physically and mentally exhausted.
Rest assured, Netflix can be a wonderful thing. It’s convenient, relaxing, and increasingly packed with some of the best TV shows and movies, from Stranger Things to Mudbound.
- However.
- Like most things that can be wonderful.
- Netflix may not be that great.
- Recently.
- I have been reflecting on some of the troublesome aspects of what Netflix is and.
- Perhaps more importantly.
- How it embodies and perpetuates some of the concerns of our secular age.
Wasn’t that television a long time ago, among others in our world?had its own schedule to which we had to adapt. TELEVISION programs that are broadcast on certain days and times. Either you got organized or you lost them. It was a “TV meeting”: friends of the NBC network and “Must See TV”?Thursday night, ABC’s TGIF programming on Friday night and so on. In addition to some regular live events (e. g. Monday Night Football), those days are over.
Netflix integrates the new paradigm: a TV that adapts to your schedule, there are no fixed days or schedules, no predictable rhythms, no seasons that launch slowly, and you don’t wait, that’s what you want, when you want it. Whole seasons in a day, if you like. In some ways, this change reflects the postmodern shift from ordinary narratives to the infinite fragmentation of individual stories. Instead of incorporating someone’s story into a complete narrative, today everything suits us. Everything is customizable, tailored to our schedules and preferences.
Christians should see warning signs of this change, which often applies not only to our habits of using the means, but also to our spiritual lives, which leads to the consumer’s faith where individual spiritual paths and preferences take precedence over biblical community authority.
But this change produces anxiety for at least two reasons: first, because we were created for rhythms, not totally unpredictable without purpose, and second, why created for the community, not for experiences of the type, choose your own adventure, solitary mediation.
If you have Netflix, you’ve probably experienced what I call Netflix’s ‘paralysis’: the moment you’re trying to decide what to watch, but it’s static because you just can’t choose. There are many options and no external guides for your selection. Are you worried about wasting time and pressure?weighs a lot.
When everything is available to us, according to our schedule and according to our tastes, we will naturally experience stress under the weight of consumer freedom and “fear of losing something”. [1] Will the wrong decision be made? Of the 15 series your friends have talked about on social media, which one should you see?These issues can be weakened, increasing the existing anxiety we feel in a world overloaded with options.
Another aspect of excessive choice is the ability to compulsively look. In the past, you had to be patient to wait for weekly episodes, to follow a series for months. But today, you can watch entire seasons of TV series in one weekend. watch everything as quickly as possible, because there are still many other shows to watch.
But does all this keep us even more in consumerism?And their horrible excesses and discontent that also wreak havoc on our spiritual lives. The excess churches and theological paths at our disposal reflect Netflix’s oversupply of options. We engage in “church shopping,” which is no different from reviewing Netflix options, looking for the perfect fit, but with the predictable anxiety that the search never stops.
Netflix made headlines in December with a chilling tweet: “For the 53 people who saw a Christmas Prince every day for the last 18 days: Who hurt you?”
The tweet annoyed many because it reminded us of everything Netflix knows about our viewing habits. The streaming site tracks data about what, when, where, and how long for each content we consume. It also tracks our searches and data records every time we stop moving fast or rolling back.
Like everything on the Internet or on our smartphones, the downside of convenience and ample access is the price of data monitoring. Netflix (such as Facebook and Google, among others) tracks all our movements so they can be delivered to advertisers more fully and customized packages. Television has always worked this way, to the extent that it can monitor our consumer’s behavior. But Netflix is taking this to a completely different level. While there may be some benefit in knowing that someone hears what you’re seeing (the Reality of “Online Footprints” offers an inescapable measure of responsibility), add another layer of anxiety to a media environment where we are increasingly exposed to everyone. Click on what we are doing.
One of the things netflix invariably allows is the unfortunate tendency to see stories in scattered fragments: 16 minutes here, a small lunch break and so on until something is finished. In theory, this is great, because it helps d?intermediate moments of life (e. g. taking the subway, quealing at the service of traffic), but in practice this prevents the full experience from looking at narratives that must be lived not in fragmented segments, but as a coherent whole.
Does this also perpetuate today’s tendency towards what Neil Postman called a way of speaking?Is it where “viewers are rarely forced to follow a thought or feeling from one period to another. “We consumed a few minutes of Chopped, followed by a documentary about refugees, after the second half of an episode of Narcos, following (probably) Twitter or Instagram on our mobile phone, seeing photos of our friends among political comments and headlines about the weather.
This random media experience exacerbates our anxiety about disconnection in this (ironically) hyperconnected world. With two or three screens in front of us at all times, each with multiple windows, tabs and apps open, we feel “attracted” everywhere. There is less room in our lives for stillness, attention, and gratitude; less patience for context and the whole picture. We are waiting for everything for now and will idolize immediacy, losing sight of the past and the future and exacerbating the importance of what is happening now.
But for Christians, what is happening now must always be seen in the light of the eternal context: who God is, what He has done, and what He will do. or TV news. We belong to a broader context, an eternal family, and a great narrative. As we remember this and maintain a broader perspective, the anxieties of our time become a little less weak.
1 N. T. : In the original FOMO, an acronym for “Fear of Missing Something?”Which refers to the habit of constantly checking social media for fear of “losing something”.