Kate McMahon
Centerfold Editor
Some students spent their summer vacations shopping in ACK, laying on the decks of their summer houses, or segwaying the streets of Italy. However, clad in sweatpants and her comforter, junior Sabrina Santoni cocooned herself in a cashmere blanket, propped her head up with her elbows, and binge-watched Breaking Bad, basking – not in the summer sunlight of the beach – but in the artificial light of her computer screen. “Summer is the time to relax and that’s what I did,” Sabrina said. “I know some consider ‘Netflixing’ a guilty pleasure, but why should I feel guilty about doing something I enjoy.”
Freshman Allie Neugeboren also found herself watching season after season of TV on Netflix this summer. “I first decided to watch ‘Parks and Recreation’ then moved into ‘How I Met Your Mother,’ ‘Gossip Girl’, ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, and ‘That 70’s Show,’” she said.
With so many shows to watch and only fifty-six days to do so, Allie took full advantage of her time off from school. “My sister and I would charge my computer, pull a blanket over us on the couch, and then watch Grey’s Anatomy until the computer died,” Allie said. “There are 10 seasons out right now and we watched them all in a little under two weeks. I think we pulled one or two all nighters and only took breaks to eat, so I guess you could say my summer was wild.”
Senior Lexy Jones enjoyed being in a Netflix induced trance this summer. “I would sit for like five hours watching ‘Orange Is the New Black,’ ‘Arrow’ and ‘American Horror Story.’”
When the pull to click ‘next episode’ becomes stronger than the pull of one’s shutting eyelids, sleep becomes a secondary priority. “I found myself going to bed a lot later because I was obsessed with ‘Sherlock’ this summer and the shows were like an hour long,” said junior Ellie Aliapoulios.
“Once you start, it is hard to stop,” Allie said. “A lot of times I ended up going to bed at like 1 am or sometimes even 4 am because I was watching my shows.”
As addictive as watching Netflix is, Sabrina agrees that this is a hard habit to continue during the school year. “School and Netflix don’t work well together,” she said. “I rely on breaks to continue watching TV because you have an entire week. But, on school days I can’t trust myself to watch one episode and then pause it to do homework.”
Netflix easily pulls you in, making it hard to kick the addiction.“The next show is right there,” said Senior Lexy Jones. “You always want to know what is going on, so you just keep watching.”
Senior Katie Means agrees. “It is easier than doing something else. It is just mindless entertainment.”
