There’s now a way you can see how much time you’ve spent binge-watching television shows and I’m not so sure it’s exactly a good thing.
If you’re reading this article, chances are you’re a fan of nerdy things and have a stronger-than-most love of television. We’ve all been in a situation where a friend or co-worker hasn’t seen a favorite show of yours and you find yourself in a conversation/lecture where you go over every detail of why that person NEEDS to watch said show. The usual objections arise: “What’s it about?” “Who’s in it?” and the all important “How long will it take to watch?”
With this new online tool, you can answer that last one down to the minute.
Load the page and the smiling face of Walter White awaits you. Type in a show and how many seasons of it you’ve watched. It will then add up the time it would take to watch it straight through in days, hours and minutes. So suppose you have a list of common “OH MY GOD YOU GOTTA WATCH IT!” shows like Breaking Bad, Misfits, The X-Files, Firefly, Marvel’s Daredevil, Supernatural, Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, Sherlock and Attack on Titan. You simply type them in and voilà : you’re given the info you need to somehow justify taking nearly a month of someone’s life so they can finally get your random references.
As I’m sure you’re bound to try, I started entering in shows that I know for a fact I’ve seen each and every episode of. Knowing that I have a fairly severe TV addiction — so much so that my cable box and I are probably dating — I knew I couldn’t possibly remember everything I’ve seen. But as the list grew, It got me a bit sad.
Not sad in a “I’ve gotta change my life” sort of way, but that’s 36 shows that I KNOW I’ve seen every minute of, and despite having this job that literally pays me to know about such things, I didn’t want to keep running up that clock. 170 days is just about 5 months of my life, and although I enjoyed it, I can’t help but feel I could have spent that time doing something more productive. But I’m sure there are worse things one could spend his or her time on.
So in the name of efficiency, the gallery below has a sampling of popular TV shows — YES David the Gnome belongs on that list — to serve as a guide of sorts when considering how to spend your TV time. I’ll love TV forever and will undoubtedly continue to binge as time passes, but I’m glad this tool exists so I can at the very least have a proper game plan.
How many days have you devoted to TV? Did you stop somewhere along the way like I did, realizing you really DON’T want to know how much of your life has been spent parked in front of the boob tube? Let us know in the comments below!