The Netflix Effect: Teens, Binge Watching, And On-Demand Digital Media

Netflix has taken over the world. Everyone from children like the 7 year old girls I babysit, to my Grandma utilizes this website as a form of entertainment on a regular basis. Sidneyeve Matrix is a teacher at Queen’s University and teaches media, marketing and mass communication. She’s had digital media and pop culture research published by Critical Survey, Ethnologies, Topia, Storytelling, Animation, and CCL/LCJ. One of the articles she has written is titled The Netflix Effect: Teens, Binge Watching, and On-Demand Digital Media Trends and demonstrates some issues with the growing popularity of binge watching. She chose to write this article because “When Netflix released all fifteen episodes of a new season of Arrested Development in the

This is because Matrix wrote the article mainly to inform and perhaps to educate or call to action her audience with a focus on her teenage audience members. She argues that Netflix has taken away the sense of community among tv show viewers because we no longer sit in front of the screen at a set time each week to follow a show and then discuss it with fellow viewers. This is demonstrated in teenager’s lives especially since they grew up during the transition from regular viewing to on demand viewing. The article talks about Netflix’s effects and usage by all ages but creates a focus on teenagers viewing habits as she attempts to scare teens into correcting their and their children’s

Her use of pathos is a little hard to find. However, her appeal to something we all used to experience when discussing the “(“water cooler talk”) that bond[s] people through shared, mass-mediated experiences” (Matrix 3). She also quotes various teens which allows for the audience to relate to her article more. Additionally, throughout the article Matrix quotes many high up business men and women from companies such as, Disney and MTV to use the ethos appeal as these people are trained professionals in the field of entertainment who study people’s habits in order to increase their sales. The logos appeal is her most heavily used because she discusses many different studies and data about Netflix viewing habits since her point is that Netflix has taken over the lives of its users. Another way she strengthens her argument is admitting that there seems to be some pros to binge watching, but refuting them by discussing the seriousness of the cons. Through these appeals she proves that Netflix binge-watching has a detrimental effect on viewers by explaining that viewers spend less time conversing with others because they no longer have the same things to discuss, the addicting ideas of binge watching, and the moral issues binge watching can