How often does it happen that you sit down to watch an episode of "Breaking Bad" but end up going through the whole season? Do you feel guilty?
Well there's no need to be, as binge-watching is quickly becoming normal behavior, a new study shows.
In a Harris Interactive study of over 1,000 U.S. TV streamers published Friday, 61 percent of respondents admitted to regularly devouring hours of TV at a time, Yahoo News reported.
Seventy-three percent defined binge-watching as sitting through between two and six episodes of a single TV show in one sitting, and 73 percent of those who admit to streaming say that there's no guilt involved -- in fact, if anything they have positive feelings towards it, according to Yahoo News.
The common misconception of streamers as solitary people staring at a TV or a computer screen couldn't be any further from the truth, the survey shows.
Streaming is becoming a shared, social experience with 51 percent of those polled saying that streaming is more fun with at least one other person watching. Only 38 percent prefer watching alone, Yahoo News reported.
Netflix, who commissioned the survey, said streamers also practice delayed gratification. Thirty-nine percent said that they save up shows and watch them at a later date when a friend or partner is free to join them.
"Our viewing data shows that the majority of streamers would actually prefer to have a whole season of a show available to watch at their own pace," said Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer of Netflix.
Cultural anthropologist Grant McCracken believes that the growing phenomenon of binge watching is being caused by better TV programming, advances in digital technology and the total control that streaming is giving households over their TV sets and TV schedules, according to Yahoo News.
"TV viewers are no longer zoning out as a way to forget about their day, they are tuning in, on their own schedule, to a different world," he said. "Getting immersed in multiple episodes or even multiple seasons of a show over a few weeks is a new kind of escapism that is especially welcomed today."
Seventy-six percent of TV streamers say watching multiple episodes of a great TV show is a welcome refuge from their busy lives and 80 percent of TV streamers said that they would rather stream a good TV show than read a friend's social media posts, Yahoo News reported.
