by Emily Kingman
From watching to reading, “bingeing” is a trend in consumerism that’s bridging across mediums. For proof, simply login to a social networking site and witness the volume of updates relating to what’s currently ‘being seen’ en masse. At nearly any point in time, there’s bound to be a bulletin post about something into which someone’s been indulging to excess.
Portions of my personal Twitter feed on September 2, 2014 (text-enhanced using Adobe© Photoshop)
What’s to blame for all this “bingeing” is clear: in the digital age, products are in abundance, and they’re only a click away, which has made it possible to intake large amounts of content over small periods of time. Consider, for example, how it’s now possible to stream all five seasons of AMC’s addictive drama, Breaking Bad, on Netflix and – at the same time – directly peruse all seventeen chapters of J.K. Rowling’s modern classic, Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone, via Kindle Cloud Reader (among other things).
Still, what’s to come from all this “bingeing” is less certain than why it’s occurring. Does the practice’s increasing popularity imply an impending shift in the trade-off between quantity and quality? In other words, will the pressure to produce more mean that there will be less value in what’s being produced?
Formulating an answer to this question requires clarifying how the trend is bridging across mediums, but affecting them differently. As Claire Fallon writes in a blog piece for The Huffington Post, binge-reading is not binge-watching. Thus, even though it’s undeniable that the effects of “instant abundance” have been watershed across the various forms of digitized media, it’s incorrect to assume that the way in which it’s changed TV and film production will mirror changes in how books are produced.
Another consideration to make when answering this question is history. Arguably, books have already undergone a historical transition to a similar practice of “bingeing,” as the present culture of “instant abundance” has echoes to the past movement from “the serial” to “the single-bound volume” during the early 20th century. Did the market change drastically then? Yes! Did it result in new styles of works? Yes, of course. But did it result in works of a lesser quality? No, and it’s with no disrespect to serialized authors like Austen, Dickens and Dumas that I mention Fitzgerald, Joyce, Faulkner, Salinger, Steinbeck, and Morrison (among many others) as evidence.
Taken together, it seems – to me, at least – that, when it comes to reading, the best answer to the “bingeing” question (e.g., “Does the practice’s increasing popularity imply an impending shift in the trade-off between quantity and quality?”) is something of a “non-answer.” How we approach books and reading evolves on its own, by its own rules; and it’s nearly impossible to know what fallout will result from the latest revolution. Still, there is some power in knowing that this is the latest revolution. There can be little doubt that books will survive and then thrive as they have before. Certainly, both quantity and quality will change – but, then, so will, too, the measures by which we determine what makes for quality material.
Still, what’s to come from all this “bingeing” is less certain than why it’s occurring. Does the practice’s increasing popularity imply an impending shift in the trade-off between quantity and quality? In other words, will the pressure to produce more mean that there will be less value in what’s being produced?
Formulating an answer to this question requires clarifying how the trend is bridging across mediums, but affecting them differently. As Claire Fallon writes in a blog piece for The Huffington Post, binge-reading is not binge-watching. Thus, even though it’s undeniable that the effects of “instant abundance” have been watershed across the various forms of digitized media, it’s incorrect to assume that the way in which it’s changed TV and film production will mirror changes in how books are produced.
Another consideration to make when answering this question is history. Arguably, books have already undergone a historical transition to a similar practice of “bingeing,” as the present culture of “instant abundance” has echoes to the past movement from “the serial” to “the single-bound volume” during the early 20th century. Did the market change drastically then? Yes! Did it result in new styles of works? Yes, of course. But did it result in works of a lesser quality? No, and it’s with no disrespect to serialized authors like Austen, Dickens and Dumas that I mention Fitzgerald, Joyce, Faulkner, Salinger, Steinbeck, and Morrison (among many others) as evidence.
Taken together, it seems – to me, at least – that, when it comes to reading, the best answer to the “bingeing” question (e.g., “Does the practice’s increasing popularity imply an impending shift in the trade-off between quantity and quality?”) is something of a “non-answer.” How we approach books and reading evolves on its own, by its own rules; and it’s nearly impossible to know what fallout will result from the latest revolution. Still, there is some power in knowing that this is the latest revolution. There can be little doubt that books will survive and then thrive as they have before. Certainly, both quantity and quality will change – but, then, so will, too, the measures by which we determine what makes for quality material.