In a groundbreaking study that surprises absolutely no one, researchers have confirmed that 97% of the average person's time on streaming platforms is spent endlessly scrolling through titles while slowly losing the will to live—despite having more than six active subscriptions.
"We expected some level of indecision," said Dr. Lena Morris, lead researcher at the Institute for Digital Fatigue. "But we were shocked to learn that people now spend more time browsing than actually watching anything. One participant spent 43 minutes debating between a docuseries about alpaca farming and a Danish crime thriller before giving up and turning the TV off."
This rings especially true for local couple Jake and Emma (pictured above), who recently spent an entire evening scrolling through Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Prime Video, Apple TV+, and “whatever that new one is with the weird font” without watching a single thing.
“I’m down for anything, just not a documentary or anything with subtitles,” said Emma.
“Okay… what about this one?” Jake asked, highlighting a historical drama.
“Ew no, too serious.”
“You just said anything!”
“Yeah, but like, fun anything.”Forty minutes later, they both agreed to just rewatch The Office again. From the middle. On season 4.
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With over 700,000 hours of content available across every major platform, many users are paralyzed by choice—a condition now known as Content Paralysis Syndrome (CPS). Symptoms include glassy eyes, excessive trailer-watching, and snapping “just pick something!” at loved ones.
Streaming companies remain unbothered. “We’re proud to offer a nearly infinite amount of content no one wants to commit to,” said one spokesperson. “Besides, our algorithms suggest you’ll love something vaguely similar to that show you half-watched in 2020.”
At press time, Jake and Emma were last seen debating whether to start a new show or “just eat the pizza and stare at the home screen in silence again.”
