Hard but true: we spend more time on Netflix than with our friends

On the bike in the cold and rain, back home in pitch darkness, that alarm clock that then goes off way too early and absolutely no time for hangovers due to your busy schedule... Maintaining a social life is not easy.

Especially not in winter. Because it’s quite difficult to perform at work every day, have fun with your partner, regularly keep in touch with your family, and also maintain 102 good friendships. Everyone takes time. And you don’t have time. Because the day feels like it ends around five o'clock, as it’s already pitch dark then. Not to mention the ‘me-time’ that you sometimes need. Especially at this time of year. And what do we do when we are home alone for a moment? Exactly: binge-watch Netflix. And chill. But not Netflix & Chill, you know. Just hanging out in front of the TV the old-fashioned way. Research shows that we spend an average of 1 hour and 40 minutes per day on Netflix .

Let that sink in for a moment. Because that’s more time than you spend on your other hobbies, right? If you see your girlfriends, let’s say, a couple of hours twice a week, well, then you’re not really hitting that average. In short: we spend more time on Netflix than on our girlfriends. The hard but true reality.

And what is it really: it’s also just relaxation. And meeting up takes more energy, no matter how fun and nice it is to be with your girlfriends. Plus: if you watch Blair and Serena or Rory and Lorelai often enough, they eventually feel like friends too. But we prefer Netflix it over, for example, cooking or exercising. We come home, throw on our sweatpants, and order some food or heat up a soup, as long as we can just lie down in front of the screen. Spending hours preparing dinner? No time for that. Season 6 of Suits is on, so goodbye cutting board and frying pan.

Oh well, it is what it is. Nothing to be ashamed of if you secretly like to cancel an appointment or if you’re happy when you unexpectedly have a ‘socially free’ evening. But don’t forget to call your girlfriends every now and then. Or drop by spontaneously. Just for fun. Even if it’s just to see which season of Modern Family they are on now.

FACTS

• You might not believe it, but Netflix is older than Google.
• Netflix was born in 1997, while Google was founded a year later.
• Netflix employees get unlimited vacation days. No joke.
• The streaming service has 40,575,620 likes on Facebook, more than 100 million users, and is used in 190 countries.