YOU know you’ve got a problem when Netflix itself stages an intervention.
“Are you still watching?” it asked, as I entered my fourth hour of a particularly intense session of dystopian anthology series Black Mirror last week.
It was vaguely like being told I’d had enough by a concerned drug dealer. The initial sulky indignation – and it was enough to make me angrily fidget ever so slightly on the sofa where I’d sat motionless for the past 240 minutes – subsided and deep down I knew the telly was entirely right.
I don’t know about you but I leave the office on a Friday night with a host of pleasurable and wholesome activities in mind I’d like to enjoy over the course of the weekend. But by 10.30pm on Sunday I’ve done naught but devour an entire series of Better Call Saul and two family-sized bags of Doritos.
Of course Netflix isn’t checking I’m watching every so often because it’s looking out for me.
Somewhere in the ruthless algorithm of its dark machine brain, it knows I need things like food, water and Vitamin D in order to keep paying subscription fees. Who knows, it’s probably trying to work out a way to supply sustenance directly to my body so I don’t need to leave the couch ever again.
It sounds like a particularly grim episode of Black Mirror. You should watch it – it’s on Netflix.
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