Before you start

This is a short book and you can read it in two or three sittings. It's about one habit. You sit down at half past nine to watch one episode. At quarter past ten the credits start, and before they've finished a countdown appears in the corner, and the next one begins, and you don't stop it. At twenty to midnight you're three episodes in, and tomorrow you're tired, and you say you'll stop earlier tonight, and you don't, because tonight the next one starts by itself too.

I'm going to argue three things. The first is that the habit makes sense from the inside. The show is good, the evening is yours, and the moment the countdown appears, continuing is easier than stopping. The second is that you didn't decide to watch the next one. A countdown did, and when people don't actively choose, the default chooses for them, and the default was set by someone who wants you to watch more. The cliffhanger at the end of each episode is built to produce a wanting that the next one resolves in its first two minutes. Heavy consecutive viewing goes with worse sleep and more tiredness through a mind that's still running when the head hits the pillow, where ordinary viewing doesn't. And the credits used to be where you stopped, and autoplay took them away. The third is practical. You turn autoplay off, you decide the number before the first episode, and you stop at the credits. Chapters 20 to 23 cover how.

This book doesn't ask you to watch less television, to give up the series you love, or to feel bad about a Sunday afternoon on the sofa. It asks you to be the one who decides how many, rather than a timer in the corner of the screen.

Two cautions.

If the television is on until midnight because the quiet after it is unbearable, or because the day has nothing else in it, or your mood has been low most of the day for a fortnight, that isn't autoplay and this book isn't the answer. See a GP. The NHS has a two-week guide for low mood and it applies here.

And if your sleep is poor most nights whether or not the television is on, the NHS insomnia pages say when to see a GP, and it's worth reading them alongside this.

The notes at the back give my sources and their limits. Where I'm giving my own reasoning and not a finding, I'll say so.