Yourtvlinks.com used to be a site that provided free access to dozens of popular TV shows such as The Office and Grey’s Anatomy. It even offered some of my favorite TV shows from childhood, such as Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Boy Meets World. About a few months ago, the site stopped making TV shows available because of warnings it received from the MPAA. But back in its glory days, my friends and I were prime examples of problematic Internet use (PIU). We were obsessed with the site.
I had never watched The Office before coming to Cornell. Once I arrived on campus, one friend introduced me and some other friends to the show. Since we liked the few episodes that our friend showed us, my friends and I wanted to catch up on the episodes that had already aired. My friends and I turned to yourtvlinks.com to watch the previous seasons. This turned into a vicious cycle, as my friends and I watched episode after episode, often using yourtvlinks.com as a tool to procrastinate on our schoolwork. Our use of yourtvlinks.com for procrastination was a example of a dimension of PIU in Davis’s study; because we often wanted distractions from work, we were susceptible to PIU.
One of the greatest draws to yourtvlinks.com was the fact that it was free. We had free access to dozens of episodes of The Office and other TV shows. Without the site, we would have had to pay more than twenty dollars for a DVD set in order to catch up on the show. Another great benefit to yourtvlinks.com was its accessibility. We simply had to type in the URL into a browser, and we immediately had access to any episode we wanted to watch. We did not have to wait for reruns to air on TV or go to the store to buy DVDs. With yourtvlinks.com, TV shows were at our fingertips. Corresponding to one of Wallace’s factors for PIU, we had great locus of control in that we could choose what episodes we wanted to watch, and we could watch them at any convenient time.
My friends and I became excessive users of yourtvlinks.com. Caplan describes excessive Internet use as exceeding “a normal, usual, or planned amount of time.” Often, my friends and I would vow to watch only one episode of The Office at a time, but that one episode usually turned into two or three episodes in one sitting. Indeed, our use of yourtvlinks.com may have been compulsive as well, since, as Caplan mentions, we had “an inability to control [our] online activity,” which led to “feelings of guilt about the lack of control.” We would often feel an urgent need to watch episodes of The Office, even if we had other, more important tasks to accomplish. When we did watch The Office instead of working, we would usually feel guilty about our choice.
However, the example of me and my friends contrasts with Caplan’s model in one respect. Caplan claims that “individuals who suffer from psychosocial problems…hold more negative perceptions of their social competence than people without such problems,” which then leads to “a preference for online social interaction as an alternative to FtF communication.” However, although we suffered from PIU, my friends and I did not suffer from psychosocial problems. In fact, we were all sociable, friendly individuals; we were socially competent. None of us suffered from loneliness or depression since we formed a tight-knit group. This implies that our suffering of PIU did not come from psychosocial problems. Instead, it most likely came from the affordances that the site offered.
One possible reason for the difference between Caplan’s findings and my example is the difference in online spaces studied. Caplan studied online social interaction and noted that people with psychosocial problems were more likely to be drawn to online social interaction because CMC is “less threatening.” However, while Caplan’s findings may be true for online social interaction, different conclusions may be applicable for sites like yourtvlinks.com, which is a media site. As seen in this blog, people without psychosocial problems can be drawn to media sites. My friends and I were not looking for affirmations of our social competence, as in Caplan’s study. Instead, we were looking for free and accessible media. In our case, yourtvlinks.com was the best option for us. Because yourtvlinks.com suited our needs so well, we became excessive users.
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Hey Alice,
While reading your post it made me think about my own experience with watching The Office and the same thing happened to me, although I did not have access to this website that I really wish was still around because I have been searching for something like that. Instead of yourtvlinks.com, I downloaded each episode using a free downloading source and had watched all three seasons in the course of a week. I agree with you that while this is somewhat problematic behavior, it is not the cause and does not result in psychosocial problems or low competence as Caplan suggests. Instead, it is just a great way to watch these hilarious shows and can even add to your social competence by being able to talk about the episodes with your friends.
Wow, I've definitely been there. For me it was Lost. I couldn't stop watching it! Having multiple seasons available at your fingertips gave you the ability to schedule an all day marathon anytime you liked. I think you made an important connection that Caplan failed to recognize. PIU is not always driven by loneliness or a lack of social skills. In my case it was a group of us who were obsessed. So we would all watch together. The fact that it was a group in some ways made things worse. Because if one member of the group had some spare time and fired up a new episode of Lost, the rest of us would follow regardless of the amount of work or studying we had to do. I think these kind of examples help to show that Caplan's version PIU is too narrowly defined.
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