From the Desk

After five seasons of tense, edge-of-your-seat drama, AMC’s “Breaking Bad” is finally over.

Even as I write this, I am currently working my way through season five of “Breaking Bad” while desperately trying to avoid finding out what happens in the series finale, which aired Sunday, Sept. 29. As someone who regularly uses social media, let me tell you — that is not an easy task.

One thing that the success of “Breaking Bad” and other AMC shows like “The Walking Dead” and “Mad Men” shows us is that television has certainly come a long way from the days of three major networks. With the advent of Netflix and Hulu, binging on shows by watching multiple seasons at a time has become one of the most popular pastimes for television viewers.

Some people have actually abandoned watching regular television in favor of binging on shows that have already aired.

But there is a problem with that. As someone who has watched multiple full series on Netflix, I can say from experience how much binging on television shows can waste time and kill productivity. As if college students did not waste enough time on the internet already, now they must resist the temptation of watching entire tv series which are available to stream at any time.

At the risk of sounding like a parent, people used to do other things with their time besides checking Twitter and Facebook before spending the entire day on a couch watching Netflix. People actually read books or did something outdoors.

As time goes by and technology continues to advance, it has never been easier to be lazy than it is right now.

Our country faces a lot of complicated problems, one of which is laziness. These problems are never easily solved, and there are many complicated reasons why young people read less frequently and often fail to vote, but I believe the American habit of finding ways to be lazy has a lot do to with it.

People have been joking for years about having hundreds of channels and nothing to watch, but what does it say about our attention span as a culture when, even with Netflix and Hulu, people still cannot find something to satisfy their need for entertainment?

I think that it is about time that we put down the remote control and find something better to occupy our time. Just because we can be lazy does not mean we should.