Why? “I feel like I can let loose and also be myself,” they say. “Plus it’s almost like I’m a part of their little group!” they add. “It brings a sense of belonging.” Researchers have looked into just that: how rewatching a favorite television show can bring a sense of belonging, among other positive feelings. But why might rewatching an old show feel better than watching something new? Researchers, including psychologist Jaye Derrick, PhD, director of the Social Processes Lab at the University of Houston, have found a few benefits. “The real reason we started doing this research is because everyone was dumping on TV — this terrible thing that makes you violent and turns you into a zombie,” Derrick says. “And we’re like, well, you know, if it was really so bad for you, why would anyone do it? There’s got to be more to it than that.” Here are three reasons you may find yourself clicking play on familiar favorites rather than the new must-see hit:
1. It May Help You Feel Less Lonely
People have an innate need to belong, Derrick says. “We need other people in the same way that we need shelter — and we’re very social,” she says. Derrick and her colleagues were curious to see if people turn to favorite television shows as a possible source of connection when feeling lonely or rejected. They published a set of studies back in 2009 in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. In one of the studies, they had participants write about a fight with someone they’re close to. Their data showed that when people thought about a time when they had a fight, they felt an increase in feelings of rejection and negative mood — and it lowered their self-esteem, Derrick says. “But if they followed that up with thinking about their favorite television show, all of those typical effects of rejection went away.” But just any show doesn’t cut it, Derrick says. While genre didn’t seem to matter — thinking about a favorite show was helpful, whether it was a drama or comedy or reality show, Derrick says — the studies showed that thinking about a nonfavorite TV program didn’t buffer against the effects of feeling lonely or rejected. Shira Gabriel, PhD, a professor of psychology at SUNY Buffalo and another of the study’s coauthors, puts it this way: “We need to feel connected to other people in order to be happy and healthy. We evolved that way.” But, she says, “We did not evolve to differentiate between the real groups in our lives and the ones we see on TV. Even though we know they are not real, they feel real to us.” And why might rewatching a show we enjoy help us? “Rewatching shows allows us to dive into a social world that we already know and already feel connected to,” Gabriel says. “It is a fast way to feel connected, much like talking to an old friend makes one feel connected more quickly than a new person.”
2. It’s Emotionally Comfortable
Though we tend to think of watching TV as a relatively passive activity (it often gets linked to the term “couch potato”), Derrick says viewing a miscellaneous show that isn’t a favorite can actually take energy. If you’re stressed or tired or overworked, watching a nonfavorite show, she says, can add to the problem, rather than help. Even a new episode of a show you do love, she says, may take some energy, too. “And if I were to speculate about why that’s the case,” she says, “I think part of it is because when you’re watching a new episode of a favorite show you are doing a little bit of emotional regulation.” She explains that when you’re in suspense and perhaps trying to figure out what’ll happen next, or you’re worried a character is going to die, that takes psychological effort. Gabriel agrees. When you instead already know the story and what’s going to happen, she says, “you are less likely to be disappointed or scared or sad from it.” Rewatching, she says, feels safe.
3. It May Help You Recharge Your Batteries
In psychology, self-control is “the ability to be in command of one’s behavior (overt, covert, emotional, or physical) and to restrain or inhibit one’s impulses,” according to the definition from the American Psychological Association (APA). If you’re feeling lonely, upset, or stressed, it requires self-control to change your emotions, or regulate them. It also takes self-control to suppress them, or to suppress your reaction to someone when you’re in a bad mood. Most psychologists agree that we have a limited reserve of self-control, Derrick says. “If we are doing something really effortful, then it’s harder to follow up with something else effortful.” Another way we could think of this is like a muscle. “So if you’re doing heavy lifting, then you need a little bit of time for you to rest before you can do more heavy lifting,” Derrick explains. In another study, Derrick used a pair of experiments to explore the ways that a familiar fictional world helps people regulate their self-control. The research found that when people did something that took effort and were experiencing a decrease in self-control, they became more interested in their favorite television shows. And after watching their favorite television shows, they reported having more energy. So if you’ve had a grueling day, Derrick says, rewatching a favorite TV show may indeed help you decompress.
