Entertainment

How Much Time Have You Spent Watching These Shows?

by Anneliese Cooper

In case you needed another reason to panic about time slipping away — usually, I get my fix by reminding myself that 1994 was 20 years ago, not 10 (which, how is that possible) — never fear, an exciting new website is here to tell you exactly how much time, down to the minute, you've spent watching television. The sleekly designed "tiii.me," created by Alex Cican, allows you to calculate the total number of hours you've devoted to watching your favorite shows, using the very simple formula of "number of minutes per episode * number of episodes per season * number of seasons watched" and adding the results together. So now you can see, in one place, the true toll of all your binge-watching (though personally, I prefer the term "mainlining," as I feel it more accurately captures my favorite shows' oft-addictive properties).

For example, I just watched all three seasons of New Girl (and found it surprisingly enjoyable) — that's 1 day, 12 hours. Now, tack on the 4 days, 12 hours in my Buffy the Vampire Slayer box set; the 7 days, 8 hours of House now on Netflix; 6 days, 10 hours for The West Wing — that's almost 20 solid days of my life, well over a fortnight straight devoted to staring at a light box. And that's not even counting re-watching. Or Law & Order: SVU. In fact, I'm sure if I actually, faithfully added in everything I've seen, I would be well into the 2 month range, easy.

On the one hand, this information is, of course, terrifying — the kind of news that makes you want to toss your technology out the window and go pick strawberries on a farm somewhere in Vermont until the blue light of a television screen is but a distant, hazy memory. Still, I suppose there is something to be said for the true devotion that is fandom, the strangely intense relationship you tend to develop after spending that much time with TV characters, the joy you take in their triumphs and the insane emotional toll of their losses (I'm looking at you, Good Wife writers). So what if it took me 2 days and 15 hours to get to know the Fisher family on Six Feet Under — isn't it worth the incredible catharsis of that finale? And when the Internet erupted over the supreme letdown at the end of How I Met Your Mother , wasn't it primarily because we had devoted so much time rooting for Ted and his mystery love (4 days, 8 hours, to be precise)? Though people have spent a lot of time recently praising the "movie-like quality" of True Detective and House of Cards, the fact is, their episodic format allows you to connect far more than an any 80-minute setpiece ever could — to steep in the world, to sit with a character and watch them grow and surprise and disappoint you for, yes, over 2 months straight.

And still, given the sheer hard numbers of it all — over 2 months straight — I'm going to have to spend some time trying not to pull a full-on Abed-reacting-to-Daylight-Savings-Time, as seen on my beloved Community.

Which, for the record, was 2 days and 30 minutes long.

God help us all.

Image: Bry Crasch/Bustle