People Who Got In Serious Trouble For Binge-Watching Netflix

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that in 2017, Netflix "surveyed more than 37,000 people across 22 countries including the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Italy and South Korea." And as it turns out, the service is practically crack for your eyeballs. Netflix binge-watchers rated being able to watch their favorite shows and movies as "more important than having food or water" while traveling. Twelve percent of people need their Netflix fix so badly that they use it in public bathrooms. Roughly 37 percent of respondents admitted to binge-watching Netflix at work, and the other 63 percent who didn't admit to it were probably lying. You might wonder what it's like to value Netflix over basic human necessities. But you don't have to, because some people have found out the hard way.

Chase Robinson worked for Robert De Niro's company, Canal Productions from 2008 to April 2019. Though, from the sound of things "worked" isn't exactly an apt description. Per Rolling Stone, in 2019, Canal Productions sued Robinson for $6 million for embezzlement and binge-watching Netflix. Obviously, the embezzlement is a huge deal even without the Netflix. Robinson allegedly spent $32,000 on Ubers and taxis, used 3 million of Robert De Niro's frequent flier miles, and made other outrageous and unauthorized expenditures worth tens of thousands of dollars. However, De Niro's company stressed that she Netflix-ed programs for "astronomical amounts of time" and that "watching shows on Netflix was not in any way part of or related to [her] duties and responsibilities."

How much is "astronomical?" The suit accused Robinson of watching 55 episodes of Friends over a stretch of four days. That's over 21 hours of David Schwimmer, if you were wondering. In a different four-day binge, she gorged her eyes on 20 episodes of Arrested Development and 10 episodes of Schitt's Creek. Depending on how things go for Robinson, she might find herself up a very similar-sounding creek. Hopefully she's a strong Schwimmer.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Renee Carr told NBC that Netflix viewers get "a drug-like high" from binge-watching their favorite shows. That proved disastrously true for a man in India who spent over 6 months using Netflix to cope with the stress of unemployment, according to the Hindu. Clinical psychologist Manoj Kumar Sharma explained that the patient retreated further and further into his addiction as his family pressured him to find work and he saw his friends prosper financially. At the height of his addiction the man watched Netflix for over seven hours a day. In 2018 he was admitted to the National Institute of Mental Health.