4 Ways to Beat Streaming Fatigue in 2022 and Ensure You Always Know What to Watch

Streaming fatigue absolutely sucks. It will creep up on you without notice. You’ll sit down on the couch after a good meal and ask your partner, “what should we watch?” You pick an app and start browsing the content, nothing jumps out. So you move on to the next app. And the next. Thirty minutes have passed and you aren’t any closer to finding a new show to start and the window for watching a movie has shrunk considerably since you began your search. As the old adage goes “300 channels and nothing to watch.”

So, why can it be so hard to find something to watch? Streaming fatigue is a real issue we’re all facing now. Maybe it’s because we have too many good choices to choose from and we put too much value on our screen time. Much like choosing a meal, you’re probably putting too much effort into making a decision. I’m sure few people listed “watch more tv” on their New Year’s resolutions. But if you want to prevent the frustration of streaming fatigue in 2022 here are 4 strategies to help you always know what to watch. 

Avoiding Streaming Fatigue

Genre of the Month

This one is pretty self explanatory and probably sounds too easy. I’d encourage you to get creative with whoever you share your TV with and have fun choosing each month’s genre. February for RomComs, December for holidays, and October for Horror are the obvious selections. But feel free to get as specific or silly as you can.

The friends that introduced me to this idea chose historical drama’s for November. July is always a slow sports month, maybe you can make up the difference with a marathon of Remember the Titans and a rewatch of Friday Night Lights (the show). I’m still trying to get the French New Wave onto our schedule, but it’s important that the genre choice is approved by all parties. 

Pick a couple old sitcoms to watch all the way through

Here’s your fallback plan. Some days you just want the tv to serve as background noise and there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting that to be a funny nostalgia trip. Make a list of sitcoms to run through, you’ll be surprised how quick you may go through some of them. Mix in some recent hits like Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Schitt’s Creek with some older greats. While the go to may be the 90’s greats like Seinfeld or Friends, I encourage you to go a bit further. MASH or Taxi don’t get enough love and are definitely worth having on while you scroll through your phone. 

Whatever is trending should pick up the remaining slack

Even with those first two safety picks, you can still get burnt out. The second you feel you’ve spent too much time on your genre of the month or sitcom selections I encourage you to dive right into a top trending movie or show. Don’t think about it, just pick whatever your coworker told you about last week or whatever social media won’t shut up about. We live in a golden age of television. Seriously, look at this absurd list (Resident Alien should be way higher). There’s a really good chance you are missing out on some excellent content. 

Be Quick to Say No!

Finally, the easiest way to avoid burnout is to know when to turn the tv off. If you catch yourself being surprised an episode ended, or not following the plot of the movie, you are not engaged. And that’s ok! Did you start something new that someone recommended and you hate it immediately? Then turn it off! As mentioned earlier, there is too much good content to waste your time on something that doesn’t interest you.