Editorial

Abstract

Some time ago, a student shared an anecdote with me that caught my attention. She told me that in the house where she was staying—shared with other students from our university—there was a common practice: watching television series at twice its normal speed. In this accelerated version, the students moved from one episode to the next, devouring entire seasons. My first reaction was one of disbelief. Why would someone choose to watch something in this way, losing virtually everything that gives a narrative its meaning? What remains after this form of binge-watching, when settings, characters, stories, and contexts rush past the viewer?

The answer I arrive at is simple: information. Knowing what comes next, finding out what happens afterward—everything reduced to the smallest possible units of data.