We don't subscribe to Netflix and that's okay

We have never had a television in our Housing Board flat. Not for the last 23 years that we have lived in it.

Eschewing TV as a form of relaxation was a major decision for me. I grew up with a father who watched TV religiously to relax.

As a kid, I remember creeping into the living room in the middle of the night to watch him hooked up to the TV on his headphones, connected by a long wire like an umbilical cord. The living room would be awash with light as Technicolor scenes played on the cathode-ray-tube screen.

As my then new wife and I deliberated on the type of family life we wanted to have, and how we wanted to spend our time when the kids arrived, it became increasingly clear that there would be no time for TV.

We figured that as working parents raising young kids, we would barely have enough time to make sure that the kids were fed, clothed and not killing each other - let alone worry about arguing with each other, or even the kids, over what is on TV.

As our two boys were growing up, watching TV at home never came up as an issue because we did not have one. Instead of watching TV, our boys would read, play, and go outside and get into mischief.

If the boys desperately wanted to watch something, they would trot off to their grandmother's home nearby.

Over the years, our family fell into a rhythm of living without a TV. But going without TV has been much easier than doing without Netflix.

The rise of Netflix as a streaming platform disrupted the delicate entertainment equilibrium in our home.

It is mind-boggling how ubiquitous Netflix has become. Office, classroom and group chats on our phones are now peppered with references to hit shows on the streaming platform: Squid Game (2021 to present), Emily In Paris (2020 to present) and The Queen's Gambit (2020).

Netflix's business model is built on having addictively engaging content. All episodes of a series are usually released at the same time, allowing for binge-watching.

Netflix has become the world's binge-watching platform of choice. According to cybersecurity company, Comparitech, the streaming platform had 447,000 subscribers here in 2021. SingStat estimates that the number of households in Singapore is 1.39 million. This means about one in three households is subscribed to Netflix.

Given how Netflix accounts are shared, it is quite possible that as many as one out of every two households in Singapore has access to its free-flowing content.

With the rise of the platform, it has become increasingly clear that our family is in the part of society which constitutes the Netflix "have-nots" in our social circle of mostly "haves".

People look at us as if we have just crawled out of the primordial swamp, yet to figure out how to be part of the human race.

When people ask us if we have seen a popular show on the platform, we often look back blankly and shake our heads.

As parents, we worried that our kids would become pariahs among their friends because we were not on the platform.

We certainly did not want our kids to be maladjusted and unable to socialise with their friends just because we were not paying the $21.98 monthly subscription fee.

In our weakest moments, we reasoned with ourselves about the educational value of Netflix. Surely we did not want our kids to miss out on 17,000 titles and an estimated 2.2 million minutes of content, some of it educational documentaries.

However, an area that concerned us was how binge-watching of Netflix could affect our kids.

According to Dr Renee Carr, a clinical psychologist who was interviewed on NBC, people who binge-watch TV shows do so because they are addicted. She explains that "when binge-watching your favourite show, your brain is continually producing dopamine and your body experiences a drug-like high".

We have friends who are addicted to Netflix, and when they are stopped from accessing the platform, they start to show withdrawal behaviour not unlike that in substance addiction.

To help us come to a decision, my wife and I returned to first principles. We had wanted to nurture our kids and to spend time engaging them, supporting their interests and encouraging them to have adventures away from a screen.

We ultimately decided against getting a Netflix account because we felt that we would gravitate towards consuming the content alone, and not together as a family. It became a choice between personal entertainment versus time engaging our kids.

One of our favourite weekend activities is to download a movie or a series on the family iMac and watch it together.

A few weeks ago, we enjoyed the recently released movie sequel Top Gun: Maverick (2022).

Before the film started, popcorn and snacks were prepared, with cold drinks selected from the refrigerator. Cushions were laid out in the living room so that everyone could make themselves comfortable.

The entire ritual heightened the anticipation of watching the movie together.

As it played, we parents filled the kids in on the backstory of the characters played by Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer and Jennifer Connelly from 1986's Top Gun. Our commentary was interrupted every so often by peals of laughter when we found something amusing.

Sitting together to watch something as a family makes it memorable and enjoyable. The content is consumed together and the accompanying conversation and engagement allows for a shared bonding experience.

It felt special reliving the Top Gun of my youth together with the kids. The movie provided content for family discussions for days. We discussed the impossibility of some of the flight scenes and the kids Googled bits of Top Gun trivia which they shared with us with delight.

I savoured the movie night and the memory of our time together as I realised that I had no idea how many more of such family nights we will continue to have, as the kids grow up, move out and start their own families.

After the movie, I asked the kids whether we should get a Netflix account for the family. I tried to make a practical argument about how it would be cheaper to pay for a Netflix subscription than on a per-movie basis, which is what we are doing now.

They would have none of it, and were unanimous in their response that they preferred to continue with movie nights as they were.