Why I turned off auto-play after missing key plot points

I was binging a complex mystery show on a streaming platform last week. The auto-play feature skipped the recap at the start of each episode without asking. I did not notice until I got confused about why a character did something important. By then, I had watched three more episodes and was totally lost. I had to go back and rewatch parts to understand the story. It turned a relaxing binge into a stressful catch up session. Now I make sure to turn off auto skip before starting any new series. Has anyone else had this happen? What features do you wish streaming services would change?

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3 Comments

the_barbara6mo ago

My brain auto-skips recaps too, honestly.

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wyatt3386mo ago

I used to watch recaps, but your auto-skip habit made me rethink that.

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the_eva6mo ago

Ugh, auto-play is the worst assistant ever, just smugly assuming you want to miss all the important bits. It's like the streaming service decided we all have the memory of a goldfish and then built a feature to make it true. Honestly, @the_barbara, I think the feature is training our brains to do exactly what you said, to just skip past the stuff we actually need. They should really have an option that makes you watch two minutes of ads before it lets you skip the recap, you know, for our own good.

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