Table 2.

Participants’ quotes

Themes	Subthemes		Verbatim
TV series watching motivations	Immersion	Pastime	(3) “When we have time on our hands”
		Hooking	(1) “You need to be hooked,” (3) “In the end, I came unhooked…”
		Persistence	(2) “I keep watching until I feel really hooked,” (4) “I don’t give up…,” (3) “I waited for the click,” (5) “We feel disappointed each episode but we continue on the next one telling ourselves ‘Come on…’”)
		Completion	(4) “We will nonetheless take it to the very end,” (5) “I force myself to finish anyway…”
		Gap-filling strategy	(4) “It ever happened to me to start again watching TV shows I already viewed only to re-immerse myself in the story and because I miss it,” (5) “I start again watching, doing so helps me waiting until new episode,” (4) “If I have to wait again one year to discover a new season because the preceding one is over, well… I start again from its very beginning!”
	Entertainment	Content selection	(2) “During mornings or while I’m eating, I select more humorous and relaxing contents,” (5) “In the evening, I will rather watch ones I am really hooked by the storyline,” (6) “More developed, more modern TV series… Well, I keep these ones for evenings”
		Anticipation	(4) “I am pretty excited 10 min before!,” (2) “I am always happy to go back to the story”
		Expectations	(6) “We look for the same type of emotions,” (7) “I was disappointed…,” (1) “I wasn’t happy with that!”
		Throwaway zapping culture	(3) “I try a TV series and if that doesn’t work, I will try another one,” (5) “When it’s over, we will switch to another one”
	Social	Social buzz	(2) “Everyone is talking about it,” (6) “I can start a TV series just to understand why people always mention it,” (5) “The very popular ones, I will tune in too…”
		Peer recommendations	(3) “I am told that I should watch the first two seasons…,” (4) “I see I am being asked: By the way, which show would you recommend?”
		Sharing	(2) “We sometimes text each other while we watch the same show at the same time,” (5) “We sometimes plan an evening out to watch it together”
		Couple time	(2) “These are small delights we put in place one on one…”
		Fidelity rule	(5) “That became a rule between us, we have no right to discover alone some new episode of TV series we used to watch together,” (2) “I didn’t cheat, I didn’t watch, I waited for him to come back to watch the next episode”
TV series watching engagement	Excess	Binge-watching	(5) “A 2nd, a 3rd, and I keep watching…,” (3) “Each time, I start a new episode…,” (4) “I already spent an entire night binging on a show,” (2) “I have already screened a whole season in a row”
		Excess	(4) “Well, I already watched 10 episodes today, that’s quite a lot,” (2) “Yes, I already have 5 episodes to my credit for today…,” (5) “I admit, I watch a lot,” (2) “Sometimes, I do think to myself that it’s a little too much,” (6) “Sometimes, we feel that we must limit a bit…,” (4) “I realized that I spent one entire year of my life watching TV shows, that’s huge!”
		Self-awareness	(6) “It’s not okay…,” (3) “That does not happen to me very often you know…”
		Relatives’ comments	(4) “It took other people to tell me I am addicted…,” (2) “Others are always saying I watch way too much…”
		Waste of time	(3) “That was wasted time,” (6) “I wasted all this time when I could have done something else…”
		Cultural diversity	(5) “We don’t do something else other than watching TV shows, which can be a negative point…,” (6) “No negatives consequences generally speaking apart from the fact I don’t read anymore,” (3) “Before, I used to read a lot of comics and novels, now I replace it by ‘Well, I’m gonna watch a series’ almost systematically”
	Self-control	Control strategies	(2) “For example, if I wake up pushed for time in the morning, I deliberately select a show with not that much hooking. I won’t watch a Game of Thrones episode because that’s just impossible to stop!,” (4) “If I plan to go to bed early, I will check my serial is less story-driven, that way I’m not going to crack…”
Structural characteristics of TV shows	Availability	Abundance	(2) “There are so many shows at our disposal!”
		Convenience	(3) “It’s so easy, you only have to click on a button and there it is”
		Insidiousness	(2) “This is hyper insidious…”
	Type and quality of narrative	Continuation	(4) “I have to watch what happens next!,” (7) “I always find it hard waiting for the rest of the story…”