Netflix contacted a man with depression after his viewing habits changed

Netflix has come under fire for revealing people's viewing habits but one man has defended the streaming service, saying it reached out to him when he was depressed.

In case you missed it: Netflix sent out a mocking tweet this week revealing 53 people have watched its new Christmas film every day for the last 18 days.

“Who hurt you?” the tweet asked the 53 viewers.

However, not everyone found the tweet funny, with some people calling it “creepy” and questioning the platform’s privacy policy.

Netflix defended the tweet in a statement, saying the information represented “overall viewing trends” and not the personal viewing information of specific individuals.

But a few days ago, one man took to Reddit to explain how Netflix’s monitoring of users’ viewing habits can actually be helpful.

The user, who called himself King-Salamander, said he had been depressed one summer during a break from college when he wasn’t working. “I ended up doing nothing but watching Netflix, and after I finished the Office in something like 5 - 10 days, I don’t quite remember, I received an email from Netflix asking if I was okay,” he explained.

He said the platform had noticed his account “running non-stop for over a week”.

“[Netflix] wanted to check on me and make sure I was doing well since my viewing activity became so much more frequent than they used to be,” he wrote.

“Honestly made me feel better just knowing that someone, even a stranger working at a customer support agency, cared about my mental health.”

In an update to the original post, he pointed out that the email was filed in an old inbox he no longer had access too. He also said he was “not a Netflix shill” but a “barista with $0.78 in my checking account”. “That being said, if anyone from Netflix wanted to hire me, send me a message. I graduate in a year.”

The Reddit user, who described himself as “just a college kid who watches too much television”, said he had been touched by the outpour of support from other users, offering money and pizza.