The Trigger

Why is binge-watching so popular? The answer lies in how our brains function while we’re watching:

• it makes us feel good - binge-watching a show produces a continuous stream of dopamine in our brains. Dopamine gives the body a natural, internal reward of pleasure that reinforces continued engagement in that activity.
• binge-watching gives us an escape from the day-to-day grind. TV viewers are tuning in to a different world. This is a form of escapism that is especially welcomed today.

Binge-watching can easily become a problem when you regularly prioritize it over other important activities:

• Just like gamblers, binge watchers can't get the same enjoyment from the same level of activity so it takes more of the same activity to give us that same feeling of enjoyment.
• Binge-watchers reported higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression.
• binge-watchers reported lower enjoyment levels from watching the show than those who watched the same series only once a day

• Filters as on Snapchat.
• The ability to search for sounds to score your video.
• It provides extensive reasons and prompts.
• Hashtags play a large role as a functional organizing principle. 
• It nudges you and makes it easy to come up with material to post.
• Users are encouraged to engage with other users in two ways: Through "response" videos and through "duets" where a user replicates a video and add themselves alongside.

TikTok has stepped over the point between the familiar self-directed feed and experience based on algorithmic observation and inference. When you open the app, you don't see a feed of your friends, but a page called "For You" - It's an algorithmic feed based on videos you've interacted with or just watched.

It's not full of people you know or things you've explicitly told it you want to see. It is constantly learning from you and builds up a model of what you tend to watch. In short, it is like an Instagram centered entirely around its "Explore" tab.