How TikTok Hooks Users with Short Show and Movie Clips
Movieguide® Contributor
Tell-Tale senior writer Lara Rosales is sharing why TikTok users are attracted to clips from TV shows and movies.
“The magic of TikTok…is that you’re scrolling on your For You page and suddenly you have like all these different things, and then you have a scene from a movie or TV show that immediately catches your attention because they cut the scenes in a sense that will immediately get the audience’s attention…as they’re scrolling,” Rosales explained in an interview with Fox News.
“They’re edited so well to get the audience to watch them, but also because, again the themes continue to resonate even with younger generations. And I feel like a lot of the way in which TV was made and how it was edited a few years back was probably more like storytelling, and not just flashes of advertisements of watch this and watch that,” she said.
As one clip leads to another, many people even watch full TV shows and movies on the platform.
“Nearly 50% of users surveyed by TikTok said that videos longer than a minute long were ‘stressful.’ The truth is that our attention spans are shrinking — so much so that the effect of short-form media on our cognitive functions has been given a name: TikTok Brain,” The Oxford Blue reported last year.
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“TikTok Brain” is an unofficial term for having a low attention span while browsing platforms like TikTok. Some say this is why many are watching shows in clips rather than in one full segment.
“Usually, a show or film clip will get picked up by the algorithm and pop up on your FYP,” DAZED reported. “It’ll pique your interest, you’ll go in search of the next clip, and subsequently fall down a rabbit hole where you end up watching clip after clip of the entire thing on an account dedicated to sharing snippets.”
Bobby Duffy, professor of Public Policy at King’s College London and author of “Generations: Does When You’re Born Shape Who You Are?,” believes that shows and movie clips are popular for reasons other than just nostalgia, clever editing or short attention spans. For example, TikTok is free, and some people can’t afford to stream a new show or purchase another streaming service.
“There is no real evidence of shortening attention spans at an individual level — the idea that young people can’t concentrate for long is a common trope throughout history,” Dr. Duffy said. “We always need to bear this in mind when interpreting trends that are driven by or focused on young people — we have a bias to think of these as damaging or a sign of weakness in younger generations, compared with when we were young.”
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