The keyword flow can be applied to media in today’s society. Flow can be defined as the constant stream of media to keep users engaged and constantly active on a site or app. Different apps and platforms have different ways to keep users engaged which creates profit for that platform. TikTok does it by having a constant and never ending stream of videos on the for-you-page. This makes it hard for people to stop scrolling and therefore users are almost tricked because they feel like they are simply watching short fifteen second videos, but in reality they have spent the past hour watching hundreds of these videos. As we discussed in class on Tuesday, flow can be seen in a multitude of ways such as texts, gifs, and ads. All these aspects of flow can either come in or out from the user. Ads are an example something that comes in because we process them almost unknowingly and often times get sucked into them. In general flow is the continuation of media that can be seen in all sorts of media forms from television shows to Instagram to TikTok.
2 thoughts on “Flow- Caroline Rowe”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I fully agree with what you said about Tik Tok. The never-ending videos on the for you page are the reason why people keep coming back to it. The flow of it all is the reason people never know when to leave the app. The creators did this for a reason. If people keep scrolling aimlessly through the app, they won’t realize some of the videos they are seeing are ads. They implement the ads in a very sneaky way by making it look like a normal Tik Tok video so you stay on it for longer. We also see ads on creators’ videos. Lots of them got sponsored by certain brands and because we like the creator, we like the video regardless.
I like that you define flow as the constant stream of media to keep users engaged and constantly active on a site or app, and I agree with the example of ads. We are often subconsciously drawn to advertising since they are pushed based on the information we provide to the Internet. Last week I continued browsing on a clothing site for a few days. Then when I opened other sites on Google pages, ads for this brand of clothing would appear next to them. These flows are based on capital, which is a way for the company to earn profit. They use flows like notifications, ads, and so on to encourage you to spend. We need to have some self-control and be sensible about these flows.