Let’s Define “Thumb-Stopping” Content
Swipe. Swipe. Swipe. Content can appear and disappear with a swish of your fingertips. What makes you swipe? What makes something entertaining versus not? What makes you stop in your tracks? What deters the momentum in your fingers momentarily?
As a generation accustomed to technology and media, Gen-Z has become infamous for our lack of attention span and greedy need for instant gratification. This deadly combination has fueled the success of apps like Tiktok and extended the product lifetime on platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube, and Twitter with the introduction of features like stories and video shorts. The success and widespread use of these applications have laid the foundation of overstimulation and abundance in access.
Focusing on a platform that revolutionized this concept over the last three years, Tiktok has created an algorithm that targets the habits and interests of each user to create a personalized feed, thus aiming to create “thumb-stopping” content at each swipe forward. Their technique has defined this term to be “content that serves the individual users' interests in a shortened time period.” They use the information they gather via the amount of time we spend on each video, the comment section, etc to determine if they should display more content like that.
An example of this is how I had the following TikTok show up on my screen. It shows a former advertising student using her skills to create sarcastic renditions of famous logos. I viewed her videos months back as they were going viral because I was fascinated by the viewership and interaction she was getting from these large companies. I hadn't seen her content since, but with the NFL Superbowl going on, there she was! For me, her content was thumb-stopping because I was previously fond of her content and I was interested in what she was going to do.
For others, what content they may receive in form of both organic posts and targeted ads may differ largely from mine depending on their ambitions and hobbies.
It’s crazy to think that only a couple of generations ago, there wasn’t access or opportunity to have choices between media-related entertainment! Radio and some television were the extents of it. This means that there was no such thing as “thumb-stopping content” at that time.
I wonder if things were better then, or if the abundance of access is better for us now- Food for thought.
