Media psychology strategies drive viewer habit, loyalty, and engagement in streaming services.

Binge-watching exploits dopamine and cliffhangers, making all-at-once releases highly addictive.

Personalized algorithm feeds exploit cognitive biases, reinforcing repeat viewership.

In 1968, I was a doctoral student at UCLA when the first internet streaming message was successfully sent between UCLA and Stanford Universities.

The message has been memorialized as, “Lo and Behold.” In 1978, at AACC we formed “The Telecourse People,” streaming telecourses and online learning. In 1986, as an interest group of media psychologists in APA, we launched the Media Psychology Division 46, of the American Psychological Association, and Media Psychology as a specialty in psychology was formalized as The Society for Media Psychology and Technology.

Today, dramatic technological advancements such as improved compression algorithms, the growth of cloud computing, and satellite streaming, continue to amplify the growing boom in successful streaming services. The increase in streaming services is big business, rapidly revolutionizing the way content is consumed and changing the landscape of new and legacy media. Media psychology is at the center of it all.

The most successful streaming platforms have been created using media psychology designs that........

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