“ In a way, I want TikTok to tell me what I want. . . ” Users’ experience of TikTok as a televisual algorithmic flow

Abstract

This article revisits Williams’s concept of flow, Firth’s notion of algorithmic flow, and Picone et al.’s concept of Small Acts of Engagement (SAOE) to examine how users experience TikTok’s algorithmic flow. SAOE are understood as low-effort, everyday acts through which users negotiate their identities and shape their digital consumption. While SAOE have been a valuable lens for understanding user agency on earlier social media platforms, we argue that TikTok’s interface design and cultural framing introduce new challenges. The platform’s design, together with users’ perception of TikTok’s algorithmic flow as a televisual experience, reduces their SAOE to a minimal expression: a rhythm of watch, scroll, repeat , discouraging other forms of intentional, identity-driven engagement. Through a mixed-methods study combining interviews and analysis of participants’ donated TikTok data, we show how our participants experience TikTok as a place for effortless entertainment and continuous consumption, closely resembling the experience of traditional television flow.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. New Media & Society, 2026 · DOI ↗