Why Do Users Stop Pleasurable Media Experiences? The Dynamics of Media Experiences and Their Impact on Media Disengagement

Given the vast amount of permanently available entertainment content and the high pleasure that viewers derive from it, the question of when and why users disengage from a media entertainment viewing session becomes more pressing. We argue in this paper that communication theories lack a conceptualization of the disengagement part of the communication process. The study presents a novel dynamic view on media use, and argues that specific processes that occur during media exposure contribute to its termination. The assumptions of the theoretical framework are tested with an event-based experience sampling study during TV series viewing sessions among 89 participants (1,952 answered surveys). The findings show that negative and positive response states evolve (partly) independently of each other in the course of entertainment viewing sessions: Despite an increase in negative experiences of goal conflict, guilt, and fatigue, individuals’ level of enjoyment remained stable during a viewing session. These results indicate that negative responses do not necessarily interfere with the experience of enjoyment. The level of enjoyment was the strongest predictor for whether someone stopped a viewing session indicating that hedonic experiences might overrule rational decisions to stop due to being fatigued or having other things to do.