Lectures — One More Episode
What is covered, week by week, and which topics each lecture draws on.
The One More Episode Effect
Why finishing an episode so rarely feels like a stopping point — and what happens when the interface, not you, gets to decide what "one more" costs.
Why We Start Watching
Before there's anything to keep watching, something has to make you press play. This week is about that first click — and how little it has to do with the show itself.
Cliffhangers
A cliffhanger doesn't answer a question — it opens one and cuts away. This week is about why an open question pulls harder than an open plot.
Autoplay
A cliffhanger still needs you to decide to keep watching. Autoplay removes that decision entirely. This week is about what changes when "continue" is the default and "stop" is the thing you have to do.
Rewards & Reinforcement
Two habits can get the exact same number of payoffs and still feel completely different to keep doing. This week is about why timing, not quantity, is what makes a reward hard to walk away from.
Time Perception
Three episodes can feel shorter than fifteen minutes spent waiting for a bus. This week is about why elapsed time and felt time keep disagreeing — and what that has to do with losing track of a binge.
Binge Watching
One more episode is a decision made once. A binge is that same decision made silently, over and over, without anyone ever tallying how many times. This week is about what disappears when nobody's counting.
Recommendation Algorithms
A feed doesn't have to remove your choices to narrow your world — it only has to keep offering you more of whatever you already picked. This week is about what that quietly does to what you even get shown.
Social Watching
Two identical shows, side by side, will still get picked unevenly the moment one of them says other people are watching it. This week is about what a social cue is actually doing when the content itself can't explain the difference.
Sleep vs Entertainment
Every episode costs the same fixed amount of something, whether or not anyone's counting. This week makes that cost visible on purpose, and asks what changes once it's a number instead of a feeling.
Breaking the Loop
Every mechanism this course has named keeps a cycle turning. This week asks a more useful question than "how do I stop" — where in that cycle does one small interruption actually change what happens?
The Final Episode
Every mechanism this course named, studied on its own. This week puts them back in the same session together, and asks what changes once they stop taking turns.