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Comment by sbjustin | Hacker News Reader

Yeah. She's only allowed on Netflix now. I've seen Sofia 10,000 times.

I never understood how it was possible for little girls to watch the same movie literally hundreds of times, sometimes twice in one day. Some day science will get around to the real mysteries like this. I think I've tried to erase the memories of torture I survived, hearing Horton Hears a Who played most days for almost a year.

I've heard some plausible theories.

For a young kid, the world is a strange and unpredictable place. Which means "scary" in some sense.

Watching a video (that the kid has seen many times before) is actually comforting. The kid can predict what's going to happen next, and is happy when expectations match reality.

There's possibly something similar going on with people on the autistic end of the spectrum, which may explain why they tend to get upset when taken out of their routine.

I find rewatching things I still remember the plots of intolerable... when I'm fully awake.

When I'm trying to fall asleep, I will almost always put on an episode of a podcast I've heard 500 times. It's more soothing than one of those ambient-noise apps.

Try the Shipping Forecast. Different every night, but just the same each time.

Speaking as an adult, the videos that will captivate me to the point of repeatedly rewatching them are specifically the videos that are unfamiliar and weird. Like say Kitty City [1]. My brain can't comprehend the unfamiliar world logic behind the video in just one go; it crave rewatches to better understand what the heck is happening in that scary world.

So my pet theory is that actually the opposite of the above theory is true. Kids rewatch movies that push the boundaries of their reality, in order to gain a better understanding of them. When the novelty wears off they'll move on.

Probably the truth is some combination of both. I wouldn't be surprised if certain times of day, developmental needs kick in and kids want to rewatch movies they don't understand; while other times of day, comfort needs kick in and they just want to see Elsa sing for the 100th time.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX3iLfcMDCw

Looks like some pro-Zerg propoganda.

Oh yeah. Cyriak, and Blu.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr_lcVVoDIY

I remember re-reading / looking at things more often than I would do today. That is, a few books I liked a lot. Other than that, new and wild was always appreciated, just not so wild to be scary. But still, protection from overstimulation (and danger) is a really important job of parents, especially for infants, predictability to a degree is important. Vital, even. Too much lack of it puts the baby into survival mode so to speak. This is cobbled together from armchair psychology but I'll just say it anyway, I think a roaring sea of non-sequitur events is just about the worst that could happen to a developing brain, it will have to develop shells instead of being able blossom and keep the ability to be sensitive (while developing the ability to, when needed, protect one's own attention oneself). So I agree, it's probably a combination of both. New input, come to terms with it, integrate it, get comfortable, get hungry, get new input :)

Centuries ago this was how oral histories were learned, repetition by the speaker and the listener.

Oral tradition must provide some survival benefits to be supported by instinct and genetics. My guess is today people only talk about oral history WRT obscure history or religion whereas when it was current technology, oral history was probably used mostly to store hunting and gathering data.

There's a lot of articles on this, the belief is that children crave predictability so they re-watch movies to the point that they can predict everything that will happen.

https://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/kids-and-movi...

Adults crave predictability too; they've just seen enough stuff to be able to predict most of the things one encounters out in society.

But watch a YouTube video of a magic trick, and you'll likely click back and re-watch the critical moment a few times before you've even realized what you're doing. Even if you don't end up understanding what happens, your brain inherently wants to make sure you are entirely clear on what you saw, so it can learn the raw fact that "this is a thing that can happen" and then attempt to reconstruct your mental models and schemas to take that evidence into account.

Kids just need to do that for, well, everything.

> Adults crave predictability too ...

That alone explains pop music success.

I've read somewhere (forget where) that the key to successful pop music is the slight unpredictability of new songs. That new hit song is mostly familiar… but just unfamiliar enough that you need to re-listen to it 100 times to really wrap your head around it.

Teacher here. Even most teenagers crave predictability (and structure) though they would never admit it or even be aware of it. I imagine it’s much easier to push and test boundaries when you know exactly when and where they are. Easier to “rebel” when you know the time to rebel is from 11:15 to 12 and then you can take a break and go get lunch.

This is both hilarious and enlightening.

Thank you.

Little kids have bad memory. That is factor too - it is more interesting to them cause they see something "new" they don't remember each time.

Absolutely, or rather, memory isn’t fully formed. There were movies I watched dozens of times as a kid. At the time I could repeat every word of the dialogue and songs, but I couldn’t tell you what the movie was about, so it was always enjoyable to see it play out.

There was a line at the end of some Muppets movie I would watch over and over, as the credits rolled—some nudge to parents like “I bet you wish you were watching this for the first time!”

Why would someone downvoted this? It is true if you know children and it is apolitical.

I remember watching Dumbo (with the Lambert The Sheepish Lion Pre-Show) off a broken cassette repeatedly. I have a very distinct memory of somehow hoping this time things would turn out differently. Like thinking OK, the mother elephant could just trample the guys this time. Nowadays I do not enjoy watching things a second time until I've really forgotten them, and only then if I'm introducing someone new to something great.

I don't remember where I read this anymore, but it seemed as plausible as any other explanation: as adults, most things are familiar, so we seek out novelty. To children, almost everything is novel, so they seek out familiarity instead.

We can listen to the same music hundreds of times. If you go for a bar for over an hour you'll likely hear the same hit songs on repeat. Lots of parallels.

I find that annoying too though

What does the child's gender have to do with it?

Parent probably has a little girl (or girls) and is innocently describing their direct experience. I wouldn't read much into that.

This question comes up very often on Reddit. Here's a good answer I read recently: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6d22mv/e...

> Young children love repetition, whether it's watching a video or listening to song lyrics, because it's the best way for them to acquire and master new skills. In order to learn something well, children this age practice it until they get it right, hence the repeated watching.

I was thinking about the same, but then realized I'm doing the same. I have watched some comedy clips on YouTube over and over (think Fast Show, Monty Python) and still enjoy them even though I know exactly what to expect.

Simply enough: dopamine.

This is an enjoyable experience for them, it is actually designed to be. This is how you sell tie-ins and make profit, the younger you get them the deeper they're caught in.

The side effect is that it is destroying their attention and impairs their self-development and cognition.

Also the human brain is a sucker for a good story, before screens and videos, kids were addicted to bedtime storytelling and could ask being told the same story a lot of times.

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