One thing I realized about TikTok is how much it taps into the channel-flipping mechanism. It's basically what I would do as a kid rotating the dial, giving each beat about a second or two before flipping to the next.
The biggest difference is that today, it never comes back around the dial - the dial is practically infinite.
And the TV analyzes your dial-flipping to determine what channel to change you to / generates a channel you are more likely to stay on.