Do I Need Pleasure, Meaning, or New Ideas Today? Exploring the Relationship Between Daily Experiences, Motivations for Media Use, and Content Preferences

Abstract: There is a vast field of research investigating which motivations drive media usage within specific contexts – for example gaming, social media use, or binge-watching. However, surprisingly little is known about how different motivations influence the selection among multiple media formats (e.g., TV shows vs. music). Which media do people typically select if they want to relax, and which if they want to satisfy their curiosity? We conducted a within-subjects experiment ( n = 252) with US undergraduates to explore what media people turn to in response to three distinct motivations: 1) the motivation to experience pleasure (hedonic entertainment), 2) the motivation to experience meaning (eudaimonic entertainment), and 3) the motivation to experience variety (psychologically rich entertainment). We investigate how often people use media for hedonic, eudaimonic, and psychological richness motives, as well as how affective states influence these motives.