Pop culture is a relentless machine of newness and manufactured surprise. We queue around the block for new comic-book-movie installments and crash HBO Go to watch season finales. And yet, I have spent 100 hours of my life watching a movie I could perform verbatim in my living room.

Why do we spend so much time with stories whose endings we already know?

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The question "why do people do the same thing over and over?" has entranced philosophers, anthropologists, economists, and psychologists for centuries. "That which is repeated has been, otherwise it could not be repeated, but the very fact that it has been makes the repetition into something new,” wrote Kierkegaard (whom I have not re-read).

The most durable theories fit roughly into four categories: habits, addictions, rituals, and status-quo bias.

Habits, like going for a run to begin your day, are regular and automatic. We don’t even have to think about them, and that's part of their value. Addictions, like smoking, are like habits on evil steroids. They are unmanageable and lead to physical dependence. Then there are rituals, like Thanksgiving or wearing lucky socks before presentations. Unlike addictions, we choose our rituals to be symbolic and expressive rather than be ruled by them. Unlike habits, they’re infrequent.

Finally there's status-quo bias, the observation that people tend to stick with previous decisions, because the cost of coming to a new decision is mentally exhausting. Perhaps you recognize one of these excuses ...

"I don't love this job, but whatever, I don't want to look for a new one."

"[I've already decided for reasons I don't remember that] Global warming is a myth, and you can't persuade me otherwise."

"No, I won't go to Club Monaco. Gap's pants are fine. I'm a Gap person!"

When Cristel Antonia Russell and Sidney Levy interviewed people who had re-read a book, re-watched a movie, or revisited a sentimental site, their experiences didn't neatly fit into any of these categories. Instead, Russell and Levy found that people sought out familiar entertainment for specific reasons—to recapture a lost feeling, for example, or to appreciate the passage of time. Summing up their research, here are four reasons why so many people prefer their entertainment stuck on repeat.

The Simple Reason

The least complicated reason why people re-watch a movie (e.g.) is that ... well, they really like that movie!

If this explanation sounds too unsophisticated for you, feel free to use intensely multi-syllabic names for the phenomenon, like “reconstructive consumption." That's the term Russell and Levy use to describe interviewees who re-watched episodes of Battlestar Galactica and Seinfeld to remind themselves what happened and pick up on smaller details that they could appreciate once they caught up to the overall plot.