Your Body Decides Before You Scroll
I recently revisited an academic article by Krishna et al. on embodied cognition and sensory marketing. Their core argument is simple but powerful: consumer judgment does not happen only in the mind. It happens through the body, through sensation, movement, and physical state. What follows is less a summary of their findings than an application of their framework to a digital environment they could not yet have studied. How we feel physically shapes how we think, decide, and evaluate brands.
The article was published in 2017, long before TikTok became a cultural force. But reading it now, I kept thinking: this is exactly what is happening on social media today. TikTok is not just a platform we scroll. Viewed through an embodied cognition lens, it is a platform that conditions bodily rhythm.
The pace of short-form video subtly affects breathing and posture. Repetitive audio trains anticipation. Constant motion keeps the nervous system slightly activated, ready to swipe, decide, react. Before we ever consciously register whether we like a brand or a message, the body has already responded. Tightened. Accelerated. Or, in some cases, soothed.
Krishna et al. describe embodiment as the way bodily experience shapes cognition in subtle, often unnoticed ways. What feels different now is scale and repetition. These bodily cues are not occasional. They are constant. And over time, they accumulate.
This helps explain why so many people describe social media fatigue without being able to pinpoint why. It is not always about the content itself. It is about how the platform makes the body feel after ten minutes of exposure. Here is where this becomes practically useful. Noticing how your body feels online can tell you more than analyzing what you think about the content.
We often frame digital literacy as being more critical, more discerning, more aware. Embodied cognition suggests another layer: being more attuned. If content consistently makes you feel tense, restless, or drained, even if it is good content, your body may already be signaling disengagement before your mind catches up. This embodied perspective also helps explain what is happening on the brand side right now.
A recent industry article, From Personalization to Personhood: The New Era of Humanized Marketing in 2026, argues that brands are moving beyond data-driven personalization toward something more relational. It describes engaging people not as profiles or past behaviors, but as full humans with emotional lives. Relevance, the article suggests, is not just about predicting what someone might want, but about responding to how they feel. Reading through an embodiment lens, this shift makes sense. Personalization has historically emphasized cognitive signals, what consumers have clicked, searched, or purchased. The move toward personhood gestures toward something more embodied: presence, empathy, and felt resonance.
On platforms like TikTok, where engagement is shaped by rhythm, sensation, and attention, brands are not just competing for attention. They are competing for nervous-system compatibility. Does this content overstimulate, or does it regulate? Does it demand performance, or does it offer ease? Does it feel intrusive, or does it feel human? Whether or not they name it that way.
More and more, brand effectiveness seems to hinge on these bodily questions. In overstimulated environments, people do not return to content that merely grabs attention. They return to content that feels tolerable, grounding, or emotionally safe. This reframes what good marketing looks like in 2026.
It is no longer just about creativity, authenticity, or even relevance. It is about how a brand feels to encounter repeatedly. Consistency begins to matter more than novelty. Predictability becomes a form of trust, not just cognitively, but somatically, when it supports regulation rather than demand. Over time, consumers do not just recognize brands. They settle into them.
Krishna et al. argue that cognition cannot be separated from bodily experience. Social media does not contradict this insight; it intensifies it by delivering embodied cues at unprecedented scale and frequency. Social media pushes that insight further. Platforms do not just host marketing. They train embodied habits that shape how consumers relate to brands before conscious judgment ever begins.
For readers, this perspective offers something concrete. Pay attention to how your body responds online. That awareness can help you curate your feed, protect your attention, and engage more intentionally, not by resisting platforms, but by listening to yourself within them.
For brands and marketers, the implication is just as practical. Humanized marketing is not only about tone or storytelling. It is about designing content that respects how people physically experience digital environments.
In that sense, the move from personalization to personhood is not just strategic. It is embodied. And that may be where the most meaningful brand relationships are being built now. Not in the data, but in how it feels to be there.
