Both Dr. Schulman and Dr. Miami say the educational aspect is the reason a majority of their viewers tune in. “A good percentage [of those watching] are people either in the medical field or interested in pursuing careers in medicine — maybe 30%, based on the messages we get,” Dr. Miami says. “Another 30 to 40% are people who are thinking about having surgery, either immediately or sometime in the future.” The rest of the audience? Viewers fascinated by the gory and NSFW clips from the surgery room.In one recent Snapchat, weird social media worlds collided as Dr. Miami was shown extracting pimples and blackheads from his staff members' skin: something Sandra Lee, MD — a.k.a. Dr. Pimple Popper — has become infamous for. Chances are, if you fall into the voyeuristic-viewer category, you’re already familiar with her stomach-churning (or intriguing, depending on who you ask) Instagram videos . Dr. Miami would describe them as vomit-inducing, but mostly because of his history with the act. “I remember doing a lot of those lesions, cysts, and popping stuff as a resident. And the thing people don't realize is that they smell,” he says. “You don't get the smell through the phone, so when I see [the videos], I remember the smell and I get a little queasy. Isn't that weird? I'm a surgeon, but that makes me queasy.”For those who have their nausea in check, these videos are incredibly addictive, explains John Suler, PhD, a psychologist and author of Psychology of the Digital Age: Humans Become Electric . “It's the ‘gawker’ or ‘rubbernecking’ phenomenon, where people can't resist looking at disturbing things,” he says. “What the internet has done is made all these previously unusual and observable situations easily available to everyone... It has become a cultural addiction, with one symptom of addiction being increased tolerance. People need to see higher levels of unusual, and even disturbing, things in order to get a ‘high’ from it.”The length of the videos (usually a few seconds) makes them even more appealing to viewers, says Franklin Nii Amankwah Yartey, PhD, a communications professor at the University of Dubuque in Iowa. “The fleeting nature of the content that social apps like Snapchat have...provides an incentive for the public to consume content at a very fast rate... Some of us would rather watch short, entertaining snippets of content because we are in a hurry to watch the next viral video or snap. Thus, from the comfort of our homes and surroundings, we can consume the lives of others for entertainment, which may or may not have educational value,” he says. “For those that have access and the literacy to navigate these technologies, the high interactivity that these social apps offer keeps some audiences interested and glued to their screens.”