[HN Gopher] Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form...
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Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use
Author : smartmic
Score : 141 points
Date : 2025-11-19 20:01 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (psycnet.apa.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (psycnet.apa.org)
| ge96 wrote:
| yeah I'm trying to watch less YT, hard for me to just sit in
| silence and think
|
| trying to be more of a producer than consumer, not saying this to
| look down I'm socially/financially a failure, trying to change my
| habits
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| The paper is specifically studying short-form videos like on
| TikTok or Youtube _Shorts_ , so there would be no implication
| for videos longer than 3 minutes (the maximum for YT shorts)
| righthand wrote:
| I don't think it's correct to say there are no implications.
| The only discernable difference between a short and long
| videos effects is that one of the videos is capped at 3
| minutes. There could be plenty of implication and correlation
| to high intake watching videos of any length.
| the_af wrote:
| I don't know if that's the only discernible difference.
|
| While 3 minutes is indeed an arbitrary limit, the
| difference between short and long form videos is very
| noticeable. Long form requires another form of attention,
| focusing more, more commitment, less distraction; there's
| even a form of "delayed gratification" (a form of attention
| that only grownups can provide) in that the payoff isn't
| always immediate and can sometimes be _very_ delayed.
|
| Short form is like junk food, zero friction, instantly
| addictive and doesn't require you to really pay attention.
| Surely the immediacy of attention it needs is completely
| different to long form video.
|
| I also disagree with your other comment that maybe long
| form can promote similar consumption habits (you call it
| "overconsumption"); I don't think anyone can get "addicted"
| to long form video, it's simply too time-demanding, you
| don't get a "fix" and the "zapping" effect of quickly
| moving from one video to the next.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| I probably spend 1-2 hours per day watching content on
| youtube (and much of that is at ~1.5-1.75X speed)
|
| I don't know what qualifies as "addiction", but it is
| typically where I get my news, where a web-series I watch
| is released, and where I learn about social justice
| issues important to me, through video essays.
|
| I'm sure my consumption is very different from that of
| someone who watches 100 1-minute Tiktok videos per day,
| but I think it's worth at least questioning how this
| might also contribute to cognitive performance and mental
| health.
|
| Though I think a big difference with short-form content
| is the autoplay functionality (as your sibling commenter
| mentions). I watch videos which are released by channels
| I subscribe to, and occasionally (maybe once a week)
| watch something Youtube recommends to me. So I retain
| some agency over my viewing habits compared to someone
| whose decisions are dictated by the algorithm, which also
| has an incentive to keep people watching as long as
| possible.
| the_af wrote:
| Are your habits typical though? Playing long form videos
| at 1.75 speed? I suppose once you start engaging at
| hyperspeeds, you're making it closer to short form
| compulsive consumption. It'd be like speed reading a book
| instead of letting ideas and thoughts form.
| Chabsff wrote:
| There is a HUGE difference in that the combined short
| length with the fact that the video starts playing before
| you even have a chance to make a decision on whether to
| watch it or not leads you to a "heh! I'm here already,
| might as well just watch the thing".
| righthand wrote:
| This is a response to you and the other Y people that
| confuse short videos with autoplay and user engagement
| techniques.
|
| There are people that autoplay long videos, in fact
| people stream random Simpson's (or other favorite tv
| show, podcast, music, books on tape, etc) episodes in the
| background while they work. Classic TV has autoplay with
| no opportunity to decide. Autoplay is not an exclusive
| short form video feature. I can make a short video on my
| computer and it will not autoplay other content.
| Chabsff wrote:
| There's no confusion here. It's pretty easy to make the
| argument that the _combination_ of auto play and short
| form is orders of magnitude more problematic than the sum
| of their parts.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Sure, but that's beside the point. The discussion here is
| about the unique qualities of SFV and its affects on
| attention span and thinking. It's about the instant-reward
| feedback mechanism of swiping quickly and the ability to
| ingest a larger narrative. It's about the super-short cuts
| of video and audio that beg for attention, versus longer,
| more static content that requires patience, doesn't
| constantly dump dopamine, and stays on one topic longer.
|
| In short: There are a lot of differences in how long and
| short videos affect a person, in my opinion.
| thanhhaimai wrote:
| Long form educational YT videos are amazing. It makes my brain
| work hard, and I feel like I learn more.
|
| Short form pop content like TikTok doesn't give my brain enough
| time to engage the thinking muscle.
|
| I think it's better to identify the characteristics of the
| media we consume, rather than lumping all of them together.
| righthand wrote:
| There could be overconsumption effects of short form media
| that exist in long form certainly.
|
| You're hand waving it away because you prefer long videos.
| What about all the people using TikTok as a search engine?
| oceansky wrote:
| May God help them
| godelski wrote:
| I don't think you're wrong but I think you're being too
| quick to attack the gp. They're not wrong either. The point
| you brought up doesn't contradict theirs but adds nuance.
|
| I'm all for nuance. Its also why I'm biased towards long
| form media as it's more likely to contain nuance, but not
| guaranteed. The gps specific example of lectures is quite
| narrow and more likely to have depth. Which is the entire
| problem of short form media, that we live in a complex
| world where we can't distill everything into 1-2 minute
| segments. Hell, even a lecture series, which will be over
| 10hrs of content is not enough to make one an expert on all
| but the most trivial of topics.
|
| You're right that we need nuance but you're not right in
| arguing for it while demonstrating a lack of it. A major
| issue is we need to communicate, something we're becoming
| worse at. We should do our best to speak and write as
| clearly as possible but at the end of the day language is
| so imprecise that a listener or reader will be able to
| construct many, and even opposing, narratives. It is more
| important to be a good listener than a good speaker. I'd
| hope programmers, of all people, could understand this as
| we've invented overly pedantic languages with the explicit
| purpose of minimizing ambiguity[0]
|
| [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FN2RM-CHkuI
| SlightlyLeftPad wrote:
| I hate that I can't use youtube at all without being forced to
| fed short form video content. Or kids schools referencing
| youtube content for educational purposes and they are then
| force fed short form video content.
| Chabsff wrote:
| Honestly, I don't _mind_ the format in principle, and the
| process that goes from YT 's homepage to watching a single
| one of them is not that bad to me. As long as I get to make a
| decision that I want to watch something, consciously go "I
| will click on this thing and watch it" and only then proceed
| to watch it, then it's _fine_.
|
| It's the algorithmic loop that starts the moment you scroll
| to the next video that starts playing before you even have a
| chance to decide whether or not it's something that you want
| to watch that's abhorrent to me.
| mrandish wrote:
| On Firefox you can block short form content from YouTube as
| easily as adding one extension or a few uBlock Origin filter
| lines. With a bit more work it's possible to fix _a lot_ of
| other stuff using various browser extensions and userscripts
| on desktop /laptop. On mobile (Android) I use an app that
| patches the YT executable called "Revanced Extended"
| (https://github.com/inotia00/ReVanced_Extended). On set top
| (Android TV sticks) I use an app called SmartTube
| (https://smarttubeapp.github.io/).
|
| On desktop/laptop I decided to go deeper into YT
| customization. My current mod stack for YT completely re-
| imagines the YT interface to be focused and space efficient,
| replaces spammy, inaccurate thumbnails with actual video
| stills, re-formats spammy ALL CAPS AtTentIoN SeEKiNG
| headlines, shows enough of the expanded description to be
| useful and outright blocks a bunch of stuff I never want to
| see (channel promos, upcoming, shorts, live streams,
| algorithm recommendations, etc). It takes me straight to a
| grid of only new videos posted by the niche channels I
| subscribe to, so I never even see the Youtube home page.
|
| Warning: I cobbled together this stack over time out of
| disparate unrelated components by just experimenting until I
| found a combination which "fixes" YT in _exactly_ the ways I
| want. Even though it _heavily_ customizes YT, it 's all been
| working great with no changes for over two years - but YT
| could break it any time. If you're okay with that, this
| should get you started:
|
| 1. A UserScript YouTube 'mod platform' called [Nova
| YouTube](https://github.com/raingart/Nova-YouTube-extension).
| This does the thumbnail, description and other reformatting
| as well as most of the content blocking by type (with a
| couple uBO filters found in the uBO subreddit).
|
| 2. A Stylus userstyles (CSS) mod called [AdashimaaTube](https
| ://github.com/sapondanaisriwan/AdashimaaTube). This mostly
| handles reformatting the interface like number of rows and
| columns in grids and selectively removing YT's dark-pattern
| UI cruft.
|
| 3. "Youtube Enhancer" (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
| US/firefox/addon/youtube-enhan...) is a Firefox add-on which
| I mostly use for one feature it does perfectly (auto-
| expanding videos to fill the browser viewport but not in
| 'full-screen'). I also like the way Enhanced YouTube's
| configurable player interface buttons work and look.
|
| My YT account was created in 2008 and until I did this I
| didn't even realize just how _awful_ YT had become because it
| was done so gradually over the years. There are a lot of
| different add-ons and userscripts out there and the ones I
| happened to land on may not suit you, so just try different
| options to see what 's possible and then experiment until you
| find a stack which works for you.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Learn to watch at 2x speed (or faster with an extension). Then
| use the saved time for productive activities.
| godelski wrote:
| I think you should watch at whatever speed you best ingest
| the material. Don't get me wrong, some lectures I watch at 2x
| but it isn't about optimizing speed. It's about optimizing
| attention. I go faster if the speaker is too slow and/or too
| monotone so my mind starts drifting. Speeding up can force me
| to concentrate and not drift but the right speed is dependent
| in many factors that it can't be a hard rule. Regardless of
| the speed, in a lecture video I'll pause and rewind. That's
| the large benefit to them, though at the cost of being unable
| to engage and interact.
|
| There's no deficit of time in the day, the deficit is in
| energy and attention. I'm worried we conflate speed and
| productivity (I'm unsure if you do or don't) but these are
| original. Speed gives the illusion of productivity but it is
| ignorant of quality and efficiency. It's only a first order
| approximation of productivity and a noisy one at best.
| Velocity is more important, as it requires direction but even
| velocity is ignorant of momentum, acceleration, force, and
| many other factors that go into making one productive. Speed
| is only important if everything else is held constant.
|
| Let's not confuse speed for productivity. I'd argue that is a
| major contributing factor that has gotten us to this point.
| Where everything appears to move fast but in reality moves
| slower than ever
| chickensong wrote:
| > hard for me to just sit in silence and think Maybe practice
| slowing down by reading a book. Any book, hard copy.
|
| > trying to be more of a producer than consumer Thank you!
| foofoo12 wrote:
| Totally my feeling too.
|
| The formula seems to be: dopamine, dopamine, dopamine,
| infuriating country dividing content, dopamine, dopamine,
| dopamine, infuriating country dividing content, dopamine,
| dopamine, dopamine ...
| andrepd wrote:
| Whenever I search anything in my native language, and I mean
| literally any topic, one of the top recommendations (if not the
| top one, which autoplays by default) is the local far-right
| party. It's crazy. We've become used to this but it's crazy.
| nxor wrote:
| People have beliefs you don't share?
| foofoo12 wrote:
| No, he's referring to politics.
|
| Far-right politics[a] encompasses a range of ideologies
| that are marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism,
| ultranationalism, radical anti-communism, ethnonationalism,
| and nativism.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right_politics
| SantalBlush wrote:
| This accurately describes the front page of reddit, too.
| foofoo12 wrote:
| Yep. It's ironic that reddit itself cured my reddit
| addiction.
| goldemerald wrote:
| Algorithmically served short form videos is clearly the smoking
| of our time. I cannot stand the conservative view of "well we
| don't know the videos cause mental health decline, or if it's
| simply those with a genetic inclination who seek out short form
| content.", exactly mirroring the skeptics about smoking causing
| cancer. I'm hopeful that in 5-10 years (but more likely 20)
| people will view this AI served, maximally engaging, content in
| the same way we view smoking now: disgusting and horrible, but
| adults should be allowed to do what they want. I can easily
| imagine kids/teens sharing their illicit access to shorts much in
| the same way they share vapes/cigarettes, which would be a much
| more preferable situation than the unlimited use we see today.
| ge96 wrote:
| Oh man, they take random people's clips, stitch them together
| with a voice over and include false information eg. an
| incorrect fact about an animal
| nxor wrote:
| I hope you don't mean conservative in the usual political
| sense. I know more conservatives worried about this than not.
| baxtr wrote:
| We have one clear rule at home for the kids: YouTube long format
| is ok.
|
| But: no shorts, no reels, no TikTok.
|
| Any short video platform is strictly forbidden. No exceptions.
| gblargg wrote:
| I'd also ban autoplay of the next video. You have to be
| involved in choosing the next video to watch (or none).
| derefr wrote:
| I would suggest you make an exception for YouTube shorts from
| channels / creators that _also_ put out YouTube long-form
| content.
|
| You'd think I'd be making a point here about "otherwise you'd
| be missing a lot of good educational content that happens to be
| packaged short-form"; but no!
|
| The point I actually want to make is much weirder: unlike the
| other short-form-video services, YouTube's "shorts" _don 't
| seem to have any actual time constraints built into the
| format_. And so many creators -- especially the ones that
| normally make long-form content -- actually put out rather
| _long_ "shorts". Like, multiple minutes long.
|
| Which means that a large percentage of YT "shorts" these days
| are essentially just... regular YouTube videos. Just, er,
| vertical.
|
| For a while, I _was_ filtering out YT "shorts"... until I
| realized that some of my favorite long-form creators I had been
| following had gone mysteriously missing from my feed. And it
| turned out I was missing all their new videos, because they
| decided to format+post them as "shorts." These were the same
| videos they had been producing for years now. Just as long as
| before. Just in portrait now.
|
| ---
|
| Tangent: Why are creators even bothering to make these videos
| and mark them as "shorts", if they're not actually short-form
| videos?
|
| Well, _creators_ are incentivized to do this, because YT is
| really _pushing_ shorts; and so, if you make your video into a
| "short" -- whether or not it's a _short-form video_ -- your
| video will get promoted in many shorts-only UI carousels and
| recommended areas of the site and apps, that it otherwise
| wouldn 't. (This easy route to promotion is especially
| tantalizing for newer creators trying to "break through" to a
| self-sustaining audience.)
|
| And YT itself is incentivized, now that they _have_ all this
| frontage to push "shorts", to _have_ a constant stream of new
| "shorts" to push -- whether or not those "shorts" are really
| _in the spirit of short-form content_.
|
| YT and the creators are effectively aligned in an implicit
| agreement to violate the spirit of "short-form video" in the
| name of bringing more attention to what's basically their same
| old content format.
| OGWhales wrote:
| I noticed that as well (though I do think there is a time
| limit), but decided I didn't want to encourage more of it and
| still avoid any shorts. I usually watch on a TV anyway, so
| vertical videos are pretty weird...
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Pretty sure YouTube shorts have a 3min time limit. That's
| what it was last time I uploaded a video. By the way, it's
| really annoying that videos a minute or under need to be
| Shorts and they converted all old short videos to Shorts
| jlund-molfese wrote:
| I disagree in principle, but your comment was actually pretty
| interesting, so I still upvoted it!
|
| I sometimes watch shorts when I go directly to a creator's
| page, but still notice myself sucked into the loop of the
| next short automatically playing and not being particularly
| interesting.
| chickensong wrote:
| If you're anti-shorts, you could also choose to send a
| message to the creators by not watching their shorts. If they
| previously made long form but have switched to shorts,
| they're concerned with views, so you deny them the views.
|
| Of course this may have little impact since so many people
| have no self-control and the gains from shorts may outweigh
| loosing your views, but it's still something. Enjoy the
| warmth of angry spite and move on.
|
| Vote with your wallet, your clicks, and be the change you
| wish to see.
| derefr wrote:
| I mean... I'm against _short-form videos_. I 'm not against
| YT shorts, because they (mostly) _aren 't_ short-form
| videos. They're just vertical videos that trick people used
| to short-form videos into _thinking_ they 'll be getting
| short-form videos, but (mostly) give them long-form videos.
| (Or... medium form? What do you call a two-to-three-minute-
| long video that thoroughly answers one very specific
| question?)
|
| Especially the creators who've "previously made long form
| but have switched to shorts" -- they're not making short-
| form videos. They're just making long/medium-form videos in
| portrait now.
|
| IMHO, if something markets itself as a problematic thing,
| but doesn't actually _deliver_ on the problematic part,
| then it isn 't problematic. (E.g. convincing kids that
| frozen peas are "pea candy" isn't problematic. You're not
| making them like "candy." You're making them like peas!)
| gblargg wrote:
| Anyone who's able to stomach those short videos has to have
| cognitive deficits or mental issues. I'd rather watch an
| advertisement than those (and I can't stand watching
| advertisements).
| cadamsdotcom wrote:
| Short form is no good to consume anyway.
|
| The moment the content gets interesting - the athlete is about to
| cross the finish line, or the voiceover is about to explain HOW
| they got the turtle out from the barbed wire - the video
| restarts!
|
| Then there is a mix of annoyance and curiosity - at the content
| not going deep enough - and that jolts me out of the addiction
| loop.
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| I recall being flabbergasted the first time I saw someone
| watching (what I think was) tick tock. An adolescent boy a few
| rows in front of me at an amphitheater was watching what I
| believe was comedic content at full volume, but the jump cuts and
| sound effects were so jarring and constant that even when I
| focused for a minute and tried to force myself to understand what
| he was watching, I couldn't follow what was happening.
|
| I can recall being that age and being overwhelmed and exhausted
| after watching a Pokemon TV show battle sequence, but this has
| nothing on what I assume is the worst kind of short form content
| today. "The weed is different now bro".
| taw1285 wrote:
| This tracks for me. I have deleted TikTok and Instagram but now I
| find myself browsing X short videos!! Addiction is a crazy thing.
|
| I have a daily 30 minute one way commute. I usually put on a
| YouTube video about startup or tech talk. But I find myself
| forgetting it all the day after. I am curious how you go about
| remembering the content without being able to take notes while
| driving.
| mrDmrTmrJ wrote:
| I have YouTube.com and X.com IP blocked on this computer for
| exactly that reason.
|
| Because I noticed I have zero self-control with the short-term
| video format. So now I don't touch it and consider it similar
| to cigarettes.
| apsurd wrote:
| Information for its own sake to obtain doesn't have any lasting
| effect, it makes sense why you forget. Try to intake the
| information and have it cue a relation to your life, have it
| spark some internal thought. I'm struggling to articulate this,
| I've always been "a thinker", just think about things all day.
| I rarely finish books because whatever I read I think about it
| for so long.
|
| It's my own personal reflection on information, knowledge, and
| learning, I hesitated to write this comment but I did at the
| chance it helps.
|
| Information is basically a commodity these days. The leverage
| is in how the info informs your thoughts.
| nxor wrote:
| You don't. This is where taking public transport to work
| shines.
| drekipus wrote:
| are you watching talks while driving?
|
| One thing I've tried recently, was that going no-nothing while
| driving: so no music, radio, nothing, just me and my thoughts.
|
| It's been immensely pleasurable, like I've rediscovered myself.
|
| But I still have an issue with finding a good long form video
| to watch while washing up, or shorts while I'm waiting for CI
| to finish at work, etc. I need to find something else to do.
|
| something along the lines of "you can't remove an addiction
| habit, you can only replace it"
| nverba wrote:
| As someone who pays for YouTube, I don't understand why I can't
| disable shorts fully. They already have my money. What more do
| they want?
| itake wrote:
| they want your time
| sturza wrote:
| attention is all they want
| eptcyka wrote:
| Attention is all they need.
| OGWhales wrote:
| Yeah, I find it odd how hard they push it, like trying to shove
| it down my throat levels of pushing shorts. I already use their
| platform heavily, just for regular videos. My guess is they get
| more data from how you interact with shorts and they find that
| to be super valuable info over what they get from regular video
| watching.
| nxor wrote:
| Funny enough, last I saw, shorts of course are less
| profitable than videos, because they can't carry as many ads,
| and supposedly advertisers would rather put their ads on
| longer videos anyway. This would imply they just want to stay
| relevant. After all, if they didn't make short form videos,
| someone somewhere would be convinced they are missing out
| (personally I find shorts a lot worse than long videos).
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| They want more of your money. They will monetize you as much as
| they can. You're just a well-supported, paying product.
| nearbuy wrote:
| They don't make more money from showing you shorts once
| you've paid to remove the ads.
|
| The default reason some feature doesn't exist is simply
| because no one bothered to make it. Maybe they don't think
| there's a big demand from their users to disable shorts
| completely.
| prussia wrote:
| I would wager some VP at YouTube in charge of shorts has
| their performance evaluations tied to how many hours of
| shorts are watched. So that's one incentive. Another is
| customer retention. Make current paying users addicted to
| shorts, and maybe they'll be more likely to keep paying.
| nearbuy wrote:
| I think you're basically right, but the comment I replied
| to was saying they'll somehow get more of that specific
| user's money. While the shorts may improve retention in
| aggregate, this particular paying customer doesn't want
| them.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| > The default reason some feature doesn't exist is simply
| because no one bothered to make it. Maybe they don't think
| there's a big demand from their users to disable shorts
| completely.
|
| My guess is they know _exactly_ what users are doing with
| the app and website, and know that people use shorts more
| often than we think.
|
| This is one of their prime products, and they're Google,
| the biggest surveillance company on the planet. Of course
| they know how users interact with their service.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| companies don't work like people, there is no limit to their
| desires. Trying to appeal to the good taste of a trillion
| dollar company is, as the anecdote goes, like letting a tiger
| swallow you up to the shoulders and then demand that it spare
| your head.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| > companies don't work like people, there is no limit to
| their desires.
|
| public companies specifically force this kind of capture all
| possible revenue capture to the point of hurting long term
| profits.
|
| Take Valve, a private company that understands that its not
| worth pissing off your customers in the long term and have an
| incentive structure that supports that.
| zparky wrote:
| Honestly, I use revanced on my android phone which lets me
| disable all shorts content appearing. and on browser if i stick
| to the subscriptions tab and maybe the sidebar on videos,
| there's no shorts.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| Get Unhook extension (for desktop)
| mannycalavera42 wrote:
| yup, this one :up
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Also the weird YouTube Playable Games thing that shows up every
| few weeks.
| or_am_i wrote:
| The subscription revenues is a decent chunk of your lifetime
| value (LTV) as a customer, but it's not all of it. The goal
| here is to squeeze as much value from you aside from that as
| possible, measured mostly by two things, really: the direct ad
| revenue, measured by dollars that go on the balance sheet, and
| the indirect "engagement" value measured by the KPIs (think
| daily, weekly, monthly active users) that go into the
| quarterlies. The more time you spend on the platform, the more
| "things" you have got used to interacting with (aka day-to-day,
| week-to-week "retention"), the more they can potentially "sell"
| to you -- and it's not just ads / youtube subscription upsells,
| it can be and often is other "products" on the same platform:
| their music streaming, their search, their documents and
| emails, maps, drive, etc. etc. And it just so happens that the
| short format is _really, really_ engaging for many folks.
|
| The more time you spend in the mall, the fuller are the bags on
| the way out, be it out of chance, habit, or convenience.
| theshackleford wrote:
| > The goal here is to squeeze as much value from you aside
| from that as possible, measured mostly by two things, really:
| the direct ad revenue, measured by dollars that go on the
| balance sheet
|
| There are no ads on a sub, this doesn't make any sense as
| such to the parents comment.
| imiric wrote:
| That's right, but it's not just products that they can "sell"
| you. It's all about your data, which is worth much more than
| any upsell opportunity.
|
| Whether the user pays for YouTube Premium or not, they still
| have access to your behavioral data, your interests, they can
| easily determine your location, and so on. All of these data
| points contribute to your profile, which is a literal gold
| mine for their entire business. How much value they extract
| from it exactly is likely something not even Google knows.
| But given that it can be exchanged on dark data broker
| markets in perpetuity, the price can only go up.
|
| It's a goddamn racket that needs to be made visible and
| subject to thorough public and legal scrutiny.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > How much value they extract from it exactly is likely
| something not even Google knows. But given that it can be
| exchanged on dark data broker markets in perpetuity,
|
| Companies like Google and Meta don't sell your data, on
| dark markets or otherwise.
|
| They keep it in-house for advertising targeting purposes.
|
| If they sold it to other companies it would reduce their
| competitive advantage. It's not even worth it for them.
|
| Google doesn't want to sell your data. They want to keep it
| internal as much as possible so their ad platform is
| valuable.
| bitmasher9 wrote:
| They won't sell your raw data, but they will use your
| data to charge a premium for their ads.
|
| It's indirectly "selling your data".
| npunt wrote:
| They want you to never unsubscribe, which requires your
| addiction.
|
| Incentive to addict + Ability to addict = outcome
| al_borland wrote:
| It doesn't require addiction though. It only requires an
| aversion to watching ads, or the more general aversion to
| being annoyed.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| I wonder what the issue is with shorts? Usually if I look
| something up on youtube (say a how-to or a product review), I
| don't want to see a half hour of blithering that could be
| compressed to a tweet. I generally pick the shortest video I
| can find about whatever it is. If it's limited to under a
| minute that's great. I'd really rather have a text post than a
| video, but those don't seem to exist any more.
| thuridas wrote:
| I would consider paying premium if they allowed me to disable
| shorts
| al_borland wrote:
| This is my frustration as well. It seems like Premium should be
| all about optimizing for the experience the user wants, without
| the same dark patterns as the ad-supported site.
|
| The worst is search. Shorts are fine as a row in the
| recommended stuff that I can watch if I want something short or
| mindless, but when I search I almost always want a normal
| video. In the iPhone app I can filter for normal videos, but on
| the AppleTV, the search is 85% shorts to the point of being
| useless.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| > This is my frustration as well. It seems like Premium
| should be all about optimizing for the experience the user
| wants, without the same dark patterns as the ad-supported
| site.
|
| Why would it be?
|
| Cable TV (which was just YouTube for the 80s and 90s) figured
| this out early: the attraction isn't the user experience,
| it's the content. They started off without ads, because, hey,
| you're paying. Then they introduced ads, because they wanted
| both your subscription fee _and_ advertising dollars.
|
| Did people cancel their subscriptions because of the ads?
| Hell no. They ordered the premium package to watch Cinemax,
| HBO, and pro sports. They paid for Pay-Per-View boxing bouts
| and rented movies. Then they bought the DVR and digital cable
| subscription, because HDTV was the new hotness.
|
| Your kid's head will explode if he doesn't get to watch Mr.
| Beast like his friends at school get to, so you keep putting
| up with whatever enshittification Google carries out on
| YouTube. You won't stop, I won't stop, no one will, and they
| know that.
| Willish42 wrote:
| There's some thoughtful comments here already, but I wonder the
| same thing constantly as a fairly addicted user of YouTube who
| wants to avoid short form video altogether.
|
| I think Premium users tend to be the most affluent desirable
| group for ad targeting (similar to iOS users on other
| platforms) and even though YT Premium lets you avoid ads on
| YouTube, I suspect one's activity feed/"algorithm" on YouTube
| factors a lot into Google (and others'?) ad targeting. The same
| eerily effective feedback loop for getting TikTok and YouTube
| suggestions works better with short-form video, so even if
| users aren't seeing ads, YouTube still has an incentive to have
| people use it. So, there's money to be made in dialing in your
| "algorithm" from using YT Shorts even if you're a premium user.
|
| I'm sure the other stuff about KPIs for increasing usage of
| shorts to compete with other media sites is accurate too
| bogwog wrote:
| Google is a monopolist. They have no real competitive pressure,
| so they're incentivized to extract as much value from you as
| possible rather than waste time trying to retain you as a user
| (cuz where are you gonna go lol). Forcing short form video on
| you could be seen as either an attempt to get you addicted to
| the format, or just a way for some product manager to fluff up
| their metrics for a promotion.
|
| No matter what you decide to do, they're going to profit off of
| you. The only remaining question is "how much".
|
| Personally, I don't want to make it easy for them. That's why I
| like to use alternative YouTube frontends that limit data
| collection and block ads. I sure as shit don't pay for premium.
| Whatever effect that has on their business is likely
| negligible, but it at least makes me feel better about the
| situation.
| arthurjj wrote:
| But _Youtube_ isn 't a monopoly. It's competing with Netflix,
| Prime Video, Hulu Instagram, Tiktok and Twitch off the top of
| my head. So they do have to make Youtube competitive
|
| Your theory of
|
| > just a way for some product manager to fluff up their
| metrics for a promotion.
|
| is the most likely culprit
| tyre wrote:
| I use ublock origin for this. Also the NYT Opinion section
| because ain't nobody got time for that nonsense.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Despite YouTube's attempts at blocking adblockers, I am still
| using YouTube successfully without ads. That said, at times I
| do have to reload the page for the video to load properly.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| Sadly this requires a browser plugin. Happily, those exist. I
| also pay for YT and use "enhancer for youtube" which can do a
| plethora of things, one of which is to disable shorts.
| dingdingdang wrote:
| Use the Brave browser and look at the inbuilt filtering (search
| for "Content Filters" in settings), it allows explicit removal
| of shorts via enabling of "YouTube Anti-Shorts" filter list.
| Does the job beautifully.
| autonomousErwin wrote:
| Great ad for Grayscale on your phone and chrome extensions that
| get rid of shorts
| SunshineTheCat wrote:
| I find it weird that this focuses specifically upon "short form
| video" as though that's the dangerous or addictive element.
|
| It's like saying drinking consistently throughout the day is
| dangerous without specifying whether we're talking about bourbon
| or water.
|
| That key variable seems to matter more than the format.
|
| For example: how do you think a person would feel if they watched
| 30 minutes straight of "short form video" of kittens playing with
| each other as opposed to a person who watches 30 minutes of
| people telling them their political opponents want them to die.
|
| Somehow I think these two scenarios would have very different
| "mental health" impacts. As with anything, it comes down to what
| people choose to consume, not how they consume it.
| tartuffe78 wrote:
| I don't think getting addicted to constant serotonin boosts
| from enjoyable videos is that much better to be honest.
| nxor wrote:
| Not for me. It's also about the kind of thinking this
| behavior engages. If you only think superficially about
| kittens for 30 minutes ... personally I would find that
| similarly awful. Whether the videos are rage inducing or not,
| it's only passive consumption. And I would rather spend that
| time using my brain.
| GloamingNiblets wrote:
| The nature of the content is an important variable to control
| for in future work, but the primary negative impact appears to
| be via the devastating effect on human attention.
|
| From the paper: "repeated exposure to highly stimulating, fast-
| paced content may contribute to habituation, in which users
| become desensitized to slower, more effortful cognitive tasks
| such as reading, problem solving, or deep learning. This
| process may gradually reduce cognitive endurance and weaken the
| brain's ability to sustain attention on a single task...
| potentially reinforcing impulsive engagement patterns and
| encouraging habitual seeking of instant gratification".
| squigz wrote:
| Is all short form video "highly stimulating" and/or "fast-
| paced" though? I can see the argument for the format being
| inherently stimulating/fast-paced, but I think that it still
| comes down more to the content than the format.
| chickensong wrote:
| The pace _is_ the format. Even if you 're just watching
| turtles for 30 seconds, the loop and the switch to next
| video are fast-paced context switching, which is
| stimulating. I suspect it has similar mental effects to
| constant interruptions, like a bad day at work where slack
| and email prevent you from getting into flow state/real
| work.
|
| The format also encourages maximum aggressive video editing
| where the short video is further chopped up with cuts and
| zooms etc, techniques designed to tickle your brain and
| keep you engaged, more stimulation.
|
| Look at what twitter et al. did to long form reading. Short
| video is the same.
| nemonemo wrote:
| The danger of short form videos is because the form enables the
| algorithm designer to artificially maximize the reward with
| minimum effort by the viewer. It doesn't matter whether you
| watch kitten ones initially. After watching it for a month
| casually, chances are you would end up watching some addictive
| videos for hours with little effort. It could be some endless
| stream of Buddhist monks talking about suffering, if someone
| likes that kind of thing. It's just designed to be addictive
| with crazy high reward/effort ratio.
| w10-1 wrote:
| It may be that some media or some alcohol is more toxic than
| others, but it's still fair to test whether the mode of
| administration has an independent or enhancing effect.
|
| E.g., crack cocaine is more addictive than nasal, and extended
| release Adderall is less addictive the immediate-release. So
| there's good reason to hypothesize that SFV has similar
| addiction-enhancing effects over long-form, and the article
| meta-analysis says problems in inhibition and cognition are
| among the strongest.
|
| wrt choice, the thing about addiction is that while becoming
| addicted results from a series of choices, being addicted
| impairs your choice-making executive functions. Addicts use
| even when they don't like it, and to the exclusion of other
| things they prefer, and often switch from expensive drugs to
| cheap ones just to maximize use.
|
| So in the same way that society would prefer to prevent rather
| than treat legions of fentanyl addicts infecting cities or meth
| addicts roaming the countryside, society would like to avoid
| the cognitive decline and productivity loss of a generation
| lost to scrolling.
| j2kun wrote:
| Nobody is using this thread to actually talk about what's in the
| paper, just as a place to rant about short form videos... One
| question that comes to mind to me is: r=-.034 a reasonable effect
| size? Having seen many scatter plots of r values, 0.3 seems
| basically like random noise. Is this just falling into the same
| problem as all huge meta-studies, that there's way too much
| variability to get any kind of clear signal?
|
| And why, for that matter, do we need science to tell us that SFV
| is bad and addictive? Isn't that patently obvious from our own
| lived experiences?
| occupant wrote:
| I found myself nodding in agreement and patting myself on the
| back about not consuming SFVs, until I realized that I had just
| read the abstract and closed the page.
| acid__ wrote:
| I didn't even click the link, just read the top two comments
| and closed the page before realizing what I had done.
| lbrito wrote:
| Its been a long time since I took statistics courses, but aren't
| those r values rather low to conclude anything?
|
| "Increased SFV use was associated with poorer cognition (moderate
| mean effect size, r = -.34), with attention (r = -.38) and
| inhibitory control (r = -.41) yielding the strongest
| associations. Similarly, increased SFV use was associated with
| poorer mental health (weak mean effect size, r = -.21), with
| stress (r = -.34) and anxiety (r = -.33)"
| moduspol wrote:
| I know it's probably offensive but I do suspect SFV use also
| correlates with lower intelligence. This study suggests it leads
| to poorer cognition, which is in the same ballpark, but I am
| curious if in the next five or ten years, we'll find out that
| this stuff disproportionately targets vulnerable people, even if
| not explicitly intended.
| squigz wrote:
| Why would you think it's not explicitly intended?
| tormeh wrote:
| These correlations are not good, obviously, but in which
| direction does the causality go? As someone with attention
| issues, I've had to remove these apps from my home screen and
| disable notifications because I can't handle them well. I suspect
| I might be more susceptible to SFV due to attention issues,
| rather than SFVs causing any change. It's a lousy way to spend
| time, though.
| SirHumphrey wrote:
| I would caution against reading too much at this stage, even
| though the researchers were very careful to talk about only
| correlation, a lot of people here seem to read causation. This
| are population studies so the variables are not independent.
|
| The argument became a bit unpopular because it has been (ab)used
| by smoking companies and gambling establishments but while an
| addictive substance can addict anybody, who gets addicted is not
| random. Watching of TikTok reals is a time wasting and dopamine
| inducing behavior - while I don't doubt they are bad and I avoid
| them, you may also be selecting for depressed or lonely people.
|
| This I only write because people sometimes get in to an obsessive
| social media cutting frenzy spending effort that would improve
| their lives much quicker spent fixing diet or exercise.
| jancsika wrote:
| > This I only write because people sometimes get in to an
| obsessive social media cutting frenzy spending effort that
| would improve their lives much quicker spent fixing diet or
| exercise.
|
| Not cutting social media would make these difficult-- e.g.,
| limiting exercise to just stationary machines where they can
| watch Tiktok and reach their dopamine hit goals for the day.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Not cutting social media would make these difficult-- e.g.,
| limiting exercise to just stationary machines where they can
| watch Tiktok and reach their dopamine hit goals for the day.
|
| If you force exercise to be boring, people will just avoid it
| more.
|
| People can scroll their phones or watch YouTube on an
| exercise bike. It might make them exercise longer and make
| them more likely to go to the gym than to avoid it.
|
| I knew someone who only allowed themself to scroll their
| social media platform of choice while working out. The
| result? A lot of time spent working out.
| ModernMech wrote:
| My wife is bipolar 1, and whenever she would go into a manic
| phase, I noticed her attention span would diminish as her
| condition worsened. First she couldn't tolerate a whole movie.
| Then not a 40 minute TV show, then not even a 20 minute show. She
| would go through a music video phase where she would watch those
| on repeat for hours, but eventually even those become too long,
| so the last stop was YouTube shorts when her mental health was at
| its worse. I always knew she was getting better when she started
| watching longer-form content.
| hodgehog11 wrote:
| I think it really is important to stress that these are
| correlations only. Something I've noticed: those with poor
| attention spans or generally low engagement with deeper material
| tend to be attracted to SFV. Likewise, those in a state of
| depression or have ADHD can easily get into the quick
| satisfaction coming from SFV. It may exacerbate existing issues,
| but not necessarily be the cause.
| markeroon wrote:
| Is it important to stress that though? This feels like a
| personal responsibility argument while also acknowledging that
| it disproportionately affects people who don't have a ton of
| control over their response to it.
| hodgehog11 wrote:
| It is important; if SFV cause these symptoms, that could be
| grounds (long-term) to ban them. Not so if they only
| exacerbate preexisting conditions.
| Aurornis wrote:
| I personally believe that consuming a lot of short form video in
| lieu of doing more engaging activities is highly likely to worsen
| cognition and attention, but to be clear this paper isn't making
| that claim.
|
| This is the classic correlation, not causation, meta-analysis.
| They acknowledge that several times throughout:
|
| > Although some longitudinal studies have provided insight into
| the directionality between social media use and cognitive
| functioning (e.g., Sharifian & Zahodne, 2020), it remains
| possible that underlying cognitive differences shape how
| individuals engage with SFVs. Those with lower baseline cognitive
| functioning may gravitate toward highly stimulating, low-effort
| content or find it more difficult to disengage from continuous
| streams of short videos (e.g., Ioannidis et al., 2019). Moreover,
| underlying factors such as anxiety, depression, or attentional
| difficulties may shape both the nature of SFV use and cognitive
| performance, contributing to the associations observed in the
| current synthesis (Baumgartner, 2022; Dagher et al., 2021; Xiong
| et al., 2024).
|
| Usually any correlational study causes the comment section to
| immediately fill with "correlation is not causation" comments
| followed by the "I don't trust meta analyses" crowd with a
| sampling of people complaining the sample size (of the individual
| studies) was too small. But nearly every comment I see is
| assuming causality and directionality. I see this topic strikes a
| nerve.
|
| It would have been nice to see at least an attempt to include
| other forms of video content: Long-form YouTube videos, TV shows,
| movies. That wouldn't show causality either, but it would be a
| useful data point to check if this effect is really unique to
| short form video or if the correlation holds for anyone watching
| a lot of video.
| nxor wrote:
| I try to tell my parents to watch less short form videos. They
| don't care. Thank you Meta and Alphabet. :(
| btilly wrote:
| I absolutely see the correlation myself, but which way does
| causation go?
|
| I can make a case for how engaging with short form video can be
| bad for mental health. I certainly saw evidence of that first
| hand in one of my children who engaged heavily in TikTok.
|
| But I can also make a case for how poor mental health makes it
| hard to resist engaging with short term video. For example I have
| a child who is currently struggling with being suicidal. I find
| that when she's in particularly bad shape, I find it much hard to
| resist getting sucked into YouTube shorts. But when she's in good
| shape, I have no such problem.
|
| The combination of the two seems to lead to a doom loop that some
| people get sucked into. But how can anyone separate the relative
| importance of the two directions in which causation could run?
| montag wrote:
| If anyone from APA.org is listening, this website is really bad
| on mobile
| andai wrote:
| I wonder about the cognitive and mental health correlates of
| living in a world that no longer makes any sense.
|
| I remember 10 years ago watching a documentary about the previous
| ten years explaining how we we had moved into a post meaning
| world, and how this was being weaponized by various interests.
|
| That time seems positively quaint to me now!
|
| I was reading a book from the 1960s, and it was talking about how
| the world is too complicated now and moving too fast.
|
| And of course if you read books from the late 19th century they
| say the exact same thing...
|
| https://xkcd.com/1227/
| tclancy wrote:
| Yeah, I remember reading an issue of Planetary from about (GOD
| HELP US!) two decades ago where the plot involved baddies who
| had invaded a fictional universe. In the time since then, I
| went from thinking "What a crazy idea for a plot" to "Hmm, I
| can see what inspired that" to "Jesus wept. People can
| basically choose to do this now. And they vote!"
| zmmmmm wrote:
| The interesting part here is what they carve out - they _don 't_
| see impacts on body image or self esteem. These are classic
| effects identified as negative impacts of social media in
| general. It it would be really interesting if somehow SFV format
| prevents their impact.
|
| My guess: the SFV they are talking about is generally just fully
| attention baiting and _not_ from peers or others that people feel
| are "comparable". If you don't feel the source or the subject of
| the video is comparable to you, then there's no compulsion to
| reference it in a judgemental way against your own circumstances.
|
| But I bet if you did just focus on SFV from eg: friends or peers,
| you'd be right back to self esteem and body image impacts again.
| westbywest wrote:
| The "Vintage Space" channel host Amy Shira Teitel recently posted
| this long form video expressing her frustration with YT so
| heavily incentivizing SVT with its creators. She goes into
| considerable detail about the intentionally addictive nature of
| the format, and how it clashes with her own publishing process.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FRHHD3F2gM
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