But yeah, there's a dehumanization going on. Speeding up videos to deliver the maximum words per second to the viewer is inhuman. It started as an appeal to ADHD children, but i that meme is overdone, people actually do have attention and still interested in humans, not just what they say.
This post popped up a blocking window before I was even 3 sentences in, so maybe unsurprising that I clicked away in less than 60 seconds. If the author wants people to read whatever it is they have to say, maybe they should not put distractions in front of their writing?
For me, the worst part is that it is so hard to go back to previous forms of media. I often delete these short form content apps in an effort to quit them, but it is now so difficult to get engaged with "slower" forms of media. The thing with Tiktok isn't the length of the media, it's just how fast-paced and "catchy" it is. I could watch an hour long fast paced video just fine, but watching a slow paced show, or reading a book is so much more difficult.
That's how they get kids too now, look at patpatrol and the other slop they ship, you don't get more than 1 second without a cut. These kids are fucked forever, setup for failure from birth
Probably a good thing then that I've never had TikTok and avoid even opening reels in Instagram, shorts on YouTube and clips in VK, unless someone sent me one.
What if you are reading an interesting book ? I think it would be a great way to train your attention to the level it used to be.
And if you can’t even do that, I suggest you start reading a book right before sleeping until you pass out. Every night. You will fall asleep extremely fast at beginning but I managed to get back to reading while having extreme difficulty concentrating from a completely different illness than TikTok. It only took 2 years.
Too simple of a narrative. At the same time, YouTube videos are getting longer, and people are watching more YouTube videos on TVs than on mobile devices:
So I think we're seeing more of a bifurcation: in-depth longform videos are becoming 30, 40, 60, even 90 minutes long, whereas anything shorter than 10 minutes is being compressed to 30-60 seconds. The most popular video creators are doing both; even MrBeast routinely has videos over 30 minutes long.
>At the same time, YouTube videos are getting longer, and people are watching more YouTube videos on TVs than on mobile devices
I wager most people are putting those on while having a meal and using their phones or tablets at the same time. Moreover, 99% of the most watched content on YouTube is utter garbage that would make the average reality show on TV twenty years ago look like The Godfather in comparison. Gossippy, clickbait videos made to induce an immediate dopamine dump and be used as background noise aren't "in-depth" anything. I don't think people are sitting in front of a TV watching an hour-long, non-sponsored, ad-free interview with Margerite Duras and doing nothing else concurrently, for instance.
On top of all that, this trend of making longer videos comes mostly from an attempt to increase ad revenue. Let's not be fooled here.
You haven't actually contradicted anything in the article. People can have low attention spans and watch a 30 minute MrBeast video of people shouting. People can have YouTube running on their TV while still being on their phone.
Your narrative isn't any less "simple" or any better backed up.
Yeah that's kinda like pushing the narrative of "the end of history" just for social networks which I think is very flawed. We can't underestimate the influence the medium has on thought, but I think we aren't in a dystopian monopoly of social interactions just yet.
Worth mentioning that literally any video under 60 seconds is forced to be a short, which is that stupid type of YouTube video where they remove a bunch of controls and make the overall experience miserable.
So maybe that’s pushing longer-form content as well. Some people making 30 second videos moves to 90 second ones to avoid the bad format, this crowds the format and pushes others up as well?
I've noticed that the YouTube app on smart TVs typically recommends 10-30 minute videos -- probably a combination of people leaving things on in the background or seeking "mealtime videos" they can watch while they eat.
This checks out. I find myself watching more youtube videos anywhere from WW2 restored footage, to Bloodborne and Elden Ring lore. There is some great documentary style content on youtube that just isn't on major streaming services. Well at least that I can find.
It's true and it's devastating. I intentionally never signed up for TikTok because of the dangers of hyper-addictive short form content. Ultra-processed, junk food content.
But my Instagram became TikTok - so now I don't use Instagram. My YouTube is becoming TikTok - so now I don't use YouTube. Everything is implementing autoplaying short form content. X/Twitter. Reddit. etc.
> The irony, of course, is that if you've read this far, it may mean you’ve already mastered a rare skill: sustained attention in a world of distraction.
No, sorry I read the first and last sentence. This is why I like the short format more then the long forms, it often boils down to the same clever narrative trickery without waisting 3 hours of your life.
I am traveling to India and unfortunately "our services are not available in your country or region". And a few months back we were all singing "oh wen ji" (really badly paraphrased) on RedNote when TikTok was already down pending reinstatement by Trump.
Point being TikTok js a winner in a slice of the population. I just stopped following the bunch of Indian folks even though they had an Instagram or reel account because I just could not get used to it. Similarly I followed a few people on rednote but promptly abandoned it when TT came back. So maybe TT won. But look at it from the other side. People in India and China don't follow what I follow. And there are billions of those.
TikTok is an awesome platform but not yet a "too big to fail" like YouTube I guess
Edit. But I get the point of 60 second media winning. Nowadays I am just unable to focus on a tv show. Or I am watching a show with some digression (Reddit, tiktok) in my hand. Theaters is the only place I am unable to do so and that's the only place I now enjoy movies I guess.
I'm going to be the odd duck here and suggest TikTok has been helpful for me. I view it as a tool. It can be used in a harmful way (scrolling for hours, reduced attention span) but it can also be helpful if used correctly.
It's kind of like Reddit and other "customize your feed" social media. If you subscribe to the defaults, yeah, it's hot garbage. If you select content creators or topics that support your individual growth then you get a much different outcome.
Of course not to say I couldn't have benefited from the same topics via another type of media. But I enjoy the few minutes I spend on TT per day, seeing what my favorites have posted, etc. I even met a cool dummer named Zooich in Japan who I enjoy following and interacting with each week. And I've made a bit of content myself which I'm proud of.
Lastly, in no way does my positive experience diminish the negative issues surrounding TT. I fully agree it contributes to reduced attention span, spreading misinformation, etc. -- just like most other forms of social media. And there's a very real risk of it becoming state media in the future. I just wanted to provide a different perspective other than "TT is terrible in every way, ban it!".
I love YouTube but my problem with the content of YouTube is that almost all videos are introducing you to everything every time.
For example, there's this science video about this interesting property of fire right? They start with what's fire, when it was invented, what led to be studied this way and then they deliver the money shot. It is O.K. to be introduced to a topic once but it is brain wrecking to be 101ed every time. They are doing it to increase the watch time and the ad revenue and its horrible.
Forcing the videos to be short makes them deliver the gist quickly, TikTok videos that are trying to the introduction 101 thing are just as horrible, when a video is over 1min I'm very skeptical and feel the urge to move on.
Of course in-depth videos need to be long but those are not that many actually. From the pop-sci genre Veritasuim does it well but that kind of production takes long time and they publish videos every now and then. With the race to pump videos as quickly as possible, the short format is the better since you can get the content quickly and if you want to know more about it you can actually read about it. Which is how you actually learn anything BTW.
This is called “fluff” which I feel is too nice a term for how annoying it is.
Start with a clickbait question, then give a complete history ripped off of Wikipedia, then by the end they don’t even fully answer the question. Very frustrating.
There's olympics for persons with disabilities. TikTok is in one of those but with other similarly sized companies. News at 11: 1080p today looks worse than 5 years ago, ending a a two decade streak of innovation and improvement to the world's telecom system.
Just don’t install the app. I never did that and I want to make sure my son doesn’t whence he gets his own phone. Well he can do whatever when he is an adult but that’s more than a decade away.
I HATE short form videos with an abiding passion. As a user, my preference is long form YouTube videos I can listen to while my hands are busy with the dishes, dog walks, etc. I am ventured more into podcasts because even such videos are painfully annoying with ad interruptions that demand skip click. Under no circumstances do I want to interact with the device every 60-90 seconds. That totally defeats the purpose of listening while being productive in the day.
This is terrible to say, but if 170 million people are spending an hour a day watching 60 second videos, aren't they just dumb and easily entertained? Without this, wouldn't they just be consuming other dumb entertainment, or failing to find that dumb entertainment, going outside, and meeting other dumb people in order to do stupid things?
Also, I'm sure I have to subtract a huge number of these people from the dumb list, because they probably just watch a bunch of TikTok to unwind or get summaries of the events of the day, then move on to real content. People spend a lot more than an hour in front of screens, and have for the past 75 years. Plenty of the world was already watching dumb short animal videos, fail videos, success videos, astonishing videos, etc. long before TikTok.
Early youtube absolutely despised and made difficult uploading videos over 10 minutes. The thing was made to share tsunami videos and what were basically animated personal snapshots.
Acting like this is a qualitative change is just easy ragebait, and this story has been written again and again since MTV debuted (which is why it felt the need to refer to it.) That was almost 50 years ago.
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[ 7.0 ms ] story [ 132 ms ] threadBut yeah, there's a dehumanization going on. Speeding up videos to deliver the maximum words per second to the viewer is inhuman. It started as an appeal to ADHD children, but i that meme is overdone, people actually do have attention and still interested in humans, not just what they say.
Somehow the breathless speech pattern they all adopt is really irritating to me. Thats saying something coming from an ADHD person.
Better to be just a txt file. If OP wants $$, just put up a Pantheon page.
If you spend your days watching "content" it's your fault.
It truly is like a drug.
And if you can’t even do that, I suggest you start reading a book right before sleeping until you pass out. Every night. You will fall asleep extremely fast at beginning but I managed to get back to reading while having extreme difficulty concentrating from a completely different illness than TikTok. It only took 2 years.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2025/02/12/launched-...
So I think we're seeing more of a bifurcation: in-depth longform videos are becoming 30, 40, 60, even 90 minutes long, whereas anything shorter than 10 minutes is being compressed to 30-60 seconds. The most popular video creators are doing both; even MrBeast routinely has videos over 30 minutes long.
I wager most people are putting those on while having a meal and using their phones or tablets at the same time. Moreover, 99% of the most watched content on YouTube is utter garbage that would make the average reality show on TV twenty years ago look like The Godfather in comparison. Gossippy, clickbait videos made to induce an immediate dopamine dump and be used as background noise aren't "in-depth" anything. I don't think people are sitting in front of a TV watching an hour-long, non-sponsored, ad-free interview with Margerite Duras and doing nothing else concurrently, for instance.
On top of all that, this trend of making longer videos comes mostly from an attempt to increase ad revenue. Let's not be fooled here.
Your narrative isn't any less "simple" or any better backed up.
So maybe that’s pushing longer-form content as well. Some people making 30 second videos moves to 90 second ones to avoid the bad format, this crowds the format and pushes others up as well?
Totally talking out of my ass here.
That may be a consequence of the monetization algorithm. It allows more time for ads.
The format of too many Youtube videos now is
- Useless intro
- Long recap of historical info to allow space for ads
- Actual new content
- Filler
- Conclusion
Those are the ones that aren't just some neckbeard with earphones and a big microphone.
I would say short-form content found a gap in the market and now exists in addition to long-form content without replacing it.
It's true and it's devastating. I intentionally never signed up for TikTok because of the dangers of hyper-addictive short form content. Ultra-processed, junk food content.
But my Instagram became TikTok - so now I don't use Instagram. My YouTube is becoming TikTok - so now I don't use YouTube. Everything is implementing autoplaying short form content. X/Twitter. Reddit. etc.
TikTok won, and we're all worse off for it.
No, sorry I read the first and last sentence. This is why I like the short format more then the long forms, it often boils down to the same clever narrative trickery without waisting 3 hours of your life.
Point being TikTok js a winner in a slice of the population. I just stopped following the bunch of Indian folks even though they had an Instagram or reel account because I just could not get used to it. Similarly I followed a few people on rednote but promptly abandoned it when TT came back. So maybe TT won. But look at it from the other side. People in India and China don't follow what I follow. And there are billions of those.
TikTok is an awesome platform but not yet a "too big to fail" like YouTube I guess
Edit. But I get the point of 60 second media winning. Nowadays I am just unable to focus on a tv show. Or I am watching a show with some digression (Reddit, tiktok) in my hand. Theaters is the only place I am unable to do so and that's the only place I now enjoy movies I guess.
Vine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vine_(service)
Short-form content: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-form_content
YouTube still requires disconnecting connected chromecast devices to view YouTube Shorts?
It's kind of like Reddit and other "customize your feed" social media. If you subscribe to the defaults, yeah, it's hot garbage. If you select content creators or topics that support your individual growth then you get a much different outcome.
Of course not to say I couldn't have benefited from the same topics via another type of media. But I enjoy the few minutes I spend on TT per day, seeing what my favorites have posted, etc. I even met a cool dummer named Zooich in Japan who I enjoy following and interacting with each week. And I've made a bit of content myself which I'm proud of.
Lastly, in no way does my positive experience diminish the negative issues surrounding TT. I fully agree it contributes to reduced attention span, spreading misinformation, etc. -- just like most other forms of social media. And there's a very real risk of it becoming state media in the future. I just wanted to provide a different perspective other than "TT is terrible in every way, ban it!".
I love YouTube but my problem with the content of YouTube is that almost all videos are introducing you to everything every time.
For example, there's this science video about this interesting property of fire right? They start with what's fire, when it was invented, what led to be studied this way and then they deliver the money shot. It is O.K. to be introduced to a topic once but it is brain wrecking to be 101ed every time. They are doing it to increase the watch time and the ad revenue and its horrible.
Forcing the videos to be short makes them deliver the gist quickly, TikTok videos that are trying to the introduction 101 thing are just as horrible, when a video is over 1min I'm very skeptical and feel the urge to move on.
Of course in-depth videos need to be long but those are not that many actually. From the pop-sci genre Veritasuim does it well but that kind of production takes long time and they publish videos every now and then. With the race to pump videos as quickly as possible, the short format is the better since you can get the content quickly and if you want to know more about it you can actually read about it. Which is how you actually learn anything BTW.
Start with a clickbait question, then give a complete history ripped off of Wikipedia, then by the end they don’t even fully answer the question. Very frustrating.
Some of us will continue to be reading War and Peace level works and watch "lengthy" movies.
Based on some totally idiosyncratic personal assement maybe.
Not in any canonical ranking (or in mine).
Also, I'm sure I have to subtract a huge number of these people from the dumb list, because they probably just watch a bunch of TikTok to unwind or get summaries of the events of the day, then move on to real content. People spend a lot more than an hour in front of screens, and have for the past 75 years. Plenty of the world was already watching dumb short animal videos, fail videos, success videos, astonishing videos, etc. long before TikTok.
Early youtube absolutely despised and made difficult uploading videos over 10 minutes. The thing was made to share tsunami videos and what were basically animated personal snapshots.
Acting like this is a qualitative change is just easy ragebait, and this story has been written again and again since MTV debuted (which is why it felt the need to refer to it.) That was almost 50 years ago.
edit: Martha Quinn is 66 years old.