this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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So a view I see a lot nowadays is that attention spans are getting shorter, especially when it comes to younger generations. And the growing success of short form content on Tiktok, Youtube and Twitter for example seems to support this claim. I have a friend in their early 20s who regularly checks their phone (sometimes scrolling Tiktok content) as we're watching a film. And an older colleague recently was pleased to see me reading a book, because he felt that anyone my age and younger was less likely to want to invest the time in reading.

But is this actually true on the whole? Does social media like Tiktok really mould our interests and alter our attention? In some respects I can see how it could change our expectations. If we've come to expect a webpage to load in seconds, it can be frustrating when we have to wait minutes. But to someone that was raised with dial-up, perhaps that wouldn't be as much of an issue. In the same way, if a piece of media doesn't capture someone in the first few minutes they may be more inclined to lose focus because they're so used to quick dopamine hits from short form content. Alternatively, maybe this whole argument is just a 'kids these days' fallacy. Obviously there are plenty of young adults that buck this trend.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Every 30 days I have to hide YouTube shorts because if I don't I'll get sucked into a hole until 3 in the morning without even realizing it.

I still watch long form content, but man are those shorts addictive.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

How does this work? You watch 100's of ~10 second videos in a row for hours? Trying to understand because this seems to be a common thing these days.

I have never tried tiktok and only saw some YouTube shorts. I see one or two and it annoys me because it's clipped badly, gives bad information, or just shows something meaningless. Random loud music. The same video keeps playing on a loop as I try to think.

Even if it was great content, my brain just couldn't stay focused beyond a couple videos. The constant changes to a new video would be exhausting for me. There's also no time to think about what you just saw.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

YouTube shorts makes me angry. I can’t watch a single one of them, much less get “sucked in” to them. Interface is shit, no scrubbing, vertical, fuck it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yes I forgot about the vertical too. I guess it's because the video isn't worth the effort to turn the phone horizontal.