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Distracts attention, reduces focus, and causes addiction.. This is how short videos on Tik Tok and social media destroy your brain!
Varieties that distract attention, reduce focus, and cause addiction..This is how short videos on Tik Tok and social media destroy your brain! An expressive image
With the spread of short videos that do not exceed 30 seconds to a minute on social media, such as TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and others, many problems have emerged among consumers of this type of content, such as lack of concentration, mental health problems, and even lag in education.
Although the research on the impact of short videos is still in its early stages, the findings so far may make you avoid this type of social media.
Watching short videos causes lack of focus
Being immersed in an endless stream of short 15- to 30-second videos lowers our attention span like no other type of media can.
It affects short-term memory and ability to concentrate. So that people who consume this type of video a lot become unable to focus when watching longer videos, even if they are only 10 minutes long, not to mention reading a book or doing homework.
And 50% of users of this type of video admit that they find long videos "exhausting".
Although TikTok, for example, introduced the possibility of posting longer videos of up to 10 minutes in 2022, very short videos are still the most attractive type of content for young audiences.
A study published in Nature Communications showed a significant decrease in human attention span over time.
For example, researchers from the Technical University of Denmark noted that in 2013 a given hashtag was kept in the audience's attention for an average of 17.5 hours, but in 2016, the top hashtag stayed for only 11.9 hours on average.
In recent years, the constant desire for faster information, fresh content, and exciting daily trending content has only grown.
Some users have even reported that they used to watch a 10-30 minute video in the past, but now find themselves losing interest within a few minutes, and may feel impatient despite their genuine interest in the video.
According to an article in The Independent, those who watch short clips for more than 90 minutes a day can experience diminishing "collective interest" over time in what's going on around them.
The short clips are addictive
According to Forbes magazine, the content on TikTok and platforms that provide short videos, and rely on endless scrolling on the screen, is essentially "digital cocaine".
"When you're on the app, you see a video that catches your eye and you get a dopamine rush in your brain," says analyst John Kotser. "Users are constantly getting that dopamine with every video and they don't want to stop."
According to Albert Albright, author of How Digital Natives Work. Platforms like TikTok, including Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook, have adopted the same principles that make people addicted to gambling in their short video algorithm.
You get the dopamine from a few good videos, then the excitement subsides with a couple of videos you don't like; Then the dopamine is boosted with another fun video. And you can compare this principle with gambling. You get the highs and lows with profit and loss. And the expectation alone excites us both physically and mentally.
High rate of suicide and mental illness
A 10-year study found that 13-year-old teenage girls who used social media for at least two to three hours a day, and then increased their use over time, were more likely to be suicidal.
"The problem with things that release a lot of dopamine at once is that our brains are looking to compensate, and if we have a lack of dopamine, people can experience symptoms of depression and anxiety," says Dr. Anna Lembeck, a psychiatrist and chair of the Dual Diagnosis Clinic for Addiction Medicine at Stanford University.
Affects reading skills
It is known that our brains digest visual information faster than text. This is why videos will always outperform text information online. Social media is constantly competing for our attention, with smaller and shorter pieces of visual content.
This causes harm to the reading habits of younger users; Simply because the video rarely includes written text.
How do you protect yourself from these influences?
To cut back on short video consumption, experts recommend a dopamine fast. Instead of cutting those segments out of your life completely and abruptly, try limiting your use of social media to a certain amount of time during the day.
The one who is fasting from dopamine should refrain from using the Internet, telephone, television, music, etc., and content himself with a quiet routine of reading, going for walks, meditation, thinking, relaxing and writing, to restore the level of natural dopamine secretion in the brain.
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