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".

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squigz 2 hours ago | parent [-]

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.

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chickensong an hour ago | parent [-]

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.

	▲	MetaWhirledPeas 24 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> 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've been over-indulging in context switching long before short-form videos ever showed up. The internet itself is all about context switching. But the UX around short-form videos definitely encourages doomscrolling, similar to how microtransaction games encourage neverending grinds. We definitely need better habits as a collective, but I think a list of "do's" is just as important as a whack-a-mole list of "don'ts".