I watched my 78yo step mother become addicted to reels so older people are definitely not immune. But she was able to go cold turkey as she only communicated with her sister over instagram so it wasn’t a problem to just continue with WhatsApp. Young people real life networks are too enmeshed with instagram to have the same option.

Also, what you’re describing sounds like when you’ve haven’t spent enough time on the shorts for the content recommendation algorithm to learn your preferences. Which I agree, is unwatchable. I saw it recently when my friend put on YouTube shorts on a guest account (on an Airbnb smart tv). it was bad. But spend enough time and that will change. But best you don’t!

Same here. In fact, I uninstalled the YouTube app because there was no way to disable Shorts within it while I can use browser extensions to do so in Safari. (I pay for Premium.)

Then again, I hardly use YouTube, so I don’t think I’m the target audience for this.

Please, I beg you, stop and think about these things.

"is it a young people thing": no, obviously not because nothing is.

You're just as prone to addictive behaviours at 20 as at 40 at 80.

There might be some differences as to how you happen to be exposed, perhaps because of how your literal social network is behaving, but that's obviously not intrinsic.

I mean, yes, perhaps "young people" are slightly more likely to be exposed to it via advertising/peers/etc, but anyone with a similar exposure can be a victim.

I find casinos unpleasant but plenty of people obviously don't. I also find games with a narrow FoV unpleasant; I was never able to enjoy DotA 2 because of this and League was only just barely tolerable. Similarly I detest modern web design and gravitate towards sites with an HN or spreadsheet style information dense layout.

I think that's all related, is at least partially a matter of what I'm accustomed to, but is largely just an inherent part of how I am.

If you mean 'should network TV be allowed to use behavioural psychology to manipulate people into being couch potatoes' then the answer is yes, that should be regulated against.

Anyway, the way you talk about shorts reminds me of drug addicts who talk about how they can control their consumption. Some can. Many cannot but delude themselves. The way I see people interact with shorts/TikTok/reels is very much not restrained. They're optimised for addictive scrolling in the same way a slot machine is - the fact that some people can use a slot machine without becoming addicted is besides the point.

"average of 30 minutes" covers a pretty massive range.

Lots of people can get drunk once a month and suffer or cause no real harm. Some people get drunk everyday which is slightly more harmful.