Short-form video is like beer: one or two is great, then suddenly you’re ten deep, half-conscious, scrolling in a digital fugue state until you wake up nauseous and ashamed—only to reach for the very thing that positively wrecked you just to feel normal again.
Once in awhile someone will send me a clip that's worth watching, but most SFV I see is dumb and marginally entertaining at best. Like the reason people watch it is the same reason George Costanza gives ty NBC exec who asks why anyone would watch a show about nothing. "Because it's on."
Thanks for this post. Completely agree. I'd go even further to say that longer-form content on YouTube is just as bad. Similarly passive, mindless, and dopamine-hitting. I notice the effects on my kids and me.
It's also withdrawal-inducing when you step away. Phones are definitely worse, but even PCs can be big problems for this.
AI-generated slop will be even more pervasive and make this 10 times worse. Good times.
It's a distraction *from* doing other activities, though. I can attest to that. An incredible avoidance mechanism. YouTube is addictive and hard to break away from. It's not any single video, but the platform and its algorithmic feed. I agree that the phone is worse, though, and I can see the effect within my own house.
Short form video is wild, though. I find it mostly unwatchable on its own, but there are YouTubers who build channels around reacting to it. It's like an entire menu consisting of nothing but artificial flavoring chemicals!
But I do take exception to this: "You could definitely say it’s a combination of things, including the pandemic, but combined with the data above and common sense on what we already know about SFV habits, these things are not a coincidence, and it’s an unbelievable amount of cope to believe otherwise." If that was the case we'd have data and proof. Saying that "my opinion is the obvious answer" is just insulting to our intelligence.
The reality is that the pandemic interrupted schooling for that entire cohort of students, and it's impossible to separate all the confounding variables. You can't just tell us your opinion is obvious and anyone who disagrees is wrong. That's just insulting.
A podcast you might enjoy is Ezra & Jon Haidt talking about childhood & phones. I agree too much of anything is bad (incl TV) but an interesting part I think is that a story like a full TV show watched with the family might even be good (bonding, longer narrative/lessons). Anyway worth adding to your PL if you've not seen -> https://youtu.be/RN2GhPal4qA?si=h8ETIt-ZzrF_-0v4
I'm only partly surprised that there isn't a SFV platform that's called Soma. The name would likely be lost on the vast majority of it's users; it's the drug used to keep people docile in Brave New World. We live in a dystopia, and we're too brain addled to realize it.
"Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I'm so glad I'm a Beta."
Believe it or not, Marxist theorist Guy Debord predicted all of this in his book Society of the Spectacle. He wrote it in 1967 and was one of the first and perhaps only theorists to identify the deeply problematic 'simulation' issue with media. The core idea is that living vicariously through television, movies, and magazines alienates people from each other and nature. He committed suicide in 1994, before the emergence of the modern internet. We can only guess what he would have thought of SFV.
Also to add -watching a full TV show or movie is fine, great even as a social activity. SFV is uniquely solipsistic and alone. It's also not even full stories with lessons, like a kid might get from an episode of Spongebob or Bluey.
"The alienation of the spectator to the profit of the contemplated abject (which is the result of his own unconscious activity) is expressed in the following way: the more he contemplates, the less he lives; the more he accepts recognizing himself in the dominant images of need, the less he understands his own existence and his own desire. The externality of the spectacle in relation to the active man appears in that his own gestures are no longer his but those of another who represents them to him. This is why the spectator does not feel at home anywhere, because the spectacle is everywhere."
In Deboard's view, the fact that the media is primarily used to promote a consumer lifestyle is the problem. He may have liked the democratic aspects of the internet and the person-to-person aspects of it if he had lived to see it.
I agree. SFV is brain poison. I limit to under 15 minutes a day and make sure it stops at least an hour before bed time. I have been reading physical books instead.
Right on point. We're even spending billions to fire up dormant nuclear power plants so we can generate the energy to operate big AI data centers, with a non-trivial portion of that energy going to create more stupid (and fake) SFV content.
Short-form video is like beer: one or two is great, then suddenly you’re ten deep, half-conscious, scrolling in a digital fugue state until you wake up nauseous and ashamed—only to reach for the very thing that positively wrecked you just to feel normal again.
Once in awhile someone will send me a clip that's worth watching, but most SFV I see is dumb and marginally entertaining at best. Like the reason people watch it is the same reason George Costanza gives ty NBC exec who asks why anyone would watch a show about nothing. "Because it's on."
Thanks for this post. Completely agree. I'd go even further to say that longer-form content on YouTube is just as bad. Similarly passive, mindless, and dopamine-hitting. I notice the effects on my kids and me.
It's also withdrawal-inducing when you step away. Phones are definitely worse, but even PCs can be big problems for this.
AI-generated slop will be even more pervasive and make this 10 times worse. Good times.
Well the big difference is your consumption at the PC is left there. It's not a distraction while doing *any* other life activity.
It's a distraction *from* doing other activities, though. I can attest to that. An incredible avoidance mechanism. YouTube is addictive and hard to break away from. It's not any single video, but the platform and its algorithmic feed. I agree that the phone is worse, though, and I can see the effect within my own house.
yes this can certainly be true too
Short form video is wild, though. I find it mostly unwatchable on its own, but there are YouTubers who build channels around reacting to it. It's like an entire menu consisting of nothing but artificial flavoring chemicals!
humans really are the only animal that will voluntarily lobotomize themselves
Grateful this is one addiction that never took hold in me
I don't disagree with the main theme of the article, but I will point out that it's not short form video. Watching TV affects brain size and activity as well: https://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2021/winter/tv-brain-study/ So does social media: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2799812
But I do take exception to this: "You could definitely say it’s a combination of things, including the pandemic, but combined with the data above and common sense on what we already know about SFV habits, these things are not a coincidence, and it’s an unbelievable amount of cope to believe otherwise." If that was the case we'd have data and proof. Saying that "my opinion is the obvious answer" is just insulting to our intelligence.
The reality is that the pandemic interrupted schooling for that entire cohort of students, and it's impossible to separate all the confounding variables. You can't just tell us your opinion is obvious and anyone who disagrees is wrong. That's just insulting.
A podcast you might enjoy is Ezra & Jon Haidt talking about childhood & phones. I agree too much of anything is bad (incl TV) but an interesting part I think is that a story like a full TV show watched with the family might even be good (bonding, longer narrative/lessons). Anyway worth adding to your PL if you've not seen -> https://youtu.be/RN2GhPal4qA?si=h8ETIt-ZzrF_-0v4
I'm only partly surprised that there isn't a SFV platform that's called Soma. The name would likely be lost on the vast majority of it's users; it's the drug used to keep people docile in Brave New World. We live in a dystopia, and we're too brain addled to realize it.
"Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I'm so glad I'm a Beta."
Believe it or not, Marxist theorist Guy Debord predicted all of this in his book Society of the Spectacle. He wrote it in 1967 and was one of the first and perhaps only theorists to identify the deeply problematic 'simulation' issue with media. The core idea is that living vicariously through television, movies, and magazines alienates people from each other and nature. He committed suicide in 1994, before the emergence of the modern internet. We can only guess what he would have thought of SFV.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/debord/society.htm
Also to add -watching a full TV show or movie is fine, great even as a social activity. SFV is uniquely solipsistic and alone. It's also not even full stories with lessons, like a kid might get from an episode of Spongebob or Bluey.
Debord would not agree:
"The alienation of the spectator to the profit of the contemplated abject (which is the result of his own unconscious activity) is expressed in the following way: the more he contemplates, the less he lives; the more he accepts recognizing himself in the dominant images of need, the less he understands his own existence and his own desire. The externality of the spectacle in relation to the active man appears in that his own gestures are no longer his but those of another who represents them to him. This is why the spectator does not feel at home anywhere, because the spectacle is everywhere."
In Deboard's view, the fact that the media is primarily used to promote a consumer lifestyle is the problem. He may have liked the democratic aspects of the internet and the person-to-person aspects of it if he had lived to see it.
I agree. SFV is brain poison. I limit to under 15 minutes a day and make sure it stops at least an hour before bed time. I have been reading physical books instead.
"Embrace video"
I'd rather take up smoking, JFC.
Right on point. We're even spending billions to fire up dormant nuclear power plants so we can generate the energy to operate big AI data centers, with a non-trivial portion of that energy going to create more stupid (and fake) SFV content.
I do want us to build more nuclear plants though (will bring costs down) so if this helps us do it great
I can't agree more; thanks for your detailed explanation. I am sending it to my friends who are addicted to their SFV.