Whether you’ve been studying for hours or swamped with work, chances are the first thing you’ll do when you want a break is reach for your phone and a certain app. Whether you prefer TikTok, Instagram Reels, or Youtube Shorts, how often have you fallen victim to hours of mindless scrolling, skipping videos in less than a second?
If you said yes, you’re not alone. According to the Oxford Blue, in a survey 50% of TikTok users claimed that they felt stress from videos that surpassed a minute long. But why is this the case?
Before apps sharing short, fast-paced videos were popularized, long form content like Youtube videos and cable television shows were the most common form of entertainment. Most videos would be around twenty minutes long, but were considered relatively short compared to movies and other media. With TikTok, however, we no longer need to watch a twenty minute or longer video in order to get the satisfaction of having watched something enjoyable; we can achieve that dopamine hit in less than sixty seconds. But since we can watch so many of these videos at once, this dopamine release can become quite addictive. The release of dopamine activates the reward center of our brain, which we naturally enjoy and want to continue feeling. With long form content, we obtain this dopamine rush at a much slower rate and not as often. With TikToks, we get dopamine hits repeatedly with every scroll, which is why it is so difficult to stop scrolling once you have started.
Because so many have become addicted to scrolling through short TikToks and Reels, the attention span of many individuals has decreased drastically. While watching longer content, we easily get bored because we do not get a dopamine rush every minute the way we have grown accustomed to on TikTok.
More than anyone else, this is something that has been affecting younger generations, namely Gen Z and even Gen Alpha. During quarantine especially, many children and teens were using TikTok as a way to evade boredom while stuck in the house all day. As children however, it is crucial to take part in activities where you focus on one thing for a long period of time, which is known as directed attention. This involves functions of the prefrontal cortex, which does not fully develop until 25 years of age, which makes it all the more important for children and teens to participate in directed attention through activities that prolong their focus. TikTok prevents this as their focus is no longer directed, but constantly changes as they scroll through hundreds of videos in short time spans, and because this is happening before their brain has completed developing, this sticks with them and makes it more difficult for them later in life to focus on something that does not instantly provide them with satisfaction.
While we all fall into the trap of the TikTok rabbit hole on occasion, it is important that we also find time for dedicated focus. While TikTok may be decreasing Gen Z’s attention span, it can be brought back up again through participating in activities that direct our attention.