As someone who pays for YouTube, I don't understand why I can't disable shorts fully. They already have my money. What more do they want?
Get Unhook extension (for desktop)
yup, this one :up
Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use
101–110 of 213 posts
Re: Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use
#102I think it really is important to stress that these are correlations only. Something I've noticed: those with poor attention spans or generally low engagement with deeper material tend to be attracted to SFV. Likewise, those in a state of depression or have ADHD can easily get into the quick satisfaction coming from SFV. It may exacerbate existing issues, but not necessarily be the cause.
Is it important to stress that though? This feels like a personal responsibility argument while also acknowledging that it disproportionately affects people who don't have a ton of control over their response to it.
It is important; if SFV cause these symptoms, that could be grounds (long-term) to ban them. Not so if they only exacerbate preexisting conditions.
Re: Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whenever I search anything in my native language, and I mean literally any topic, one of the top recommendations (if not the top one, which autoplays by default) is the local far-right party. It's crazy. We've become used to this but it's crazy.
People have beliefs you don't share?
No, he's referring to politics.
Far-right politics[a] encompasses a range of ideologies that are marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, radical anti-communism, ethnonationalism, and nativism.
Re: Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use
#104This tracks for me. I have deleted TikTok and Instagram but now I find myself browsing X short videos!! Addiction is a crazy thing. I have a daily 30 minute one way commute. I usually put on a YouTube video about startup or tech talk. But I find myself forgetting it all the day after. I am curious how you go about remembering the content without being able to take notes while driving.
are you watching talks while driving?
One thing I've tried recently, was that going no-nothing while driving: so no music, radio, nothing, just me and my thoughts.
It's been immensely pleasurable, like I've rediscovered myself.
But I still have an issue with finding a good long form video to watch while washing up, or shorts while I'm waiting for CI to finish at work, etc. I need to find something else to do.
something along the lines of "you can't remove an addiction habit, you can only replace it"
Re: Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would suggest you make an exception for YouTube shorts from channels / creators that also put out YouTube long-form content. You'd think I'd be making a point here about "otherwise you'd be missing a lot of good educational content that happens to be packaged short-form"; but no! The point I actually want to make is much weirder: unlike the other short-form-video services, YouTube's "shorts" don't seem to have any…
If you're anti-shorts, you could also choose to send a message to the creators by not watching their shorts. If they previously made long form but have switched to shorts, they're concerned with views, so you deny them the views. Of course this may have little impact since so many people have no self-control and the gains from shorts may outweigh loosing your views, but it's still something. Enjoy the warmth of angry…
I mean... I'm against short-form videos. I'm not against YT shorts, because they (mostly) aren't short-form videos. They're just vertical videos that trick people used to short-form videos into thinking they'll be getting short-form videos, but (mostly) give them long-form videos. (Or... medium form? What do you call a two-to-three-minute-long video that thoroughly answers one very specific question?)
Especially the creators who've "previously made long form but have switched to shorts" — they're not making short-form videos. They're just making long/medium-form videos in portrait now.
IMHO, if something markets itself as a problematic thing, but doesn't actually deliver on the problematic part, then it isn't problematic. (E.g. convincing kids that frozen peas are "pea candy" isn't problematic. You're not making them like "candy." You're making them like peas!)
Re: Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use
#106The interesting part here is what they carve out - they don't see impacts on body image or self esteem. These are classic effects identified as negative impacts of social media in general. It it would be really interesting if somehow SFV format prevents their impact.
My guess: the SFV they are talking about is generally just fully attention baiting and not from peers or others that people feel are "comparable". If you don't feel the source or the subject of the video is comparable to you, then there's no compulsion to reference it in a judgemental way against your own circumstances.
But I bet if you did just focus on SFV from eg: friends or peers, you'd be right back to self esteem and body image impacts again.
Re: Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use
#107As someone who pays for YouTube, I don't understand why I can't disable shorts fully. They already have my money. What more do they want?
Sadly this requires a browser plugin. Happily, those exist. I also pay for YT and use "enhancer for youtube" which can do a plethora of things, one of which is to disable shorts.
Re: Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use
#108Totally my feeling too. The formula seems to be: dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, infuriating country dividing content, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, infuriating country dividing content, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine ...
This accurately describes the front page of reddit, too.
Yep. It's ironic that reddit itself cured my reddit addiction.
Re: Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use
#109As someone who pays for YouTube, I don't understand why I can't disable shorts fully. They already have my money. What more do they want?
I use ublock origin for this. Also the NYT Opinion section because ain’t nobody got time for that nonsense.
Despite YouTube's attempts at blocking adblockers, I am still using YouTube successfully without ads. That said, at times I do have to reload the page for the video to load properly.
Re: Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use
#110As someone who pays for YouTube, I don't understand why I can't disable shorts fully. They already have my money. What more do they want?
Use the Brave browser and look at the inbuilt filtering (search for "Content Filters" in settings), it allows explicit removal of shorts via enabling of "YouTube Anti-Shorts" filter list. Does the job beautifully.