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Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use

psycnet.apa.org

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Re: Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use

#151

Post by HeinzStuckeIt »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #136
nverba wrote: post #26

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?

The best thing you can do is stop paying and wean yourself off YouTube. It’s terrible for your mental health.

YouTube can be used in a healthy way: use NewPipe and subscribe to channels with edifying content and then, when a new video appears that you would want to watch properly, send the direct video link to yt-dlp on your computer. You then avoid the actual website, its algorithm, and its enshittification like short-form videos.

Choosing edifying content requires, of course, some caution. Avoid individual “content creators” who might feel pressure to slowly conform their content to the algorithm and sponsors’ demands. Instead, follow e.g. local arts organizations who do their events as part of a whole offline ecosystem, and then just upload video of it to YouTube. Or universities who create teaching content for their own needs but then upload it to YouTube, etc.

Re: Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use

#152

Post by alkh »

abixb wrote: post #130

Insightful paper. Policy/lawmakers needs to take much more input from high-quality, publicly funded (aka unbiased) research and make informed decisions on restricting content type. The social media companies rn are akin to tobacco companies selling products/services to kids (and adults!) with zero meaningful restriction or warnings. There's a mountain of research showing cognitive performance impacts from content con…

Just want to thank you for the comprehensive extension list, this is very useful!

Re: Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use

#155

Post by 86769928329709 »

foofoo12 wrote: post #103
nxor wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right_politics

[dead]

Re: Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use

#156

Post by 8f2ab37a-ed6c »

nverba wrote: post #26

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?

You can. Turn off Youtube history, it disables shorts. Not an ideal solution if you actually did want to keep your Youtube history, but this works.

Re: Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use

#157

Post by HPsquared »

xzjis wrote: post #119

I have a theory: just like with excessive porn consumption, could it be that depressed people tend to watch more short-form videos? I have a chronically depressed friend who confirms this theory: she can't be bothered to do anything and can only muster the energy to watch Shorts when she's feeling down. Shorts are not the cause, but a symptom of the consequences of her depression.

Probably a feedback loop though. Like other addictive behaviours. There are many ways for life to go wrong, and only a few ways for it to go right.

Re: Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use

#158

Post by al_borland »

lenerdenator wrote: post #96
al_borland wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my frustration as well. It seems like Premium should be all about optimizing for the experience the user wants, without the same dark patterns as the ad-supported site. The worst is search. Shorts are fine as a row in the recommended stuff that I can watch if I want something short or mindless, but when I search I almost always want a normal video. In the iPhone app I can filter for normal videos, but on the…

> This is my frustration as well. It seems like Premium should be all about optimizing for the experience the user wants, without the same dark patterns as the ad-supported site. Why would it be? Cable TV (which was just YouTube for the 80s and 90s) figured this out early: the attraction isn't the user experience, it's the content. They started off without ads, because, hey, you're paying. Then they introduced ads, b…

From what I’ve heard, Google makes more on Premium subscribers than from ad-watchers. This should incentivize Google to get as many people on Premium as possible. The content is the same, Premium or not, so if they want more people to sign up, they need to give the users features worth having.

In terms of content. Very little of what I watch is must-see. It’s just something to kill time. Right now I’m watching some guy jump a bicycle through two moving truck trailers. If this was cable in the 90s, I’d probably be watching How It’s Made. These things are essentially interchangeable for me.

Re: Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use

#159

Post by sly010 »

nverba wrote: post #26

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?

There is a 3rd party Android app that uses the accessibility APIs to (supposedly) track and limit my short video use. However, it's broken, so I can't watch short videos at all :)
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