The negative impact of short videos on youths

The negative impact of short video on Youths

The rise of short videos such as those in TikTok, Instagram reels, Facebook reels, and YouTube shorts has many negative mental impacts on the youth of the current generation.

Points on the negative impact of short video.

Reduced attention or focus time

Continuous exposure to short videos can reduce attention and focus time of mind. The quick and spontaneous satisfaction from these short videos makes it harder for young audiences to engage in tasks that require patience and makes it impossible to attend or consume long or time-consuming content or lectures.

The urge for dopamine and addiction

The content of this kind is designed to make people addicted. They are developed with the help of many psychologists to make people consume more and more. Frequent notifications, never-ending scrolling, algorithm-driven based on audience interest,  etc. engage the users more. Potentially developed dependency on dopamine hits received from new, exciting, and interesting videos.

Mental health problem

Anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues are also developed by extensive use of these platforms. Exposure to many unimaginable and unrealistic lifestyles and cyberbullying give rise to many negative mental impacts. That unrealistic lifestyle can never be achieved but it makes immature minds get low self-esteem which will eventually lead to overall failure of mental well-being.

Sleep disruption

Young users consume these videos even late at night, disrupting their sleeping patterns. As we know broken sleeping patterns create mental and physical health issues such as stress, lower academic performance, and mood swings.

Ostensible learning

Short videos are the prioritized entertainment and focus on the valuable subject matter is low, this can lead to ostensible learning. Short videos of educational value also skip all the elaboration and consumption of such and also make skimming through information instead of deep and critical evaluation and engagement.

Reduce Social interaction

Excessive screen time and engaging on such platforms and addiction to it reduce face-to-face interaction with friends and family. This surely impairs the social skill of interacting with people. This automatically leads to more isolation and increased feelings of loneliness due to the lack of essential social skills.

Delusion of reality and unrealistic expectations

Filtered and edited content of high living standards and smooth living without chaos and problems without any hard work distorted reality and gave the wrong impression of creating unrealistic expectations. Continuous consumption for a long period makes them feel those as a reality and unable to perceive the social reality of hard work and struggle. Hence it is a major source of mental problems.

Reduce emotional sensitivity

Continuous consumption of emotional content leads to emotional desensitization. Rapid exposure to intense moments and scenes makes it difficult to adapt to real-life scenarios and emotional situations.

Conclusion

Countering such issues requires self-regulation of the users by increasing awareness of the potential harms. A certain regulation is required to be maintained by the social media platforms as well to provide healthier usage patterns. Mental health professionals, educators, and most importantly parents need a crucial role in guiding and supporting young people and maintaining their involvement. Knowing these responsibilities and giving awareness to youth will solve many future problems.

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