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Dopamine addiction is short form addiction?
Kicker: LIFE
SHORT-FORM
Dopamine addiction is short-form addiction?
By Myung-Gwan Kang
Short-form is content produced as short videos that last an average of 15 to 60 seconds and a maximum of 10 minutes. Examples of short-forms include Shorts, Reels, and TikTok. People with cell phones, regardless of age or gender, use many short-form social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. People can easily become addicted to short videos of less than a minute, such as Reels, Shorts and TikTok, and can enjoy the video with a simple scroll without thinking about it.
Why is short form fun?
Modern people spend a lot of time watching YouTube shorts, Instagram reels, TikTok, etc. When I look at a short form, I also spend 10 minutes, 30 minutes, or even several hours. When I come to my senses, a lot of time has passed, and I feel like I want to see it again. If you keep watching the short form, you may even get the feeling that other things are no longer fun.
Why? This is because short-form allows you to obtain new information in a short period of time and stimulates the brain with sensational images to secrete dopamine.
When creating short-form video media, engineers repeat AB tests in a way that maximizes the secretion of dopamine in them. In this way, an interface that can most effectively addict humans is created, and those interfaces are further developed through repeated competition. For example, YouTube had shorter and more provocative videos than Netflix. TikTok is much shorter and has more provocative videos than YouTube.
Thus, TikTok grew greatly in a short period of time, YouTube created shorts, and Instagram created Reels. Because of this, people are easily exposed to short forms and have fun with them.
The AB test referred to here means that when creating an interface, you create model A and model B, and then show A to some people and B to others to an unspecified number of people. In this experiment, if B's dwell time is higher and people choose B more, they abandon model A and go with B.
Short form addiction
Short-form is easy to get addicted to because you can access short videos quickly and easily. So why does addiction occur? The reason is that immediate rewards occur. For example, if you drink alcohol, and you will get drunk a week later. Then you won't drink. You go to the racetrack and place a bet, and the horse finishes in three weeks. Then you will not place a bet. In this way, addiction is a result of immediate reward.
What kind of reward can you get by looking at short-form? When you look at the short form, you immediately get a hit of a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Dopamine is secreted in the brain when we feel pleasure or happiness, and more is secreted when we receive strong stimulation. You may develop a tolerance to the same stimulus and become addicted to a stronger stimulus.
When the dopamine signal is repeated, the structure of my brain changes, and I find myself seeking out more and more of the stimulation provided by dopamine. These behaviors can create a habit of seeking dopamine and create an addiction circuit.
Things that are increasingly provocative, and things that are short and can be enjoyed right away. People have collectively named the addiction to this type of stimulation as dopamine addiction. Dopamine addiction is a buzzword, not a technical term. In particular, short-form is stimulating and difficult to control, so dopamine addiction is sometimes referred to as short-form addiction among the younger generation.
Additionally, as a result of comparing the average monthly usage time per person of OTT platforms and short-form platforms based on mobile market research company WiseApp, the OTT platform was 9 hours and 14 minutes, and the short-form platform was 45 hours and 29 minutes, which was more than 5 times more.
Popcorn Brain
Popcorn Brain is a term coined by David Levy, a professor at the University of Washington Graduate School of Information. It is named so because when exposed to visual and stimulating images, the frontal lobe of the brain becomes resistant to responding, causing people to lose interest in daily life and seek only greater stimulation like popcorn. If this phenomenon worsens, depression, anxiety, impulsive emotional changes may occur, and cognitive function decline such as decreased concentration may occur.
Preventive
To prevent short-form addiction, critical acceptance of short-form is necessary. Additionally, it is necessary to make an effort to recognize that you are viewing short-form content excessively through preventive education, and consistently practicing closing your eyes even briefly and taking deep breaths for 10 to 15 seconds is also good for preventing short-form addiction. If the condition is serious, changing your cell phone to a feature phone rather than a smartphone can be very helpful.
You can limit the time you use your phone by setting a time limit. Moreover, you can create a daily schedule and live according to the schedule. Lastly, you can prevent short-form by meeting and socializing with friends offline rather than online.
In the dynamic realm of digital content, short-form formats like TikTok, Reels, and Shorts have created a captivating universe. The allure video in their brief duration, spanning 15 to 60 seconds, delivering instant doses of entertainment, information, and a quick hit of dopamine.
Episodic content's charm video in its swift delivery of fresh, engaging material, often keeping viewers immersed without a conscious grasp of time. This addictive quality is rooted in rapid rewards, particularly the release of dopamine.
To address the potential risks of short-form content addiction, it's crucial to be critically aware of its impact.
Source:
https://www.goodnews1.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=426797
https://open-pro.dict.naver.com/_ivp/#/pfentry/9c7136033d90440d8d511053c88cba71/5fa61de88a334c1da977cbd7cd883fcc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcn5F2cT8Pw
