The teenage attention span has been rendered nonexistent since YouTube implemented short form content known as YouTube shorts during September of 2020. The addictive, TikTok-esque nature of YouTube shorts has captivated the overstimulated teenage demographic in a predatory manner, since this function cannot be disabled without purchasing YouTube premium.
The value of longer, more thought out content has been greatly diminished because of the ease of producing a popular YouTube short. Genres such as movie clips, kindness content, and short comedy sketches have proven to be a successful and convenient way of achieving monetary gain without the hassle of creating and editing longer, out-of-the-box content. Of course longer videos make greater profits per view, the ease of creating successful YouTube shorts allows for rapid monetary success ranging from 1 cent to 6 cents per view according to Abel Grunfeld of Riverside.fm. While this may seem like a small amount of money, it is certainly worthwhile for content creators to take advantage of this platform.
The issue with YouTube shorts is their addictive nature within the teenage community. According to senior Benjamin Young “[he] spends 60 to 90 minutes a day scrolling through shorts which is not time well spent.” In order to boost the likelihood of maintaining viewers’ attention, many creators include a splitscreen of a movie clip combined with gameplay of a satisfying video to watch along with it. This further contributes to the decline of teenage attention span as it force feeds viewers with multiple stimuli without them being fully aware. Young noted that these videos “get a lot of likes. People must be captivated by splitscreen content.”
However some find these split screen videos to be very problematic. “It manipulates young viewers to consume content that is otherwise lazy and uninformative by taking advantage of weakened attention span,” according to senior Joseph Floyd. Floyd’s concerns are certainly valid as YouTube has allowed creators to degrade their content into pirating videos or clips with slight alterations while gaining millions of views. The only reason such content is successful is by implementing tricks such as split screening to captivate viewers and coax them into wasting time.
He further explained that the comment section on many of these videos “functions as an echo chamber for hateful people.” With many people expressing hateful, homophobic, and sexist beliefs in YouTube shorts comment sections, it’s easy to see that people with the same belief find comfort in communicating their hateful ideologies with others in the comments.
Others find Youtube short to be an addictive waste of time in hopes of putting off other work. “It’s pretty mind numbing,” noted senior Beck Murphy. “I find myself watching them for hours everyday taking in one short after the other.” Promoting such robotic, aimless behavior among teens should not be on YouTube’s agenda. Worst of all, these shorts cannot be disabled without purchasing YouTube premium, making this addition a shameless marketing tool for the platform. Actively encouraging teens to waste their time scrolling is a predatory alteration to the application and is a detriment to teenagers in a world where procrastination has become the new normal.
The death of YouTube’s integrity is imminent with the continuous influx in YouTube shorts content and creators’ manipulation of viewers. It is important that we as the next generation stop setting the trend of poor attention spans and a complete inability to concentrate first and foremost by boycotting this poor content. Allowing for ourselves to be taken advantage of at the expense of our valuable time as young, productive people shouldn’t be a precedent that we set for the future. YouTube shorts are just one more way that companies take advantage of our lack of focus in an attempt to achieve mass financial success. The only way to rid ourselves of this content is to purchase YouTube premium, a price we shouldn’t have to pay for an opportunity to focus. For now, all that can be done is to stop consuming such content and use the extra time to enjoy our youth. Like most things, our young age cannot last forever. Let’s make sure we enjoy it to the fullest.
