this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
150 points (85.4% liked)

Asklemmy

43945 readers
555 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I've noticed YouTube specifically has become more addictive, I never used to be one to sit and scroll for long durations before but I often catch myself spending way too long on shorts now

Even people or older generations seem to be getting sucked in nowadays

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] WashedOver@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It seems to also be a switching task issue in our minds. These changes of states takes more effort than playing the next video does or just keeping on what we are doing. It's so much easier for us to keep playing the digital dopamine slot machine that, TikTok, instagram reels, Facebook and YouTube short videos provide.

From a business sense they want to keep your attention, from a biology sense we are safe and don't see a need to move with the random rewards another quick video offers.

It's amazing how well they have refined getting and keeping our attention. We also get rewarded with dopamine from the anticipation of the next story or short video. It gets we don't even really need the next video, just the anticipation is enough to reward us with more dopamine.

I've read doing a simple reverse mental countdown of 5-4-3-2-1 blast off helps us switch gears from another part of the brain. It can also help us get out of bed or off the couch.