YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels are making you dumber, according to science

734 points by esporx a day ago on reddit | 48 comments

UsagiRed | a day ago

I see how extremely damaging it is to children. It's safe to assume it can't be great for adults either.

neo2551 | 10 hours ago

There are many counter examples though: lifting weight is extremely bad for children, but incredibly useful for adults to keep a good health.

Always telling the truth is another example: kids grow into better critical thinkers if their parents sometimes lie to them, because they learn that authorative figures can also be wrong, but it is almost always a good thing for an adult.

But I agree shorts is bad for your mental health, just the argument might need more refinement.

Onideus_Starshit | 7 hours ago

Argument does not require any extra refinement, it has spread on every major social media network, even pornhub, precisely because it is extremely engaging, it's ability to hook you into binging short-form content for droplet of low-effort dopamine and to keep you engaged for maximum profit off of ads and general traffic disregards entirely your well-being and injects into you bad habits that spiral into worsening your general state both short-term and long-term solely for corporate benefit, but it's not because people are stupid, humans just incredibly susceptible to almost any form on influencegood or bad, and pretty much every apologist either already hooked into it and would get straight up withdrawal syndrome without a dose or directly benefit financially from it

Internal-Cupcake-245 | a day ago

This is probably why bots are flooding reddit with these style of video in the information war we are suffering through. The USA is doomed and this medium is intentional. It's intentionally degraded media, just like the bibles provided in Texas schools rife with grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. Let alone the fact that they are tax incentivized religious mandate.

BuyThisUsername420 | a day ago

All the time I think about how untested subjects like Social Studies, History and reading are given to the coach-teachers. The coaches of sports that bring in money and reputation here in the south, but need to technically teach despite the demand. Coaches often pillars of white, Christian, authoritarian, Protestant work ethics- I had a teacher read the Oklahoma History book outloud and have us Outline the chapter for school work.

In university, our history course had us engage with the elderly for first person accounts of historic events - I didn’t realize how the JFK assassination had genuinely hurt and changed shit for my lil country bumpkin grandma and stuff. My prof also gave us articles about smaller niche events that played into the bigger events and just so engaging. Yet my world history high school teacher didn’t even teach, and use the History channel, except for Islamic History bc 9/11 scared him but he honestly did a good job there….he could’ve been good, if he didn’t have to be head coach too.

Any_Acanthocephala18 | a day ago

Presented by a clickbait headline since they know no one will bother reading the article. Come to think of it, I guess they’re right in that regard.

Traveledfarwestward | 15 hours ago

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2024.1383913/full Mobile phone short video use negatively impacts attention functions: an EEG study

Internal-Cupcake-245 | 19 hours ago

What do you take issue with? The loose title language? It doesn't seem all too loose. From the article:

"While this doesn’t literally mean that TikTok is actually destroying your brain, it does show a proven correlation between lower impulse control and lack of focus in those who regularly consume short-form videos."

This is a description of low impulse control, and lack of focus speaks for itself:

Low impulse control, also known as impulsivity, refers to difficulty resisting urges or stopping oneself from engaging in certain behaviors, which can range from blurting things out to actions that harm oneself or others. This behavior pattern originates in the brain and can be a symptom of various mental health conditions, including impulse control disorders, where actions are often spontaneous and lack consideration of consequences.

Shivarus | 16 hours ago

it says correlation in your quote. the title implies causation. its bullshit clickbait.

Internal-Cupcake-245 | 9 hours ago

I'll concede to that point, but the substance of the article in any case is that short format media is correlated to low impulse control and lack of focus. Would you say that is bullshit? Declaring a causal relationship is difficult. Perhaps someday they will find a provable causal relationship in some study and you would be satisfied then.

Shivarus | 5 hours ago

proving a causal relationship is difficult because there might not be one. yeah, it's absolutely a possibility, but its also just as likely that people with lower impulse control and lack of focus are more drawn to short form content to begin with. you cannot make the assumption without evidence, and in doing so you've proven yourself gullible by falling for the clickbait article.

Internal-Cupcake-245 | 5 hours ago

So there's a correlation and it's "absolutely a possibility" but I am "proven gullible" by accepting a correlative relationship between these things. Do you see the problem with that? I do, and so don't plan on giving discussion with you much time or effort.

ZucchiniMore3450 | an hour ago

90% of articles were never worth reading, now with AI probably close to 99%.

AndersDreth | a day ago

The article and study describes a reduced attention span, it says nothing about intelligence, the redditor who wrote this title is making you dumber.

PineTreesAreDope | 20 hours ago

Also, don’t want to diminish this study, but 48 subjects is very small. Interesting nonetheless, but we need more detailed research done.

ninja4151 | 20 hours ago

Study also does not claim causation only correlation also

S-192 | a day ago

To the top with you. This is the only real takeaway here.

Cultural_Tadpole874 | a day ago

Thank goodness I usually scroll reddit instead!

SvenDia | a day ago

As opposed to rushing to comment on a headline for a clickbait article most people don’t read, which are themselves summaries of a scientific paper the article writer has barely read or used AI to summarize? Oh yeah, we’re so much better than people who watch Reels and Shorts.

TipAfraid4755 | 22 hours ago

How about doom scrolling Reddit?

Noiserawker | 21 hours ago

Smarter but waaay more depressed

captstinkybutt | a day ago

If watching baby elephants falling down makes me dumb than I don't wanna be smart.

PrimalColors | a day ago

Then*

0SpaceTime | a day ago

Well..

Smorb | a day ago

I hope this study didn't cost too much money.

juliankennedy23 | a day ago

I mean that's obvious have you talked to somebody who uses TikTok on the regular basis.

Simple-Dingo6721 | a day ago

Saying “according to science” to validate something makes you dumber.

No-Low-Protection | 23 hours ago

So are CringeTok as well!

AccountNumeroThree | 23 hours ago

Clearly. It makes people say things like "CringeTok".

PixeledPathogen | 17 hours ago

This was already proven with spongebob

TheSoloGamer | 16 hours ago

Correlation == causation. I feel it’s more likely that people with shorter attention spans are more drawn to shortform content, rather than shortform content having a significant impact on your attention span. I could be wrong, but this study hasn’t teated taking those with good attention spans and introducing the to short form content and A/B testing attention spans before and after.

Mr_iDoNtShiVeAgiT_2 | an hour ago

Jokes on you. Many have been dumb already lol.

morganational | a day ago

No fucking shit. 🤦🏽‍♂️

meinertzsir | a day ago

ive learnt a lot from instagram and youtube reels so its very individual depend on the kinda content u follow xd there's a reason to why "not interested" exist

also doubt looking at cats is making me dumber this study on the other hand definitely decreased my iq

SenzuYT | a day ago

This guy definitely uses reels ^

SupremelyUneducated | a day ago

It's not that you can't learn new things on those platforms, it's that they don't allow the deeper thinking needed for critical thinking because they change topic so often.

meinertzsir | a day ago

if you follow specific people you will get specific topics that you're interested in so thats untrue

you can think deeper about anything you see on reels wdym its not unusual to see something interesting and look it up

also you don't gotta think deeply about something for it to be good for you learning will always be good for your brain even if you only learn how to do something simple or learn new interesting info

you also do plenty of critical thinking cause you gotta sort the bullshit from actual facts

only way it'd make you dumber is if you blindly believe everything you hear, read or see like a DUMBASS

this is also an issue on reddit a lot of people believe anything without fact checking so reddit would also make those people dumber as much as reels would funny huh reddit user

SupremelyUneducated | a day ago

The topic is not relevant, the frequency of changing topic is the relevant part. Even if it is all videos of the same topic, they all restart with a new chain of reasoning. It's not good for thinking deeply and reasoning things out.

They are good at rewarding what you already believe, that is basically the target response of that short video legnth.

meinertzsir | a day ago

you clearly dont know anything about reels what you already believe yeah okay sure buddy

consider thinking more deeply yourself xd it doesn't matter how often it changes topic as long as you are learning if you want to learn more about a specific topic you research it

oh yeah reddit is literally the definition of echo chambers i firmly believe you a dumbass now

slutmagic420 | a day ago

This is satire, right?

lewis_1102 | a day ago

Definitely. The only one where I actually learn things is TikTok

Kaelin | a day ago

You know books exist, right?

lewis_1102 | a day ago

Books expand your vocabulary and give you a very limited worldview - that of the author’s. I think it’s possible to learn just as much from videos. They just have to be the right videos

Ilikelamp7 | a day ago

Lmao humanity is doomed

lewis_1102 | a day ago

You know if your For You Page isn’t teaching you things, then maybe that’s on you

Ilikelamp7 | a day ago

If you have anything you could possibly learn in a tick tock video I suggest going back to school.