Study: Watching short videos makes people feel more bored
2024-08-21
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Now, watching short videos has become a mainstream form of entertainment, and many people can't help watching them every day. However, studies have found that watching short videos, especially constantly fast-forwarding or skipping videos, can actually make people feel more bored.
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Browsing videos on TikTok or YouTube can be a hit-and-miss affair, with gems lurking amid mediocre efforts. But researchers have found that switching to another video, or skipping forwards and backwards in the same one, actually makes people more bored.Watching short videos is a matter of luck. You may find an interesting video after watching it for a long time. But researchers have found that constantly switching videos, jumping to the next one, or returning to the previous video to watch repeatedly, actually makes people feel more bored.
Dr Katy Tam at the University of Toronto Scarborough, the lead author of the research, said boredom was closely linked to attention.This boredom and focus are closely related, said lead author Dr. Katie Tam of the University of Toronto Scarborough.
"We feel bored when there’s a gap between how engaged we are and how engaged we want to be,” she said. “When people keep switching through videos, they become less engaged with the videos and they are looking for something more interesting. This can lead to increased feelings of boredom.”“When there’s a gap between how much we pay attention and how much we want to pay attention, we get bored,” she said. “When people keep switching videos, their attention starts to drop, and they wonder if the next video will be more interesting. This makes people feel more bored.”
The results appear to chime with other studies: as the team notes, previous research has suggested that while boredom relief is a driver for people to use social media or smartphones, the use of such technology appears to make the feeling worse.The findings echo other research, which the team noted has found that boredom can prompt people to use social media or smartphones, and that the use of these technologies seems to make people feel more bored.
Writing in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Tam and colleagues report how they carried out seven experiments involving a total of more than 1,200 participants.Tamm and his colleagues reported in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General that they conducted seven experiments involving more than 1,200 participants.
The first, involving 140 participants, revealed that people tended to switch between videos more when they rated the content more boring, while the second – an online survey involving 231 participants – suggested people thought having the option to skip through a video or switch to another would make viewing a video less boring.The first experiment involved 140 people and showed that people switched videos more often when they found the content boring, while another online survey of 231 people showed that people thought having the option to skip or switch to another video made watching it less boring.
However, the team’s subsequent experiments suggest this is not the case.However, the team's subsequent experiments found that this was not the case.
Data from a group of 166 undergraduates suggests participants felt more bored when allowed to skip about within a video than when they were not able to, while results from 159 undergraduates revealed they reported higher levels or boredom when given a collection of five-minute videos they could switch between, compared with a single 10-minute video.An experiment that collected data from 166 college students found that when participants were able to switch between videos at will, they felt more bored than when they could not. Another experiment with 159 college students found that when they could switch between a series of single 5-minute videos at will, they felt more bored than when they only watched a 10-minute video.
"Our research shows that while people fast-forward or skip videos to avoid boredom, this behaviour can actually make them feel more bored,” she said. “Just as we pay for an immersive experience in a movie theatre, enjoyment often comes from immersing ourselves in videos rather than swiping through them.”"Our research shows that when people fast-forward or skip videos to avoid boredom, they actually make themselves more bored," Tam said. "Just like the immersive experience we pay for in a movie theater, the pleasure of watching a video often comes from fully engaging the experience rather than constantly switching between videos."
English source: The Guardian
Compiled by: Danny
Proofreading: Dong Jing, Qi Lei
Source: China Daily
