A day “tethered” by short videos

With the rapid development of short videos, the use of short videos by the whole people has become a major trend, but it has also become a common phenomenon that one can easily become "immersed in it and unable to extricate oneself". How to use short videos reasonably and moderately is an issue that everyone should pay attention to.

A recent survey of 1,557 respondents showed that 87.7% of them like to watch short videos, and the younger the age of the respondents, the higher their interest in watching short videos. 69.4% of the respondents felt that they watched short videos excessively.

“The longest time I spent watching short videos in a day was 7 hours”

Liu Yanan, who is born in the 1990s and works in the media industry, has recently become addicted to watching short short dramas. "I basically watch short short dramas when I watch short videos now. I have watched several of them in a row and I also follow several bloggers. I check to see if there are any updates when I have nothing to do." She said that although most short short dramas have clichés and are even full of "earthy", they are very addictive. "Each episode is a few minutes long and the plot is very compact, which is very suitable for killing time."

Zhou Yu, born in the 1970s, lives in Quzhou, Zhejiang Province. He watches short videos every day. "I feel uncomfortable if I don't watch them. I watch them whenever I have time." Zhou Yu likes to watch operas, current affairs news, and funny short videos. He can spend four to five hours a day just watching short videos, but this is not his highest record. "The longest time I have watched short videos is seven hours a day."

Zeng Xiao, a post-90s resident from Hangzhou, admitted that he now spends more than an hour a day browsing short videos, especially before bedtime. "It's like 'fast food' content, with a lot of topics to choose from, which is quite interesting."

In the survey, 87.7% of the respondents like to watch short videos, of which 34.6% like it very much. Interactive analysis shows that the younger the age of the respondents, the higher the proportion of those who like to watch short videos. Specifically, those born after 2000 (91.8%) like to watch short videos the most, followed by those born after 1990 (89.5%), those born after 1980 (82.1%), and those born after 1970 (73.1%).

In addition, 31.2% of the respondents watched short videos for less than 1 hour per day, 58.8% watched short videos for more than 1 hour, and 11.3% watched short videos for more than 3 hours.

Nearly 70% of respondents said they watch short videos excessively

Watching short videos has become Zhou Yu’s favorite form of entertainment, but he feels that he is a little overly dependent on them. Now he doesn’t like watching TV and doesn’t read books much. “Sometimes I can watch them intermittently from morning to night, and my head feels groggy.”

Hua Li, born in 1995, is an employee of a private enterprise in Shanghai. She likes to watch short videos in her spare time. She lamented that time seems to pass quickly when watching short videos. She often looks at the watch and finds that the time she set has already passed. "When I see something I like, I want to finish it first, but the next one is also very exciting. I can't stop watching it."

Moreover, Huali's parents now also like to watch short videos. They check in every day, and the chat content they send to her has also changed from WeChat articles to short videos. "Sometimes the three of us don't chat when we are together, but watch short videos that interest us."

Zhu Wei, deputy director and associate professor of the Communication Law Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, said that one reason short videos are attractive is that people can shop while watching them. "Buying things through live streaming is more intuitive than just looking at pictures and text on a web page, and people can also watch the fun."

In the survey, 69.4% of the respondents felt that they watched too many short videos, and 16.6% of them said it was very serious. Specifically, the post-00s (73.7%) were more serious about watching too many short videos, followed by the post-90s (72.7%).

Liu Junhai, director of the Institute of Commercial Law and professor of the School of Law at Renmin University of China, pointed out that the most important thing for users to use short videos in a reasonable and moderate way is to have self-control. Long-term immersion in short videos will affect physical health, lack of communication with family members, affect students' studies, delay work for professionals, and even make them lose direction in life. "Children and young people should use short videos in a reasonable way."

Regarding the issue of young people's reasonable use of short videos, during this year's National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Yan Jingming, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and vice chairman of the China Writers Association, suggested that parents should cultivate young people's ability to identify content. They can turn on the youth mode of relevant products to guide them to use short videos correctly . Schools should also incorporate Internet literacy into the curriculum system and offer relevant courses.

Maintain focus and clarify life goals

Huali said that she now controls the time she spends watching short videos. "On the one hand, I will reversely use the recommendation algorithm. For example, I like short videos related to TV series and travel. When I encounter such content, I will deliberately not like it, and I will not follow bloggers in this field, so as to adjust the pushed video content. On the other hand, I strictly control the time and set a time limit to stop watching short videos." Huali admitted that she would still exceed the time limit at the beginning, but gradually it worked. "And when I am busy, I will not remember to watch short videos."

Zeng Xiao admitted that in the first two years after short videos became popular, he found them fresh and interesting and addictive, but now he spends much less time watching short videos every day. He believes that he should find something that can arouse his passion more than watching short videos to enrich his hobbies.

Zhang Ranran is a first-year graduate student at a university in Nanchang. In the past, whenever she had time, she would unconsciously open the short video software and get addicted easily. "I can watch short videos for five or six hours a day, which affects my learning efficiency and I don't have a deep impression of the content I have watched. I remind myself to watch less and pay more attention to text messages."

Liu Junhai said that short videos are indeed very attractive, but they are not the whole of life. "The world is very rich and life is beautiful. We also have personal responsibilities, family responsibilities and social responsibilities to bear. There are many more important and inspiring things that are worth investing more energy in." He reminded short video users to maintain their focus, clarify their life goals, plan their time well, and watch short videos in moderation. "'Time is like water in a sponge. As long as you are willing to squeeze it, there will always be some.' It is said that we should cherish time and race against time, but if we use all the squeezed time to watch short videos, we really can't make good use of it."

Among the respondents who participated in this survey, 27.6% were born after 2000, 42.8% were born after 1990, 23.1% were born after 1980, 5.0% were born after 1970, and others accounted for 1.5%.

(At the request of the interviewees, Liu Yanan and Zhou Yu are pseudonyms)

Source: CCTV.com, China Youth Daily