You probably know the mood. When you are bored, or you have so many things to do, but you don’t want to do them right now, so you decide to flip through Instagram or watch a couple YouTube videos to pass the time. You promise yourself that it will only take a few minutes. But what is meant to be a 10-minute thing ends up taking hours to do. You can just keep flipping through Instagram for hours. Or view recommended posts. For YouTube, there is always that next video. The list of recommended that you scroll through to watch. They could only be 5-minute long video. But you get so far down the rabbit hole that you don’t even see the time passing. One video becomes two which becomes 10 more. Soon an hour has passed and then another one. You get caught in this loop saying “oh this is just the last one.” But then you see the next video that is going to play, and you watch it. It is endless, and unless acted upon by a large enough outside force like a panic attack from the homework you have you will stay this way for hours. Just flipping through Instagram or YouTube getting caught further and further down the rabbit hole. This is good for social platforms like YouTube and Instagram. They want you to stay in their apps for as long as possible. The longer you stay in them, the more adds you will see, the more views and likes get tallied up, and the more money they get. This rabbit hole like quality of Instagram and YouTube has made it very hard to detach for people to completely do away with them. It makes it hard for people to do other things, like do homework in a timely fashion, or learn to play an instrument.
You probably know the mood. When you are bored, or you have so many things to do, but you don’t want to do them right now, so you decide to flip through Instagram or watch a couple YouTube videos to pass the time. You promise yourself that it will only take a few minutes. But what is meant to be a 10-minute thing ends up taking hours to do. You can just keep flipping through Instagram for hours. Or view recommended posts. For YouTube, there is always that next video. The list of recommended that you scroll through to watch. They could only be 5-minute long video. But you get so far down the rabbit hole that you don’t even see the time passing. One video becomes two which becomes 10 more. Soon an hour has passed and then another one. You get caught in this loop saying “oh this is just the last one.” But then you see the next video that is going to play, and you watch it. It is endless, and unless acted upon by a large enough outside force like a panic attack from the homework you have you will stay this way for hours. Just flipping through Instagram or YouTube getting caught further and further down the rabbit hole. This is good for social platforms like YouTube and Instagram. They want you to stay in their apps for as long as possible. The longer you stay in them, the more adds you will see, the more views and likes get tallied up, and the more money they get. This rabbit hole like quality of Instagram and YouTube has made it very hard to detach for people to completely do away with them. It makes it hard for people to do other things, like do homework in a timely fashion, or learn to play an instrument. 
With Youtube its insane. You will start out with a specific video you wanted to watch, and then next thing you know, its been an hour or so, and you have no idea what you are even watching. I think that Netflix has also adapted a similar method as youtube. After watching a movie or finishing a series, they will give you recommended shows to watch, in order to captivate you. There are so many more movie or tv shows that are on Netflix that we don't even see, because Netflix only shows us what we would be interested in, what will keep us watching Netflix. They act like our friend almost, like they understand our interests, and will never leave us without a show to watch.
ReplyDeleteThis happens to me almost every day! I mean to be productive, but then I get so caught up in watching YouTube that by the time I come to my senses and realize what I’ve been doing, hours have passed. I think the main reason this happens is because most videos there are under 10 minutes, so you don’t realize just how much time you’re racking up. You just think “oh it’s a few short videos, it won’t be that long.” It’s pretty genius from a business standpoint, but something to be very weary of as a viewer.
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