Manohar 1

Aryan Manohar

Sophia Shealy

ENC2135

October 30 2022

Proving the Addictiveness of Short-Form Content

Investigating Short-Form Content and its Addictiveness

Short-form content is defined by Neah Schaffer, a content marketer, as “snackable”, one-

to-three minute long content that can be easily taken in by its viewers. Short-form content is

“snackable”, one-to-three minute long video content that has grown in popularity on social

media, as it can be easily taken in by its viewers (Schaffer). Short-form content has materialized

in the 21st century in the form of social media, whether that be through TikTok, Snapchat Reels,

Instagram Stories, or YouTube Shorts (Schaffer). This new trend in media is designed to keep

users scrolling down to view more and more content as they take in the small, “snackable” bites

of content and lose track of their time. The decreased attention spans that have resulted from the

proliferation of short-form content have created a positive feedback loop, with content getting

shorter to adapt to our shorter attention spans. This phenomenon can be classified is starting to

be classified as an addiction to short-form content by psychological experts, and can have

adverse effects on people’s minds. The situation is further complicated when one realizes that

while the addictiveness of short-form content is a downside to people’s mental health, it is a

boon to social media companies and online marketers, who can harness the power of short-form

content to get more users to buy into their products. The study “Exploring short-form video

application addiction: Socio-technical and attachment perspectives” utilizes a formal tone,

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statistical facts, and a rigid structure to make its argument. On the other hand, the video "How

Short-Form Content Is Hurting The World…" uses a more informal tone, engaging visuals, and a

fast-paced tempo. Both sources are skilled at arguing about the addictiveness of short-form

content, but the video does so more effectively.

The first artifact for short-form content addiction, the study “Exploring short-form video

application addiction: Socio-technical and attachment perspectives”, is an academic paper

documenting the experimentation of three Chinese professors, Xing Zhanga, You Wua, and Shan

Liu, on the topic of attachment to short-from content (Zhang, et. Al. 1). The authors of this study

polled 388 people with questionnaires and used this data to form a framework for how short-

form content affects the mental state of long-term users (Zhang, et. Al. 5). The exigence of this

study is in response to the growing number of platforms that enable short-form content, and its

rapid ascent to popularity through apps such as TikTok, which use fun and engaging features to

keep users on its platform short-form content platforms, such as TikTok, that attempt to keep

users on their applications by utilizing the addictiveness of the shorter timespan of their content.

The authors also wrote this study to fill a gap in research that they observed, namely the lack of

research on the psychological triggers of addiction in short-form content users. Thus, the study is

written by and for behavioral scientists as a tool to base further research off of, and is thus

strictly academic in nature. The constraints of this study are due to its status as an academic

research paper, which limits the interaction with the audience to formal language and bars the

authors from making any biased or unsubstantiated claims in their work. The medium of the

study also constrains the content of the study to text and visual references only.

This study utilizes formal language in order to make its argument on why short-form

content leads to content addiction. The diction of the study is formal and unbiased, with careful
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attention given to eliminate any personal opinions or casual language. The reason for the formal

diction is to strengthen the authoritativeness of the study in the academic community studying

short-form content and its psychological effects on consumers. The authors themselves classify

their study as a “research framework” for future research, which is why the writing is as

authoritative and formal as it is (Zhang, et. Al. 2). It is possible that The authors most likely

chose the formal tone of their study in order to make the study’s argument, that short-form

content consumptions leads to addictive patterns, more convincing to their audience. This theory

is backed up by the admission in the introduction of the study that no other study has looked into

the relationship between short-form content and its addictiveness, meaning the authors have an

incentive to be the authority figures on this topic and thus write in an unbiased and formal

manner in the study documenting their results.

The authors of this study also utilize facts throughout the study in the form of statistics,

whether it be in their reports of the attention span of short-form content consumers, or in their

analysis of their findings as they use statistical analysis to draw conclusions from their results.

When reporting the responses of their sample, the authors chose to display all the results in the

“4.2 Data Collection” section of the study, as well as explain any data anomalies within their

findings. This reporting builds the credibility of the study to its audience of primarily

researchers, as it allows other researchers to confirm the factuality of the study as they are given

the raw data set the authors worked with, as well as the ability to potentially replicate the study

parameters to verify its findings (Zhang, et. Al. 7). In the “4.3 Data Assessment” section, the

authors further explain their statistical analysis method on how they drew conclusions from their

results to show a clear pattern of addiction resulting from short-form content consumption

(Zhang, et. Al. 8). This furthers the authoritativeness of this study in the addiction psychology
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academic space, as it outlines the process with which the authors found their conclusions

transparently.

Finally, this study is organized in a rigid structure, where the authors first establish the

purpose and need of the study, then document their procedure and findings, and finally draw

conclusions from the analysis of their findings. The first part of the study is dedicated to

establishing the background of the study, including the “theoretical background” of addiction

psychology, including the study’s roots in “attachment theory” and “personality traits” to

determine how human brains react to digital attachment (Zhang, et. Al. 3). This section lays the

foundation out for the authors to explain their study’s merits, as they point out that there is a gap

in research for short-form content addiction. After establishing the merits for the study, the

authors describe the process they used in which they gathered data on short-form content users

and clarify any data abnormalities. This increases the transparency of the study to its audience

and builds trust between the readers and the authors, thereby making the conclusions of the study

more believable. To reach those conclusions, namely that a clear pattern of short-form content

addiction exists, the final part of the study is dedicated to documenting the analysis of the results

and drawing the conclusion that a clear pattern of short-form content addiction exists in users. By

outlining the chronological process in which the authors arrived at the conclusion of the link

between short-form content and addictiveness through the structure of the study, the authors help

prove that their findings are trustworthy and replicable to their audience.

The second artifact, the video "How Short-Form Content Is Hurting The World…", is a

YouTube short published by HubSpot Marketing, a YouTube channel that specializes in

publishing marketing tips and tricks videos (Flanagan). It consists of a podcast interview of

Kieran Flanagan, a growth marketing expert and HubSpot Marketing expert, overlayed with
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stock footage and imagery, as well as a soundtrack. In this video, Kieran talks about the ability of

short-form content to form addictive patterns in our brains, as well as the shortening attention

spans resulting from short-form content consumption. The exigence of the video is to inform

viewers interested in social media marketing, the primary audience of HubSpot Marketing, about

short-form content addiction, and its effect on advertising through short-form content. It is

interesting here to note that the viewers interested in social media marketing are hyper-online,

young Internet users, which is also the target market for short-form content itself; therefore,

while the video’s message advocates against short-form content, it is rather ironically hosted on

YouTube Shorts, a short-form content platform. The constraints of the video are mainly due to

its limited timeframe and aspect ratio, as the video itself is a piece of short-form content; the

video is vertical in nature and lasts only over a minute.

Firstly, Kieran uses an informal tone to relate his message to his audience of primarily

millennial-aged, digitally-proficient consumers. Throughout the video, Kieran uses casual

phrases such as “social media rabbit hole” and “endless doomscrolling”, in language that his

target demographic would find relatable and put more trust in him as a speaker (Flanagan 01:15

– 01:35). He further goes to add humor into the video, joking that a short-form content addict

“[doesn’t] know when 3 minutes turns into 3 hours” (Flanagan 00:37 – 00:44). This form of

relatable humor further brings the audience closer to the speaker of the video, and establishes

authority for Kieran’s message that short-form content can be addicting. The relatable references

made in the narration of the video also bring authority to Kieran as he connects with the lingo of

his target audience.

The video also utilizes engaging visuals throughout its runtime in order to keep the

audience engaged with the message, and to provide visual clarity to Kieran’s voiceover about
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social media and short content. When Kieran talks about how the average social media user

underestimates how much time they spend on their favorite platform by 2 hours, there is a large

explosion overlayed onto the video to illustrate the importance outsize impact of this fact

(Flanagan 01:03). There is also stock footage overlayed of young people using their phones

when Kieran talks about attention spans decreasing as a result of short-form content, visually

describing how short-form content addicts lose their perception of the world around them when

they are addicted to their devices. Additionally, there are also captions throughout the video that

write out Kieran’s narration, so the audience does not lose track of the message of the video.

These visuals allow the audience to more effectively engage with and visualize the video’s

message that short-form content makes the world worse.

Finally, the video has a fast-paced tempo that plays into the tropes of short-form content

itself to be more effective at arguing its case about short-form content. In the video, Kieran talks

about how short-form content has been decreasing the attention spans of users as they want more

information packed into lesser and lesser lengths of time. As this video itself is on YouTube

Shorts, a short-form content platform, the video’s fast tempo is actually playing into the tropes

that Kieran exposes for short-form content, as it is cramming more information than if it went

with a normal speed for its narration. This way, this video is more effective at arguing that short-

form content is addictive than a regular YouTube video, since it targets its audience on one of the

platforms that they would use to consume short-form content, and speeds up its narration in order

to work with their audience’s decreased attention spans. This makes sense when considering that

while the video advocates against short-form content, its target audience is also the target

audience to use short-form content.

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Overall, both sources successfully argue for the existence of short-form content addiction

and its negative effects, yet the video is more effective at doing so due to its relatability and

engaging nature. While the academic tone and language of the research study is warranted due to

its audience being primarily academics in the field of addiction psychology, the casual and

relatable tone of the video is more appealing to its audience and creates a personal connection

between the author and the viewer of the video. The engaging visuals of the video are also much

more visually stimulating than the tables and text of the study, and draw more attention to the

message of recognizing short-form content addiction. The visualization of the video is simply

more entertaining and does more to hold the audience’s attention, even though the message of

the video is the same as the study. Finally, hosting a video on a short-form content platform just

to advocate against short-form content is a brilliant move to reach the exact demographic that

would use the platform you advocate against. By relating the content to its audience and being

engaging throughout its runtime, the video is the more successful artifact when it comes to

arguing for the existence of short-form content addiction.

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Works Cited

Flanagan, Kieran. How Short-Form Content Is Hurting The World..., HubSpot Marketing, 18

July 2022, https://news.yourfriendontheweb.com/how-short-form-content-is-hurting-the-

world/.

Schaffer, Neal. "Short Form Vs. Long Form Content...And The Winner Is?". Neil Schaffer:

Social Media & Influencer Marketing Speaker, Consultant & Author, 2022,

https://nealschaffer.com/short-form-vs-long-form-content/.

Zhang, Xing et. Al. Exploring short-form video application addiction: Socio-technical and

attachment perspectives, Telematics and Informatics, Volume 42, 2019, 101243, ISSN

0736-5853, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2019.101243.