A new study finds that “digital switching”—the name given to the act of frequently switching between videos and fast-forwarding through them to get through them faster—actually makes you feel more bored than you were before you started switching. You’re better off watching one video at a time, in its entirety, before moving on to the next.
Published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, the study involved 1,200 participants and 7 experiments conducted in the United States and Canada. Participants who were given the OK to jump between multiple short videos or were allowed to fast-forward through a long video reported higher levels of boredom compared to people who watched one video from beginning to end without fast-forward. The people who are raw-dogging a video were way better off.
One of the experiments tasked participants with watching a 10-minute video in its entirety without fast-forwarding or switching to something else. Then, they were given 10 minutes in which they could switch between 7 different 5-minute-long videos if they wanted to. Participants felt even more bored when they were switching than when they were only given a single option. The results were consistent across demographics, though the participants reported varying levels of boredom.
Researcher Katy Tam of the University of Toronto, Scarborough, explained that boredom exists in the gap between what a person hopes to get out of their engagement with online videos and what they actually get out of that experience. She said that your engagement with the video plummets when you’re given the option to switch between videos. It could also be that you’re spending way too much time on stuff that you don’t even care about.
The New York Post also spoke to a clinical expert who says that the best way to cure your boredom is to limit your screen time, especially when it comes to apps like TikTok and YouTube. He’s not even saying to touch grass, just that by limiting your time with these apps you will be putting more value on the time you spend with them, which could leave you feeling more satisfied with the time you spend. But who are we kidding? You probably stopped reading this a long time ago.
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The post ‘Digital Switching’ Is Making You More Bored appeared first on VICE.
