“30-second shorts add up to 1,000 billion minutes”, YouTube usage time jumps 3 times in 1.6 years

67.1 billion minutes in 2020 → 104.4 billion minutes in 2023 
Dopamine addiction leading to ADHD, anxiety, and depression disorders 
Adolescents with a strong imitation mentality need greater attention

It was revealed that Koreans’ viewing time on YouTube increased 3 times over the past three years, significantly outpacing representative messenger and portal apps such as KakaoTalk and Naver. As a result of the soaring popularity of ‘shorts’, which refers to short videos of less than 1.6 seconds, there are many voices concerned about dopamine addiction among users who have become accustomed to the stimulating fun of these contents.

Users and usage time continue to increase even after the end of the pandemic

According to WiseApp·Retail·Goods, a mobile application (app) analysis agency, on the 16th, the app most used by Koreans last year was YouTube, which recorded 104.4 billion minutes of usage (as of October). YouTube usage time, which was 671 minutes in 2020, has steadily increased (81.4 billion minutes in 2021 and 91.3 billion minutes in 2022), exceeding 100 billion minutes for the first time in 2023. YouTube was followed by KakaoTalk (31.9 billion minutes) and Naver (22.2 billion minutes).

The reason behind this rapid increase in YouTube usage time is the activation of short-form content (shorts). Wise App, Retail, Goods diagnosed that “YouTube’s users and usage time increased rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rapid increase continues even after the end of the pandemic,” adding, “The short-form content recommended by YouTube’s algorithm increases the time users spend on the app.” “It is analyzed that it is driving the increase,” he explained. In fact, in addition to YouTube, Instagram (4.8 billion minutes → 17.2 billion minutes) and TikTok (2.7 billion minutes → 7.9 billion minutes), which provide short-form content, recorded a steep increase in usage time over the past three years, lending support to this interpretation. .

As short-form content that provides short and stimulating pleasure has become very popular, concerns about users becoming addicted to dopamine have also increased. Dopamine, which refers to a neurotransmitter in the central nervous system that conveys pleasure and pleasure, is secreted by various internal and external stimuli. The problem is that the dopamine produced by external stimuli, like the short form, develops tolerance and requires stronger stimulation. This reduces pleasure in healthy activities such as daily life and exercise, which can lead to mental health problems such as attention deficit (ADHD), anxiety, and depressive disorders.

For this reason, there is also a movement among some viewers to break away from dopamine addiction. This movement to stop using electronic devices for a certain period of time and relieve mental and physical fatigue through rest or other activities is developing into various forms, such as not using smartphones before going to sleep, reading paper books, and writing diaries. According to NHN Data, a marketing data analysis agency, the number of installations of the ‘digital detox’ app, which helps limit smartphone use, increased by 64% in December last year compared to the same month last year, and the number of installations of Stayfree, a smartphone screen time management app, increased by 9% during the same period. did.

Children exposed to momentary pleasure become increasingly distant from ‘long texts’

Experts expressed deep concern about the violence and sensationalism in content provided by YouTube and various social networking services (SNS), citing the fact that the younger a person is, the more vulnerable he or she is to external stimulation. It is pointed out that as scenes of violence, drinking, and smoking are exposed to teenagers without any restrictions, cases of them unconsciously imitating them are increasing one after another. ‘Challenge’ videos that show off risky behavior are also leading to various side effects. In fact, an accident occurred recently in Brooklyn, USA, where a teenage boy lost his life while attempting the so-called ‘subway surfing’ challenge, which involved jumping on top of a moving subway.

Dr. Oh Eun-young, a psychiatrist, also expressed the opinion that the abundance of short-form content is negative for children’s education at a lecture on ‘Watching the right content for our children’ hosted by Netflix in July of last year. Dr. Oh said, “These videos are bound to be stimulating because they have to capture attention while conveying content in a short period of time. If children are exposed to this type of environment too much, they will not be able to tolerate boredom and this will contribute to not reading long texts.” emphasized. She went on to say, “Media content is not an ‘absolute evil,’ and there needs to be active discussion so that it can be used as a method of education instead of traditional paper books.”