[sbergot]

This is something that I see mentioned by a lot of people but I really cannot relate. If a video is shorter than 10 minutes I usually don't bother clicking. There is something that I find unappealing about short videos. That said I am 100% victim of reddit doom scrolling. But just seeing a short video makes me close the app or scroll faster.

[srvaroa]

It basically "oh well I'm going to take a 2m break, let's click that short video " and getting sucked into the vortex.

A similar effect happens to me on Twitter. I sometimes click on a video / dumb meme account, etc. just to take a break or whatever (Twitter does a much worse job at creating the attention vortex, so it's easy for me to literally make it a 2m break). BUT, some hours later the algo digests my click and turns my feed into absolute garbage repeating an endless firehose of dumb meme content. (In Twitter's case this is actually helping me: I really avoid clicking on dumb content so the algo doesn't go nuts.)

[burnished]

I used to feel the same way, I got 'hooked' when I finally clicked on a short made by some tremendous nerd demonstrating a sword fighting technique and in some ways it was the perfect video - short, self contained, and interesting. After that I started watching more and my assessment is: probably not worth it. Its a good format for gags or quick demos but I find that too many that get recommended to me are base emotional appeals (pretty lady thumbnail, cute animal, rage bait, context free 'discord memes', etc) compared to the long form stuff.

Just in case it wasn't clear; not trying to change your mind, more a heads up that they might find bait you find to be shiny.

Oh but shoutout to one of the series with short-form content (2-5 minutes typically, not a 'short') that truly respects your time; no intros, no talking, just purely answering the question; 'what happens when I put this red hot nickel ball on this?' [1] red hot nickel ball.

[1] https://youtu.be/wxyKA5dea5U?si=gNOow9LBT1BCcPpX