A new study shows that consuming short-form video (e.g., TikTok) leads to a significant decline in cognitive function, attention, and self-control.

Similarly to resent research into heavy use of ChatGPT and other LLMs, the results are important and disheartening. It’s time we start talking about the impact of ultra-processed information on our brains.

The study included nearly 100,000 people and evaluated their short-form video consumption and its impact.

The results: individuals who regularly consumed short-form videos on infinite scroll apps had dramatically worse cognitive and emotional health across measures such as basic thinking, paying attention, exerting self-control, and the experience of anxiety, depression, and stress.

From the research:

“…repeated exposure to highly stimulating, fast-paced content may lead to habituation, wherein users become desensitized to slower, more cognitively demanding tasks such as reading, problem solving, or deep learning.”

It’s important to note that correlation is not causation: it could be the case that people who watch hours of short-form video are dumber and less emotionally stable to begin with. But this seems unlikely.

Everyone I’ve spoken with about this topic over the last five years has told me some version of the same: when they spend time on TikTok or go down a rabbit hole of Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts, they feel decidedly worse—slower, less patient, sadder, and more anxious. Not a single person has said otherwise. My own experience of getting sucked into short-form video is the same.

It’s also not just a single study. Other research links the emergence of social media (and perhaps particularly short-form video) to the overall dumbing down of the developed world.

Protecting Your Brain (and Your Humanity)

We are at a point in history—not nearing it, but here—where everyone is going to have to decide if they are content to numb themselves and ruin their brains with an endless stream of fentanyl-like digital slop or if they are going to fight for their humanity and touch grass and challenge themselves and create and contribute and love.

As I was reading this study, I kept thinking that much like your physical health deteriorates if your diet includes too many ultra-processed foods, your cognitive health deteriorates if your information diet—both what you produce and consume—includes too much ultra-processed content.

Much like ultra-processed foods have a distinctive and synthetic taste, so, too, does ultra-processed content. It may be appealing in the short-run, but it leaves you feeling depleted and gross in the long-run. Few, if any, people feel good on a diet that consists predominantly of Skittles. And yet that is what so many of us, especially young people, are doing to our brains.

Another metaphor for short-form video consumption and its effects is fitness:

If you never exert your body, it will atrophy and become frail. The same is true with your brain. If you don’t pay attention to anything longer than 45 seconds, your cognitive fitness will atrophy too. If every time you are bored you need an adult pacifier (e.g., a quick-hit video), you’ll never develop self-control. If the bulk of your interaction is para-social, you’ll lose the muscles necessary for in-real-life connection.

What To Do About It?

Short-form video isn’t going away, but we’ve got to be thoughtful about how we use it, which involves setting constraints and rules for ourselves.

Occasionally I eat ultra-processed foods. I’m still healthy and fit, but I’d never make them the centerpiece of my diet. The same is true for ultra-processed content. If you are trying to eat relatively healthy you wouldn’t stock your pantry with Skittles. The equivalent here is taking the short-form video apps you find yourself addicted to off your phone. You could also start carrying a book with you, and when you have the urge to pick up your phone to scroll, use that as a cue to read a few pages instead. Or call a friend. These are just a few of many examples. You’ve got to find an approach that works for you. But the main point is essential for each and every one of us to understand: if you simply go with the flow and hop on an algorithmic conveyor belt to nowhere it will ruin your brain.

The impact of digital slop—which, by the way, is increasingly generated by machines not humans—is sending our brains off a steep cliff. Thinking deeply, connecting with others, and self-control are all central features of our humanity.

We cannot take them for granted. Don’t surrender your brain to an endless deluge of stupid, soulless, mind-numbing crap. It’s addictive in all the worst ways.

The good news is that our brains are highly elastic—they don’t get locked in. They can change and rewire as we change and rewire our habits and behaviors. This is especially true in young people.

There’s a big world full of better alternatives for our time, energy, and attention.

Write.
Make art.
Be bored.
Play a sport.
Read books.
Have IRL conversations.
Watch full movies (without scrolling).
Build relationships with humans, not bots.

Nobody is coming to save your brain for you, at least not in the short-run. It’s a choice that you’ve got to make for yourself. It’s one of the most important choices there is.

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