It’s Saturday morning and the sun is shining. Hannah Barthelmass, junior, is still in her bed as she scrolls past yet another TikTok. It’s nothing special, just another makeup tutorial. But suddenly, its 1 pm and she realizes she has been scrolling for four hours.
Barthlemass said she likes short form content such as TikTok and YouTube shorts. She said they are awful because they suck you in and make you keep scrolling.
“I feel like you get hooked and you keep scrolling until you say ‘I’ll watch one more.’” Barthlemass said. “Then you just get stuck.”
Barthlemass said she is drawn to short form platforms because the people on them are funny. She said she finds herself scrolling for unhealthy amounts of time. She said she feels short form content has had a negative impact on her attention span. Another problem she sees with short form platforms is the amount of disturbing content on them.
Barthlemas said. “It didn’t have a graphic warning or anything. I have a friend who has epilepsy and some of those videos can flash really quickly without any sort of warning.”
Aidan Beidle, sophomore, said he spends hours on TikTok everyday. He said the platform is not the best, but he likes the scrolling aspect of the platform.
“I like it because it’s nice to see a video for a few seconds,” Beidle said. “[It’s better than watching] a 20 minute video.”
Beidle said he doesn’t search for anyone on these platforms, that creators just come up. He said if the content speaks to him, he will like the video or follow the creator.
“I like the simplicity of it,” Beidle said. “You don’t really have to use all your energy to find a video you like and you have [a] ‘for you’ page.”
Rachel Cosic, guidance counselor, said she feels short form content platforms are a waste of time spent, when you could be doing something beneficial. She said these platforms can create symptoms of learning disabilities and mental illnesses.
Cosic said. “It’s causing problems like anxiety and ADHD that they don’t really have, they’re just used to the constant [scrolling].”
Cosic said she believes there are a lot of issues with safety and privacy on these platforms. She also said a lot of the content on these platforms are not healthy for people to watch.
“I’ve heard people talking about (discomforting) [videos], like in particular, there was this student who was looking at disturbing [content].” Cosic said. “There’s a lot of stuff that’s not [beneficial]on [these platforms].”
Cosic said she thinks there should be restrictions put in place on short form content apps. She believes it is causing more harm than good.
“The [question] is, how do you stop it,” Cosic said. “You could be looking at dancing, it doesn’t have to be negative [content] but [there’s] no way to shut [these platforms] down.”
