Ban short form content

Short form content is a crisis that has spiraled way out of control, and it must be stopped. As of the late 2010s and early 2020s the overconsumption of short form content has been heavily popularized. Nearly every single social media and non social media entertainment platform has it, (TikTok, Newsbreak, Amazon shop, Netflix, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook, twitter, Instagram, etc.) and the effect it has had on the general population is devastating. 

Who short form content affects: According to a payless power survey 64% of Americans identify themselves as doomscrollers,  most of them being Gen Z or millennials, regardless of that it's effect is not limited to simply young adults and teenagers but children, middle aged folks, and the elderly. Let's put that into perspective, that is 223.36 million people out of 349 million (That is more than half of the population)  addicted to doom scrolling on short form content apps, something specifically designed to keep users scrolling. According to ‘’Berkeley political review’’ a quarter of these people use a second screen while watching TV. Yet doomscrolling on short form content has been so normalized that no one bats an eye to do anything about it. I've witnessed the dangers of short form content firsthand. Everyone I know and love in my life is a victim of this, mindlessly scrolling on their phone all night or all day to fill their time rather than doing something constructive and I am a victim of that too. I'm tired of it.

1. Mental health problems causing isolation, fatigue, mood swings, time blindness, derealization, numbness, memory loss, thoughtlessness, unhealthy escapism, anxiety, lack of motivation, less deep thinking, less problem solving skills, irritability, pessimism and depression.

2. Less call to action; people are less inspired to make something of themselves and ''make a change''' to actually do something whether about their lives or about the state of the world as this form of escapism is a digital pacifier creating a comfortably numb and helpless society that will complain about something but do nothing about it because we are stuck in mindless stimulation. This results in a lower quality of life and less productivity keeping us powerless and hopeless.

3. Because of this many people lack proper problem solving skills because instead of practicing deep thinking and giving themselves time to process their emotions and problems they scroll instead.

4. Dopamine addiction, Executive dysfunction and attention span. Nowadays people are constantly needing stimulation and noise to perform simple tasks, for example listening to podcasts, youtube videos, and reels/tiktoks while doing chores or simply regular everyday things. This is unhealthy. This overstimulates the brain and gives you no time for deep thought and quietness. Not just that but constant scrolling activates the brain’s dopamine system, creating a “slot machine” effect that makes it feel impossible to stop, then when you're done scrolling switching from that to other tasks drains executive function, making it harder to focus on complex or long-form tasks. According to linked in a TikTok user's average time on a video is 12 seconds, if that's how long someone can pay attention before scrolling then imagine the amount of damage this has on our attention span. According to psychologist Gloria Mark’s studies the average screen time attention span  has dropped from 2.5 minutes in 2004  to 47 seconds in 2025 and the social media content attention span  has declined even more drastically: from 12.1 seconds per post in 2015 to 8.25 seconds in 2025 — a 33% drop in 10 years.

5. Headaches.

6. Sleep disruption.

7. Illiteracy. (Yes illiteracy. There is a reason gen alpha cannot read, and short form content is one of the main reasons) no one has the attention span to read a book, let alone learn how to.

8. Misinformation. (Specifically, about news and politics) causing people to be ignorant and bitter towards one another. Not only that but because people have easy access to AI it's easy to generate something that could trigger outrage.

9. Conformation bias and division. (Social media's algorithm creates an echo chamber that only confirms your beliefs and your biases) causing chaos and biases specifically between democrats and republicans (Left Vs Right; ''culture war'') putting individuals against each other like a puppet on strings. There's no healthy, useful debates, most people think their opinions are truths because their algorithm tells them it is. 

10. Brain rot; the Oxford University Press defines it as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state.” Though it has not yet been proven to be an actual thing we can still see this as one of the results of doomscrolling.

If it isn't stopped we are producing generations of people who lack their full intellectual and mental potential.This means since Gen Alpha and Gen Z were born into the age of short form content they may lack the intelligence that past generations have had before them. So if we don’t do something about it the future is essentially ‘cooked’ because without intervention this can only get worse. We could also see a mental health epidemic, more people not knowing how to read or write, decrease in critical thinking, no political change, no innovation, society as we know it could be doomed.

What is the solution? A ban on short form content as a whole in the US. 

Simply banning Tiktok isn’t a solution as competitors can easily rise up to make their apps more like it, just like they already have. So short form content must be BANNED as a whole on every single app that has it.