Endlessly scrolling through videos has a surprising effect on your health

© DxOMark < p>According to Médiamétrie, the French spend 37 minutes a day on YouTube. Of course, this is only an average that hides very different practices depending on the individual. In any case, Internet users are spending an increasing amount of time in front of these videos, and this is not without consequences.

Two researchers from the University of Toronto recently conducted a study on this subject. To gain more insight, they conducted no fewer than seven experiments on 1,200 participants in the United States and Canada.

Is channel surfing a factor in boredom ?

Two of them consisted of ensuring that Internet users could switch from one video to another when they were bored. The authors were convinced that this would tend to reduce this boredom. But the opposite happened.

Katy Tam, who conducted the experiment, comments: “If people want to have a more enjoyable experience when watching videos, they can try to stay focused on the content and minimize the frequent channel hopping”.

In detail, users were given the option to watch a ten-minute YouTube video without the ability to skip to another video or speed it up. Others were allowed to skip freely. However, participants were less bored when they focused on one video and found the experience more satisfying, engaging, and memorable than when they constantly switched content.

The results were also the same for longer videos up to 50 minutes. This will not surprise some observers. Successful YouTubers and channels have made a specialty of publishing long videos to tell stories or conduct long interviews.

As Katy Tam notes:

Scrolling through a digital object can be a related source of boredom, which could have negative consequences on mental health. Chronic boredom is linked to depressive symptoms, anxiety, sadistic aggression, and risk-taking.

To put these alarming facts into perspective, we can recall this research carried out by two Oxford academics. They analyzed psychological well-being in 168 countries from 2005 to 2022. By combining this data with that of Internet use, the two authors found no link at the global level.

In short, there is no significant correlation between the arrival of the Internet and a major increase in mental health problems. Enough to challenge many preconceived ideas. We invite you to reread our article dedicated to this subject here.

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