Katie Tam was constantly switching between videos while watching YouTube. If a video didn’t capture her attention in the first 30 seconds, she would move on to another video. If she felt that the movie’s storyline was dragging, she would fast-forward. “But I realized that I wasn’t really enjoying the content I was consuming,” she admits.
Tam’s own actions and boredom sparked her interest. As a social psychologist at the University of Toronto Scarborough in Ontario, Canada, she understands that boredom arises when individuals are not fully engaged in an activity. Tam hypothesized that digital switching, the act of changing or skipping videos, might actually cause boredom.
To test this theory, Tam and Michael Inzlicht from the University of Toronto Scarborough selected a variety of YouTube videos and rated each one based on its level of interest. The team collected videos rated as boring, interesting, or somewhere in between, with the boring videos featuring mundane content like water dripping from a faucet, and the interesting videos including cat videos.
Participants in the experiments were presented with two conditions for each video: one where they could switch or fast-forward, and one where they had to watch the entire video. They rated their level of boredom, satisfaction, and attention in each condition.
The researchers discovered that participants believed that switching videos would alleviate their boredom, but the data actually showed the opposite. “This behavior ends up increasing boredom,” Tam explains. “It diminishes the meaningfulness, engagement, and satisfaction of their viewing experience.” The study yielded similar results for both switching between videos and fast-forwarding within a video. The findings were published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
As a result of her research, Tam has changed her own viewing habits. She now focuses on being present and allowing stories to unfold when watching dramas, rather than skipping ahead. She encourages others to do the same for a more immersive and enjoyable experience.
“To enhance your enjoyment of videos, take your time before using the fast forward or skip buttons,” Tam advises. This approach can lead to a more engaging viewing experience that is more enjoyable. “Sometimes we feel bored while watching videos,” she says. “It may not be due to the content itself, but rather our actions.”
Data dive:
- Examine the tables and create a bar graph showcasing the results of each experiment.
- What is the contrast between people’s predicted boredom levels in non-switching and switching situations?
- What is the discrepancy between people’s actual boredom levels in the no-switching and switching scenarios?
- How do the predicted satisfaction and attention ratings compare between the no-switch and switch conditions?
- How do the actual satisfaction and attention ratings compare between the no-switch and switch conditions?
- Do you think the outcomes in Table 2 would vary if the videos were extremely captivating or uninteresting? Why or why not?
- What other experiments could be conducted on digital switching?
Source: www.snexplores.org
