Some people say they are addictive, but to me shorts are an absolute nightmare, I despise them, I hate them, I'm allergic to them.
The ultra quick cutting, the often chopped style, the accelerated voice talking at you without pause or mercy even at 1.0, the subtitles in the center that I cannot disable. It's an attack on my senses, pure overstimulation.
My wife sends me couple of shorts each day and sometimes it's even interesting content-wise, but I absolutely hate this horrible format, procrastinate watching them and wish back a world where this form of media did not exist. It all started even before shorts in the way people did videos, and somehow it spiraled into this kind of hell scape.
Anyone else feeling like this?
EDIT: thanks everyone, now I feel validated, thought maybe I'm the odd one with so strong negative feelings about them! And sorry about the confusion about pants and stocks (that provoked some funny answers though so no regrets). Yes - as you have all figured out, I'm talking about the annoying short videos almost everyone seems to be addicted to.
I used to feel that way, they didn't have the depth I wanted.
My wife has sent me so many tiktoks that I got used to it.
Now I still don't watch them, but because I'd get stuck in them. Whatever my wife sends, and specific ones from content people I know make quality, and that's about it. Once you get past them being presented in a new way, they're more addicting to ADHD brains.
I will say that if you were gonna pick your minute long vertical video platform, tiktok is the best one, YouTube the worst, but Facebook and Instagram are a lot closer to YouTube shorts than tiktoks. I'm reasonably confident it's because YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram see it as a way to extend your stay on a platform with other content, while tiktok focuses on it exclusively. Their algorithms are doing different things.
I can't get over how it feels like it wants to take over my senses.
I also hate voice messages. I ingest content on my terms and at my pace, thank you very much. And both rambling voice messages and short, absurdly dense but still shallow videos both disrespect me in different ways. One is usually too slow for my attention, the other too fast.
There are no videos or podcasts that are addicting to me, I like reading and writing more than listening. My ADHD brain can't listen unless you talk to me in the right way to get and hold my focus, i.e. interesting information presented at the right pace.
Reading lets me be me - I can skim it, I can re-read it, I can find it later.
I feel you. I used to be the same. I got used to audiobooks in the same way, but only because I had to, when I had my kid, and I couldn't spare the hands to read. I could, however, get some sport headphones, bone-conducting, so I could hear the baby if she cried but could hear my book without disturbing her, and once I was used to that, that became my preferred way to read.
Maybe that made me more adaptable.
Either way, if you don't need to adapt, there's no harm in not adapting. Live your life, you'll adapt when/if you need to.