Let me inform you essentially the most difficult a part of my job. Usually, I’ll delete TikTok and Instagram from my telephone as a result of I am unable to assist however waste time endlessly scrolling by means of these apps, watching dozens of short-form movies in a single sitting.
Then, like clockwork, I redownload these apps as a result of I need to write about them for work. Thus, the cycle of countless scrolling continues.
Positive, I may blame the character of the job, however my countless scrolling stems from the truth that I like short-form movies.
And I am not the one one. 73% of customers choose to observe short-form movies to study a services or products, and 56% of entrepreneurs reported that short-form video was the highest pattern they deliberate to spend money on in 2024.
So, why are short-form movies so common? Turns on the market are a number of causes, one in every of which concerned a little bit of psychology. Let’s get into it!
Why are short-form videos so popular?
What are short-form movies?
Brief-form movies are movies which might be lower than 60 seconds in period. Nonetheless, some entrepreneurs and content material creators agree that short-form movies could be as much as 3 minutes. However, if you need my opinion, I’d stick with the 60-second rule.
I take this stance as a result of consideration spans are getting shorter, however we’ll get into that later.
Anyway, short-form movies ship data in a digestible, bite-size format so viewers can shortly watch and bookmark the content material in the event that they’re on the go or watch it a number of occasions.
Why are short-form movies so common?
There are a number of causes short-form movies are extra common than ever amongst customers and entrepreneurs, and I‘ll go to these in a bit. For now, I wish to get into the psychology of all of it—that’s why we’re right here, proper? Stroll with me.
Client Consideration Spans are Shrinking
Science tells us that one of many essential causes we love short-form movies is that our consideration spans are getting shorter and shorter.
Dr. Gloria Mark, a psychologist, not too long ago wrote a ebook known as Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness, and Productivity, and he or she says her analysis signifies folks’s consideration spans have been shrinking during the last 20 years.
Dr. Mark shared her findings on Speaking of Psychology, an American Psychological Affiliation podcast.
Her findings got here from a decades-long experiment she participated in, which was first performed by shadowing contributors and monitoring their actions through stopwatches.
“We’d report the beginning time and the cease time,” she stated.
She explains, “So that you’re on a display the place you are working in a Phrase doc. As quickly as you get to that display, we click on begin time. As quickly as they turned away and checked the e-mail, we clicked cease time for the Phrase doc and begin time for the e-mail.”
Over time, logging strategies grew to become extra refined as know-how superior, and it solely made the sample of shrinking consideration spans clearer.
“So again in 2004, we discovered the common consideration span on any display to be two and a half minutes on common,” Dr. Mark recollects through the interview. “All through the years, it grew to become shorter. So round 2012, we discovered it to be 75 seconds.”
Dr. Mark says the quantity continued to dip because the years went on.
“After which within the final 5, six years, we discovered it to common about 47 seconds—and others have replicated this outcome inside a number of seconds. So it appears to be fairly strong,” she says.
And this pattern of dwindling consideration spans is affecting how we devour content material. And I am not simply speaking about social media movies — even tv and movie photographs are getting extra transient, in response to Dr. Mark.
“They began out for much longer. They now common about 4 seconds a shot size,” she says. “Should you watch MTV music movies, they are much shorter. They’re solely a few seconds. So we have develop into accustomed to seeing very quick shot lengths after we have a look at TV and movie.”
Dr. Mark explains through the interview that it‘s a hen vs. egg scenario — she’s not sure which got here first or what’s influencing the opposite.
Nonetheless, the actual fact stays that we‘re turning into extra accustomed to shorter bursts of content material, and it’s bleeding into the sort of content material we devour and what’s being created.
Research discovered that the majority customers will solely watch a complete video if it is lower than 60 seconds long. Then you could have apps like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels that push short-form movies to customers in an infinite scroll format.
Moreover, our 2024 Advertising Traits Report discovered that just about a 3rd of promoting professionals say their firm will leverage short-form video content material in 2024, and 53% stated they will enhance their funding within the content material kind this yr.
This is sensible since most entrepreneurs in our survey say short-form video content material yielded them the best ROI final yr.
In case you are curious, listed below are a pair extra the reason why many people love short-form movies.
1. They’re cost-effective and simpler to create than long-form movies.
With long-form movies, entrepreneurs and creators should work additional onerous to maintain their viewers engaged. Which means strengthening the content material with dynamic photographs, mood-setting music, and a protracted however compelling script.
All that takes extra time, effort, and (most significantly) cash.
Brief-form movies are extra to the purpose and infrequently require fewer frills to be efficient.
For instance, language studying platform Duo Lingo’s TikTok account has over 10.8 million followers and is likely one of the most well-known accounts on the app because of its brief, humorous, and barely unhinged movies.
Its hottest video has 57.7 million views and is tremendous easy by way of execution.
It exhibits a plushy of the Duo Lingo owl getting tossed down the steps on the firm’s workplace, sitting outdoors on a wet day, and getting soaked in a bathe.
The caption of the video is “Once you ignore my notifications.”
The video was clearly shot on somebody’s smartphone with out fancy angles or lighting. The music is from a viral music already obtainable through its sound archives. So easy, so low cost, but so efficient.
2. They’ll present precious data in a brief period of time.
In keeping with a latest Adobe Survey, 2 in 5 Individuals use TikTok as a search engine, and practically 1 in 10 Gen Zers usually tend to depend on TikTok than Google as a search engine.
I even discover myself taking to TikTok to search for recipes or determine how one can model a denim maxi-skirt (the trick is to experiment with completely different layers and silhouettes).
Between work, household, hobbies, and relaxation — time is valuable, and short-form movies enable us to soak up the data we’d like in underneath a minute. Who does not love that?
3. You possibly can watch them virtually anytime, anyplace.
Bored on the prepare downtown? Scroll by means of TikTok. Must kill a while in between lessons or appointments? Pull up YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels in your telephone.
Wish to use your 5-minute break between conferences to determine why everyone seems to be speaking concerning the newest JLo documentary? Let’s circle again to TikTok.
Brief-form movies are simple to observe virtually anyplace and anytime from our smartphones.
Not solely is that this handy for customers, but it surely additionally helps entrepreneurs as a result of it means we will repurpose our content material on varied platforms realizing somebody will see it from someplace.
There are completely different causes to like short-form movies.
Some causes are a bit extra regarding than others (severely, why are our consideration spans so brief?), however irrespective of the rationale, the actual fact stays the identical —brief varieties aren’t going away anytime quickly.