Photo courtesy of Pxhere.com, CC0, via Public Domain.
Endless scrolling, endless amounts of videos to watch.
–
By Emily McLaughlin
TAMPA, Fla. — The internet did not just change how we communicate; it changed how we think. The pivotal shift of this can be traced back to the days of Vine, Musical.ly, and TikTok: the three platforms that did not just shrink attention spans but actively reshaped them.
Vine was a social media app that allowed users to create and share six-second, looping videos. The concept of Vine seemed limiting, even absurd. But it revolutionized social media, with creators quickly adapting, compressing humor to attract viewers. The result became addictive.
Most people didn’t have to invest time or energy when watching and even creating these videos. You would normally watch, laugh, and scroll. Over and over again.
Vine popularized raw, comedic, and creative micro-video content, acting as the start to modern platforms such as TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. At the time, Vine gained so much popularity it attracted over 40 million users.
While Vine started in 2013, it unfortunately ended in October of 2017. But Vine’s culture impacted so many social media strategies and provided a space for diverse voices to shine.
Then came the amazing Musical.ly. For those reading who have no clue what Musical.ly is, congratulations! You just made me feel very… very old. Similar to Vine, Musical.ly encouraged users to create short, music-video style clips where “Musers” would lip-sync, dance, or even do a comedy routine to a popular song or audio.
Even though Musical.ly launched in August 2014, according to the Digital Innovation and Transformation, the prime of Musical.ly “quickly [grew] to a 200 million user base globally by September 2017.”
With the continued evolution of apps shrinking the attention span of viewers, one major reason why Vine and Musical.ly became so popular was because of the fast-moving cultural loops these apps create for people. Musical.ly trained users to think in the short clip, quick cut mindset for getting people’s attention.
Then, of course, came the beloved TikTok, known by many.
TikTok’s algorithm did not just respond to attention; it seemingly engineered it. Videos became shorter, hooks became sharper, and content became more personalized to viewers.
TikTok, in a broader context, is Vine and Musical.ly, but more advanced. Created in September 2016, TikTok did not become popular until 2018.
The “For You” page on TikTok learns what you like within seconds, feeding you an endless amount of relevant content. When users open TikTok, there is no need to search or even choose a video to watch anymore. Just think about it: when you open the TikTok app, you already have a video in your face to watch, then you just continue to scroll.
Attention spans did not just shrink; they became conditioned. The brain is constantly rewarded with these quick videos. Even moments of boredom, once a space for creativity and reflection, have been filled with just another swipe.
Research by Gloria Mark from the American Psychological Association measured how long young people spend on tasks and screens, and found that our attention spans have shrunk in the last five to six years.
“The average attention span on any screen dropped to 75 seconds by 2012 and sits around 47 seconds… Others have replicated this result within a few seconds. So it seems to be quite robust.”
With these findings, it’s important to understand that through the evolution of social media apps, attention spans have declined within the last decade. It seems what these platforms actually did was retrain cognitive habits as new technology and generations grew.
Social media apps such as Vine, Musical.ly, and TikTok have helped generations process streams of content and decode trends and humor. But does that mean it will help them in the long run?
Probably not, because ultimately, attention is power, and right now, it has been shaped with a few seconds or minutes at a time.