Have you noticed the recent uptake in long-form content? The 10-minute feature on TikTok, Netflix documentaries spanning 10 episodes instead of a movie, video essays, and podcasts on YouTube that are excruciatingly long for no apparent reason? Well, this phenomenon has not gone unnoticed, it’s apparent that these companies are set on wasting the everyday consumers’ time.
Look at your phone settings, what’s your average screen time for the week? The day? If you’re embarrassed by this, don’t be. These social media sites are designed to keep you mindlessly scrolling, wondering what the next video might be, and instilling a sense of FOMO so you don’t stop. With the explosion of documentaries, Netflix has been guilty of spreading out its content just enough to make you renew your subscription before the series is finished.
YouTube has over recent years been known to push out more long-form content, resulting in creators making overly lengthy videos that are not edited, with long pauses and lengthy explanations. Also, sites like Twitter (X), TikTok, and Instagram have started putting comments with many replies at the top of the section, rather than the most likes because the given comment is shown to be the most controversial.
Why? In a society that has been bashed for its attention span, why is this wasting of time being so normalized? Truth be told, social media and its vast proprietors will never have your best interests at heart. No matter how much they claim to, these companies will always place interaction, clicks, and money before the people they are getting it from.
But there is a strange oxymoron when it comes to internet culture. It ages you while simultaneously begging you to maintain your youth. The anti-aging culture in social media promotes ageist ideas that are extremely damaging not only to older people but to young men and specifically women. The idea of holding onto your youth as a woman is forced on you at a young age, from skincare commercials to your mom complaining about wrinkles and fine lines… this idea of young and beautiful being the same thing has been spun into a terrible standard that only Botox and surgeries can obtain.
It is important to remember that health should be the standard, aging is beautiful, and living your life to the absolute fullest is the reason for being. There is no magic skincare cream that will make you feel like you did in your 20s because you’re not in your 20s, there is no fountain of youth nor an elixir of time. There is only life in the moment, and if one spends their time trying to be younger, they’ll let the rest of their life slip away.
