5 min read

·

Nov 24, 2025

Do you have the confidence to say that nothing controls you?

Short-form media has become one of the most powerful tools in shaping our minds.

Let’s start with a simple scenario:

It’s Friday night. You want a little relaxation before bed, so you open a series you saved on your watchlist. With some snacks in hand, you hit “play”… and before you know it, you’ve stayed up way too late because you couldn’t stop watching.

If this has happened to you, congratulations — you’re perfectly normal.

And if it hasn’t, maybe you just haven’t met your “weak spot” yet.

Now think back to the moment you pressed play —

Curious? Bored? Just watching to follow the trend?

That first click is your “initial state of mind.”

From that moment on, the progression of the plot takes over — your emotions rise and fall with the story. You’re happy one moment, sad the next, then suddenly angry. Eventually, you reach the ending — whether it’s satisfying or so bad that you want to send the director hate mail.

Either way, you finished it.

And that means the show achieved its purpose.

In recent years, daily life feels more and more like a race.

I would use short as the keyword to describe modern society: shorter commuting times, fast-food culture, convenience-store culture, even board games designed to end quickly.

This concept has also infiltrated arts and culture.

Have you noticed how songs have become shorter in the past two or three years?

How videos now often don’t even reach 30 seconds?

“Short” is not only a reduction in time — it’s also psychological compression.

Our attention span, judgment, even our thinking rhythm has been rewritten by short-form content.

As short takes over our lives, we lose patience and calmness.

We stop thinking about deeper meanings and chase only what can be gained quickly.

And among all mediums, short videos are the strongest driver of this shift.

I searched for the most popular short-video trends in 2025 and selected three types I encounter the most. Then I analyzed how they keep viewers watching, why I watched them, and what kind of feedback they triggered in me.

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With the rise of AI, the relationship between humans and technology has become closer than ever. It has also become a tool for entertainment.

In this video, the creator sends an AI-generated image to her partner to provoke a reaction. Viewers experience the entire situation through their chat messages, watching as a third party.

The reason this type of video instantly grabs attention is the strong Attention Hook —

a simple, clear, and intriguing title that signals entertainment and relatability.

The story begins quickly, the context is obvious, and the humorous dialogue keeps viewers engaged and relaxed.

Short videos are now one of the most common business tools. Their high reach makes them perfect for boosting brand visibility.

Because users scroll quickly, advertisers must deliver key information fast.

So many creators start with a brief skit or trending moment to grab attention before transitioning into the actual product.

One of the most powerful psychological tools used here is social proof.

Imagine this:

You’re scrolling, trying to decide which product to buy. A well-known influencer suddenly appears on your feed, demonstrating a product, saying things like:

“Still struggling with this problem?”

“Click now to get your exclusive discount.”

Of course you feel tempted to click.

Another strategy is embedding the product into a seemingly unrelated mini-story, lowering viewers’ “advertising alertness.” I often fall for this — one moment I’m watching a funny clip, and the next it becomes an “unexpectedly reasonable” product recommendation.

The point is:

You’re not convinced because the product is amazing —

but because someone with status used it.

This is classic business psychology.

At first, I thought educational content wouldn’t work well in short video format — after all, learning takes time. Most viewers watch short videos to relax or shut off their brains.

But surprisingly, many creators successfully teach through short clips.

Why? Because people want to learn something quickly.

The most popular ones are skill-based: outfit styling, cooking, quick hacks… all things you can absorb in seconds.

However, this taps into what I call the “instant learning illusion.”

You feel like you learned something — but you didn’t actually build knowledge; you just felt satisfied.

Sentences like:

“Am I falling behind?”

“I need to catch up with others.”

These emotions make short educational videos very addictive.

Short videos excel at giving “fast understanding,” but they stop you from asking deeper questions —

like a teacher giving exam topics without explaining why they matter.

There are countless types of videos, each with different ways of capturing attention — but all share one feature:

Too much information in too little time makes us lose patience, depth, and independent thinking.

I still don’t understand why some people watch TV shows at 2x speed —

as if “receiving information quickly” is more important than “understanding it.”

Maybe we need to rethink what “efficiency” really means, instead of blindly chasing it.

Short videos do bring joy and effective marketing —

but when everything becomes short-lived,

how fast can society keep up?

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