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Designed to be addictive -
Designed to be addictive -

stop scrolling!
stop scrolling!

“Addictive” online platform interfaces are designed to keep users hooked for
“Addictive” online platform interfaces are designed to keep users hooked for
hours and hours
hours and hours
y S
o
e
n
B
By Suan Yeon
n Y
ua
niversity student Chan
Myae Kyaw spends five
Uhours a day on average
watching YouTube shorts.
“I pick up my phone at 9.30
p.m. and even before I realise, it is
already 1.30 a.m. I don't even feel
like it has been four hours. I just
sit in the chair and watch YouTube
shorts and I am often late for class-
es," the 22-year-old student says.

’s
The Social Dilemma
The Social Dilemma’s
“I just can’t stop. I keep scroll-
ing and scrolling on Youtube he adds. 2024 to cut down screen time.
Shorts endlessly. Screen time ad-
diction has made me unable to According to a research on the "I feel sluggish after spending
focus. Now I can no longer watch association of screen time with too much time on my phone. But
YouTube videos that lasts for more brain connectivity conducted by now I realise when I am actively
than three minutes, only shorts,” University of California in 2023, doing something like working in
the Year Three student adds adolescents who spent more than my lab or working out, my screen
four hours per day on screens had time decreases," the Year Three
"You can see the red bar mov- reduced brain connectivity. Student says.
ing so you know the next video is
coming - so you don't skip it," he These reductions in connectiv- Statista, an online platform
says. ity were associated with poorer specialising in data gathering and
The Biomedical Engineering performance on cognitive tasks visualisation, points out in a report
student recalls that he had good that measure attention, memory, that in 2023, South Koreans spent
grades before he got addicted. and decision-making. an average of 44.89 hours a month
on YouTube's mobile app.
“I scored straight As in Year After his GPA drop, Chan Myae
One. Now B is my average grade,” Kyaw started to go to the gym in Assistant professor Yang Tian of