How can we love if we have short attention spans?
In the first quarter of 2020, over 315 million users downloaded TikTok. In 2023, it had surpassed 1.5 billion monthly active users and is expected to reach 2 billion users by the end of this year. More than half of these users are Generation Z, or people born after 1996.
TikTok thrives on being a widely diverse application. It delivers an endless stream of content chosen specifically for the user, creating a constant dopamine rush. Add the fact that it mainly platforms videos only seconds to minutes long, and we see how it has become one of the primary factors behind our altered attention spans.
Recent studies from Omnicom Media Group, Yahoo and Amplified Intelligence show that young people nowadays have an attention span of less than two seconds, the shortest in decades. This is concerning for teens and young adults with developing brains. But is it Gen Z’s fault that they are conditioned only to pay attention to short videos? Upon noticing TikTok’s success, other social networks quickly applied the same model to their apps, like YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels.
We may not feel it, but we are now more easily influenced. As early as 2015, Google published a report encouraging marketers to take advantage of “micro-moments,” or our instinct to use a device to act on a need to learn, do, discover, watch, or buy something. Brands and even influencers are learning to infiltrate these micro-moments, and because we are trained to expect instant results for every need and desire, we rarely notice.
It doesn’t help either that apps like TikTok have become the main search engines for the younger generation, with Google acknowledging them as a growing threat. Google is the king in terms of real-time insights and robust database-like information, but let’s be real: TikTok knows how to capitalize on our heavy reliance on the video format. And our micro-attention spans. The answers we find there are often more relatable, sometimes even coming from our fellow Gen Zers.
We are built to want everything instant and easy, but love has always been anything but.
And when TikTok gives us better search results for things like restaurant and vacation recommendations, what stops us from asking it more personal questions about our lives and relationships with one another?
One scroll through TikTok and you witness different kinds of relationship content, from advice to trends like “if they wanted to, they would.” Many influencers have joint accounts with their partners, recording everything they do for their followers to gush about how “lucky” they are. Their relationships may not be as joyful as they make it appear, but from a young person’s perspective, it is something aspirational, particularly if they have no basis for their relationship standards aside from what their social media algorithms show them.
Media have always influenced our perception of things, but that’s especially true now with our high screen time and seeming inability to concentrate. We don’t realize that we face our phones more than we meet people in real life. We think we’re too connected with each other, but in reality, all that connects us are Instagram stories and Facebook statuses, which leaves very little room for deep, genuine relationships.
Take the matter of love. We want to love and be loved, but some of us find it difficult to commit and can lose patience easily. We want to fall in love, but some want the smoothest road possible. People want everything to be easy and instant; but love isn’t like that and will never be like that.
The internet has got us wrapped around its finger, and we need to detach ourselves from it. We should not get swayed by what social media deems “relationship goals” through content that is scripted, or worse, sponsored.
At the end of the day, we are completely in control of our lives—not the people we see on our screens. We can become the (short attention-spanned) lovers that we aspire to be without our For You Page dictating what an ideal relationship should look like.
