Fast-forward to boredom: How switching behavior on digital media makes people more bored.

Abstract

Boredom is unpleasant, with people going to great lengths to avoid it. One way to escape boredom and increase stimulation is to consume digital media, for example watching short videos on YouTube or TikTok. One common way that people watch these videos is to switch between videos and fast-forward through them, a form of viewing we call digital switching. Here, we hypothesize that people consume media this way to avoid boredom, but this behavior paradoxically intensifies boredom. Across seven experiments (total N = 1,223; six preregistered), we found a bidirectional, causal relationship between boredom and digital switching. When participants were bored, they switched (Study 1), and they believed that switching would help them avoid boredom (Study 2). Switching between videos (Study 3) and within video (Study 4), however, led not to less boredom but more boredom; it also reduced satisfaction, reduced attention, and lowered meaning. Even when participants had the freedom to watch videos of personal choice and interest on YouTube, digital switching still intensified boredom (Study 5). However, when examining digital switching with online articles and with nonuniversity samples, the findings were less conclusive (Study 6), potentially due to factors such as opportunity cost (Study 7). Overall, our findings suggest that attempts to avoid boredom through digital switching may sometimes inadvertently exacerbate it. When watching videos, enjoyment likely comes from immersing oneself in the videos rather than swiping through them. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).