Personalized Short-Video Feeds Serve Curiosity Better Than Films
TikTok, Instagram/Facebook Reels and YouTube Shorts, compared with fixed films for serving curiosity, not every purpose. Objections and replies below are proposals, not settled refutations. Background, not endorsements: Dennis’s Unconflicted and Fun Criterion vs Whim Worship.
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Personalized short-video feeds such as TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts are better at serving curiosity than fixed, long-form films. They adapt to your interests instead of fixing a sequence.
Recommendation engines optimize engagement and time spent, not curiosity. Engagement is not always curiosity.
True, but serving curiosity is one way to sustain engagement. What separates engagement that serves curiosity from engagement that does not?
People sometimes keep watching these feeds while also wanting to stop. That conflicts with the claim that the feed is serving their interests.
Which conflicting preferences are involved? Why assume stopping expresses the person’s real preference, rather than treating both preferences as ideas to examine?
Short videos prevent the depth of explanation that long-form content can provide.
They can introduce subjects worth exploring further. Not every useful encounter needs to be exhaustive.