Dr Asangba Tzudir
Are ‘Time Pass’ Reels Reshaping Serious Content?
Scroll, swipe, skip, forward, repeat, thumbs up, etc. have become a dominant rhythm of our social media lives. Short reels, often lasting barely 15 to 30 seconds, have taken over digital spaces once meant for conversation, reflection, and serious engagement. While these short videos offer quick entertainment so also instant gratification, the way it has come to engage social media users especially the youngsters is quietly reshaping how audiences consume while increasingly avoiding or skipping lengthy and serious content.
On the whole, the trending rise of ‘time-pass’ reels has dramatically reduced our collective patience. This has resulted in many users struggling to listen, read, or watch anything that demands more than a few minutes of attention. Even a five-minute video many feel too long, or a well articulated article can be dismissed as boring, and thoughtful discussions are often skipped entirely in favour of entertaining visuals and catchy music. This is not an accidental shift but the result of social media processing which reward speed, novelty, and emotional triggers over depth and degree.
Serious content whether it is investigative journalism, educational material, cultural commentary, or long format storytelling requires time. In the never ending production of short reels and the addicted pursuit of watching, serious lengthy content which is educational slows down the audience to think, to absorb complexity. In the reel-driven ecosystem, such content struggles to survive. Creators feel pressured to oversimplify complex issues, reduce ideas into slogans, or package depth into entertaining fragments. And in the process what cannot be condensed into a viral clip may end up being ignored. Even lengthy ‘mukbang’ finds condensed into short reels.
The consequences of this trend go beyond mere preference. When patience is tested, there is also a decline but more so critical thinking, and which is very integral for a human being in this age of AI and technology. Short reels thrive on immediacy, not reflection and where reactions are provoked rather than understanding. With time, audiences become accustomed to consuming information without form, content and context. The danger is, it makes users more vulnerable to half-truths, and therefore misinformation. There is no time for serious debates on politics, history, culture, or social justice, and are replaced by reaction videos and surface-level opinions.
Constant exposure to fast, stimulating content also conditions the mind to seek instant rewards. Silence, slow narratives, or demanding ideas feel uncomfortable. This affects not just social media habits but reading culture, classroom learning, and even interpersonal conversations. Listening with patience whether to a speaker, a teacher, or an elder thereby becomes harder in a fast-forward world trained to skip ahead.
However, it would be unfair to blame short-form content alone. Reels themselves are not inherently harmful. While they can inform, inspire, and entertain when used responsibly, the problem arises when they dominate to the point of crowding out everything else. The challenge for Social media users is to strike a balance by being mindful about the things that help a person grow productively beyond the favoured scrolling.
It is also imperative for content creators to courageously produce meaningful work even when it grows slowly. Most importantly, users must reflect on their own habits. In today’s fast paced digital culture, there is need to offer resistance through ways where one chooses to watch a full lecture, read a long article, or listen attentively to serious conversation.
In the end, a society that loses patience for serious content risks losing depth in thought. Entertainment has its place and which is also required, but when ‘time-pass’ becomes the norm and seriousness the exception, we must pause, rethink and ask: Are we scrolling forward, or slowly thinking backward?
(Dr Asangba Tzudir contributes a weekly guest editorial for The Morung Express. Comments can be emailed to asangtz@gmail.com)
