Recently, I haven’t been in a good state, and I couldn’t even pinpoint what was wrong, let alone identify the specific issues.
All I knew was that, on the surface, I seemed to be studying, eating well, and sleeping properly every day. Yet, nothing was truly done well, and each day passed by in a daze, slipping away far too quickly.
It wasn’t until today, when I watched Jay Chou’s summary on learning, that I reflected on myself and finally understood where the problem lay.
The lack of focus is the main reason for my low daily efficiency and lack of a sense of accomplishment. Whenever I needed to concentrate on important tasks, my mind would suddenly drift: “I’m hungry, let’s grab a snack,” “I’m thirsty, let’s drink some water,” “My nails are too long, time to trim them,” “What should I prepare for lunch?” “Should I go to the bathroom?” “Let me check my phone for messages,” “I’m tired, maybe I’ll watch some short videos…”
These seem like perfectly normal things, but they fragment our attention into tiny pieces. Combined with other concerns—work tasks, learning goals, future plans, daily habits—everything ends up being affected to varying degrees.
Short videos, in particular, severely encroach on the precious productive hours of the day. They are a major reason why our sleep deteriorates, our focus wanes, and our connection with the real world weakens. Often, we attribute these issues to a lack of self-control, but the truth is, humans have an instinctual drive to seek information. This instinct makes us greedily and incessantly crave new input. The moment our minds idle, we unconsciously open apps that feed us information—and with their recommendation systems and attention algorithms, these apps exploit us relentlessly.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with watching videos every day, but we must always remember: time is finite.
Each day is only so long, and each year is only so long. We should strive to spend our time on our dreams, work, habits, enjoyment, and the people who matter to us.
I had gone a long time without watching short videos before, but somehow, I slipped back into the habit. Moving forward, I will avoid platforms like Douyin (TikTok) for non-essential information. I’ve also filtered out videos shorter than five minutes on Bilibili’s homepage. In my free time, I’ll try to read or watch longer-form content, hoping to gradually rebuild my attention span.