If you’re mindlessly watching videos on your phone to fight boredom, you might want to consider doing something else.
That’s because scientists out of the University of Toronto Scarborough have found that going from TikTok to TikTok or Instagram to Instagram video actually makes a person more bored.
And jogging through the video in an effort to cut to the chase actually compounds the problem, the scientists say in their paper, which was published in The American Psychological Association’s publication PsyNet.
This going from video to video is called digital switching and the scientists found “this behavior paradoxically intensifies boredom” in seven separate experiments utilizing 1,200 study participants.
The scientists concluded that “people consume media this way to avoid boredom. However, this switching behavior makes people feel more bored, less satisfied, less engaged, and less meaningful in some instances.”
“Even when participants had the freedom to watch videos of personal choice and interest on YouTube, digital switching still intensified boredom,” the researchers reported.
Maybe instead of jogging through videos, go jogging.
Methodology and results have not been verified or endorsed by ABC News or The Walt Disney Company.