Short-Form Video Platforms and Changing Patterns of Knowledge Consumption

Emily Carter

Short-Form Video Platforms and Changing Patterns of Knowledge Consumption

Author(s)	Dr. Emily Carter
Country	United States
Abstract	Short-form video has evolved from an entertainment format into an important environment for encountering news, educational explanations, health information, professional advice, cultural knowledge, and public affairs. TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts offer highly visual, personalized, rapidly changing streams of information that can lower the effort required to discover unfamiliar topics. At the same time, the compressed structure of these platforms may encourage fragmented attention, incidental exposure, simplified explanations, limited source checking, and surface-oriented learning. This study investigates how increasing reliance on short-form video may alter the processes through which users discover, comprehend, retain, verify, and extend knowledge. Because verified participant-level data were not supplied, the study adopts an explicitly simulation-based design rather than presenting synthetic observations as completed empirical research. A modeled sample of 720 adult digital-media users was divided into low-, moderate-, and high-reliance short-form-video groups. Five dimensions of knowledge consumption were evaluated: knowledge-discovery efficiency, immediate comprehension, delayed retention, source-verification tendency, and deep-learning orientation. The simulation indicates a nonlinear pattern. Greater dependence on short-form video is associated with higher modeled discovery efficiency and immediate comprehension, while delayed retention, verification behavior, and deep-learning orientation decline as dependence becomes stronger. These results are consistent with emerging scholarship showing both the educational usefulness of short videos and concerns regarding surface learning, analytic thinking, context switching, and information quality. The study argues that short-form video should not be understood simply as either an educational benefit or a cognitive threat. Its value depends on whether brief video serves as an entry point into deeper inquiry or becomes a substitute for sustained knowledge construction. A balanced model of “discover briefly, verify externally, learn deeply” is consequently proposed for educational institutions, creators, platforms, and information users.
Keywords	short-form video; TikTok; Instagram Reels; YouTube Shorts; knowledge consumption; digital learning; information behavior; media literacy
Field	Engineering
Published In	Volume 2, Issue 5, September-October 2021
Published On	2021-09-16

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American Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Innovation and Research

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Short-Form Video Platforms and Changing Patterns of Knowledge Consumption

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