In the short-video era, the competition for attention no longer stays inside digital platforms. The more important question is how the fast, constantly changing rhythm of online media carries into conversation, learning, work and human relationships.
Key Takeaway
A Guardian essay published on September 27, 2026 begins with a personal experience: writer Hannah Ewens describes finding slow, real-life conversation increasingly difficult after heavy use of Instagram Reels. Her experience is not scientific evidence, but it frames a useful question: can habits formed in rapid, high-switching digital environments carry into offline attention?
Experimental evidence offers a cautious reason to take the question seriously. A 2023 CHI study with 60 participants found poorer prospective-memory performance after a TikTok-style short-video condition involving rapid context switching. A 2026 study using two experiments with 170 college students in total also found lower prospective-memory accuracy after prolonged short-video viewing in some task conditions. These studies do not prove that social media automatically damages conversation, but they suggest that media format can affect specific attention and memory processes.
The issue is particularly relevant to Georgia because digital access is now close to universal among younger people. Geostat reported internet access in 93.5% of households in 2026 and internet use by 89.6% of the population aged six and above. Detailed 2025 data showed internet use among 13–17-year-olds at 100% for girls and 99% for boys.
Why short-form video is different
The defining feature is not only duration. Short-video feeds encourage rapid movement between unrelated contexts. A joke can be followed by news, an advertisement, sport or a personal story within seconds. The next stimulus is always available.
Real conversation works differently. It includes pauses, repetition, uncertainty and stretches that do not immediately deliver novelty. The relevant concern is therefore not that short video is inherently harmful, but whether high-intensity switching changes expectations about the pace of other activities.
What the research does – and does not – show
Chiossi and colleagues studied prospective memory: the ability to remember an intended future action. Their 2023 experiment found a decline in this task after the TikTok condition, while Twitter, YouTube and no-activity conditions did not show the same pattern.
A 2026 Behavioral Sciences paper extended the question with two experiments involving 106 and 64 students. It reported lower prospective-memory accuracy after prolonged short-video viewing under certain conditions, with the strength of the effect depending on attentional demands.
These results should not be overgeneralised. Small experimental samples cannot establish that every user changes in the same way, nor do they prove that short video directly causes weaker social skills.
| Claim | What evidence supports | What cannot be concluded |
| Rapid context switching | Associated with poorer prospective-memory performance in experiments | Not evidence of permanent memory decline in all users |
| Prolonged short-video viewing | Lower accuracy in some PM tasks in a 2026 study | Does not prove automatic damage to social skills |
| Impatience in conversation | A personal account in The Guardian | Not a representative population finding |
Digital Georgia: the screen is already an everyday environment
Geostat’s 2026 survey reported household internet access at 93.5%, up from 92.0% in 2025 – a rise of 1.5 percentage points. Access reached 96.8% in urban households, 89.0% in rural households and 98.2% in Tbilisi.
For younger groups, internet use is nearly universal. In 2025, 100% of girls and 99% of boys aged 13–17 had used the internet during the previous 12 months. Among 18–29-year-olds, the figure was 99% for both women and men.
However, Georgia’s official statistics do not measure national short-video viewing time, switching frequency or conversation quality. International experimental findings therefore cannot be converted into a Georgian prevalence estimate.
| Digital access in Georgia | Indicator | Period |
| Households with internet | 93.5% | 2026 |
| Urban households | 96.8% | 2026 |
| Rural households | 89.0% | 2026 |
| Tbilisi households | 98.2% | 2026 |
| Internet use, age 13–17 | Girls 100%; boys 99% | 2025 |
| Internet use, age 18–29 | Women 99%; men 99% | 2025 |
Screen time and screen format are not the same thing
Two hours of a video call, reading, watching a film or rapidly switching through short clips are not cognitively identical experiences. Screen time alone is therefore an incomplete measure.
More useful questions include how often context changes, whether use is intentional, whether long-form attention remains part of daily life, and whether screen use displaces sleep, physical activity, learning or face-to-face interaction.
Implications for education
Short formats can be useful for introductions, reminders and visual explanations. The risk is treating them as the only learning rhythm. Education still requires sustained reading, argument, discussion and collaborative work.
For Georgia, the practical goal is not to fight screens but to balance digital and non-digital modes of attention. Different media train different habits, and students benefit from being able to move between them.
Implications for business
The same issue exists at work. Employees move between email, chat, notifications, meetings and content streams. Constant switching can become an organisational design problem rather than simply a personal habit.
Companies can therefore treat attention as a productivity resource: improving meeting quality, setting communication norms and protecting periods of uninterrupted work. For consumer platforms, there is also an ethical question – whether engagement design creates user value or merely maximises time spent.
BTU Researchers’ Assessment
According to BTU researchers’ assessment, Georgia’s high level of internet access is not itself a risk; it is an economic and social opportunity. The more important question is what patterns of attention everyday digital use creates and whether people retain spaces for sustained concentration, conversation and collaboration outside the feed.
Digital literacy should therefore expand from knowing how to use technology to knowing how to manage attention within technological environments.
Conclusion
Moving from the screen to real life no longer means simply putting the phone away. Digital rhythms follow us into learning, work and conversation. Research gives us reason to pay attention to rapid context switching, but not to blame short videos for every cognitive or social difficulty.
In Georgia, where the internet is nearly universal among young people, the more useful question is not how online we are, but how well we can change attention modes. A future digital skill may be knowing not only how to enter the screen, but how to return from it.
Data and Main Sources
The Guardian, 27 September 2026 – Hannah Ewens, My Instagram reels addiction has ruined my ability to have a conversation. But can I get it back?
Chiossi et al., CHI 2023 – Short-Form Videos Degrade Our Capacity to Retain Intentions: Effect of Context Switching On Prospective Memory.
Behavioral Sciences, 2026 – The Influence of Short-Video Usage on Prospective Memory Under Different Cue Type Conditions.
Geostat – Indicators of Using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Households, 2025 and 2026.
Prepared by the academic team of Business and Technology University and the BTUAI Research Team, Tbilisi, Georgia.