Tell HN: Now, I know what the effect of short-form video is
It was a Tuesday.. Tuesday night.. or, more precisely, Tuesday, Jan 31st 8:52pm if you ever care..

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I entered my home, exhausted, with my eyes blinking in slow-motion, probably around 1fps, I stared at my five-monitor setup PC in the hope I could wake it up to resume some work, my brain tried to revive my body, but all it received was a weird response with a status code of 700, which translates to "EXHAUSTED" in plain English! "Okay then", I said, "my body also has the right to rest" and, even though it’s been more than two years (as I recall) since I didn’t go to bed at this timing, I decided to break this and go to sleep, with a catch! And, it’s this "catch" that made me write this post.

I looked at the bed, then turned to look at the couch, or, honestly, the couch/pillow/phone combo. Suddenly, the epic cinematic scene of "Final Duel" from "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" starts playing in my head. I was obliged to make a tough decision about which to choose, the bed or the couch, but it turned out that it wasn’t that hard as the couch pulled its gun and "shot the bed in the head" in a 50ms timeframe, followed by a moment of silence ________ "Good shot!", my brain said.. Then it sent an executive order to my body to rest on the couch and take the phone. Surprisingly, the request was executed without complaint.

I laid on the couch, took my phone, unlocked it, stared into its apps, and said: "What can I do for a few minutes before I go to bed?" I looked at a HackerNews app and said, "Oh no, I am on low- capacity, I can’t read technical articles or add valuable comments". Reddit, not in the mood. Twitter, not today. Google Discover, will.. but tomorrow maybe. YouTube, well, maybe Yes, why not?! Then I tapped on the "red" play icon.

Youtube started recommending my favorite types of content (gadget reviews, programming, cars, geopolitics..), I started scrolling down, but, because I was in an extra power-saving mode, I quickly realized I was not being able to consume any content that would make my brain spin, even for a millisecond! I just wanted to watch some brainless content.. Then, for the first time in my life, I intentionally clicked on "Shorts" to watch a few quick videos. My brain yelled: "Heeere.. we go!"

It was relaxing, effortless, dopaminy and.. too time-consuming! My -supposedly- exhausted body suddenly stopped reporting the tiredness it had a few moments ago, I completely lost track of time; the only thing that interrupted me was the phone’s battery draining to 2%. I quickly brought the charger, plugged the phone in, and laid again on that "metaversey" couch. I’ve already spent an imaginary amount of time watching, considering my initial body’s state. The clock had already passed midnight!! I was swapping for more than three hours straight without a signal from my brain to stop; it was the complete opposite; my brain was telling me to swipe more and more, and I didn’t say no until.. I got another urgent interruption. My brain signaled that there was a quantity of "used water" that my body no longer needs and should get rid of, right now! I executed the task and returned quickly.. it was then, 2am!

I resumed watching, and... kept watching. I don’t even recall if my eyes were blinking or not. I was happy. My body was producing large amounts of dopamine to keep me in "nirvana" but.. after a while, I started noticing my eyes’ blinking in slo-mo. My lovely brain agreed to end this session, so I laid my "exhausted" body on the bed, and then, in just a few seconds, I lost my consciousness. It was.. well, 4:48am!!

The following day, I kept thinking about what happened to me that night but didn’t find an answer? I asked: "Was I really tired at 8:52pm?", Absolutely, yes! "Was I able to work instead of watching YT?" No way! So, where did all of this energy was coming from? I don’t know. All I know is: "Now, I know what the effect of short-form video is"