[Cultural] A Generation Destroyed by VideoAuthor: JEFFI CHAO HUI WU Time: July 19, 2025, Saturday, 10:30 AM ········································ [Cultural] A Generation Destroyed by Video I am a person who writes articles and also makes videos. I have over 500 videos covering topics such as practice, photography, music, and life experiences; I have more than 200 articles, each of which can be found through Google search, and each one is a product of genuine structural thinking. But this is not a boast; it is to illustrate that when I say "videos are destroying this generation," I have the qualifications to say so. This is not a conspiracy theory, nor is it conservatism; it is a civilization alert. The world is being consumed by a quiet plague—one that relies not on toxins, but on algorithms; not on viruses, but on traffic; it does not kill the body, but empties the soul. This plague is called: the era of short videos. I have seen with my own eyes that more and more young people cannot finish reading a page of text, yet can binge-watch videos for five hours straight; they struggle to write an essay but can instantly post thirty "bullet comments"; they even take a three-minute "historical commentary" as real history and treat "internet celebrity lectures" as truth. You say this is just a change in the way information is conveyed? No. This is a signal of the collapse of the cognitive structure. 1. What has been destroyed is not just time, but the structure of the brain itself. A study by the University of Cambridge found that the "fast-paced switching" of short videos is causing atrophy in the prefrontal cortex. This is the key brain area for deep thinking, logical reasoning, and focused reading. In the year 2000, the average attention span of humans was 12 seconds; by 2025, it is projected to drop to 6.8 seconds—shorter than that of a goldfish. This is not a joke; it is a verdict under neuroscience: short videos are creating a generation of structurally cognitively impaired humans. They no longer understand cause and effect; they only chase phenomena. The core mechanism of short videos is: "Show the results, not the path." Lost weight? Eat this. Got rich? Do this. Learned something? Click here. But what they don't know is that it takes ten years of effort, thousands of mistakes, and hundreds of thousands of words of information behind it... What they believe in is not logic, but "it looks real." This creates three cognitive ruins: • Sense of time disappears: believing that any skill can be learned in 15 seconds. • Collapse of causal relationships: assuming that seeing a phenomenon is equivalent to understanding the principle. • Value judgment failure: The higher the number of likes = the more true, better, and correct. This generation no longer looks up "inflation" in the dictionary, but instead sees jokes saying "the RMB is about to run out"; they no longer write reflections after reading, but flood the comments section with "those who understand, understand"; they no longer debate philosophy, but say "you are not worthy of talking to me." This is a new type of illiteracy: able to read, but lacking logical thinking. III. How Do Short Videos Destroy the Rhythm of Civilization? After the spread of Gutenberg's printing press, the illiteracy rate in Europe dropped from 98% to 40%. Today’s short videos are transforming us from “having words to read” to “unable to read words.” A study from the China Youth Research Center shows that the reading volume of printed books among those born after 2000 has decreased by 73% compared to those born in the 1990s. Statistics from American universities indicate that 67% of college students cannot finish reading a 10-page academic paper. You can learn to dance with short videos, but you cannot learn medicine, law, mathematics, philosophy, history, and logic with them. The more structured the knowledge required, the more you must return to text. IV. It is not because the video is bad, but because we have relinquished our sovereignty. The video was originally a tool, but today, it has become a thief of attention, a destroyer of structure, and a diluter of civilization. The patent for the video mechanism algorithm has long been exposed: it employs an "intermittent reward mechanism," mimicking the design principles of slot machines, allowing people to "swipe and possibly find surprises," continuously looping. This is not entertainment; it is digital manipulation. The average career lifespan of internet celebrities is only 2.7 years, and most are eliminated by the platform after the age of 35—they have neither works nor accumulation, only the ashes of videos left behind. V. I am not against video, but I advocate for the restoration of the written word. I never deny the power of video. I shoot videos myself. I even admit that video is an excellent means of communication, but it cannot replace structured thinking. The solution is not extreme denial, but proportional reconstruction: 20% video + 80% text is needed to build a person's true cognitive system. Video can attract you to start, but only text can take you to the end. You can watch videos to get started, but you must return to refining your writing; you can watch explanations to gain interest, but in the end, you must read, write, reason, and express; because what makes humans human is not the ability to see, but the ability to write, to think, and to pass on knowledge. Sixth, do you want to be remembered by the future, or liked by the present? This is the ultimate question we should be asking. I have written over two hundred articles on the forum, which have been indexed by Google for a long time, and my articles from twenty years ago can still be found; ten years later, when others search for a certain topic, they can still see my structure and empirical evidence. In contrast, most of those videos with millions of views have long since returned a 404 error, had their accounts banned, or the platforms shut down. So I dare say: I am not criticizing from outside the video, but after delving into the world of video, I still choose to return to text. I have the right to say—this generation is being destroyed by video. I do not persuade people with ideas, but with the path verified by my two hands: one writes articles, and the other shoots videos. In the end, I found that what truly transcends time is always that hand that writes. VII. The Turning Point of the Collapse of Civilization: Our generation may be the last that can read. If we do not hold onto this thread, the next generation will directly enter the "picture-based communication" mode: swiping data, observing emotions, learning memes... but will not truly think; they will imitate content but will be unable to create it; they will understand sharing but will not understand expression. When I say "the generation destroyed by video," I am not complaining; I am issuing a warning. You can continue to indulge, but you have to admit: It took humanity millions of years to evolve language. It took five thousand years to establish a written civilization. Are we really going to revert to the "picture era" of primitive society in our generation? • If you still have the power of words, please protect it. • If you can still write a thousand words, please stick to it. • If you want to leave the truth for the future, please write it down. Because—only words can make your name last through history! Source: http://www.australianwinner.com/AuWinner/viewtopic.php?t=696951 |