No matter where you go on social media, short videos are everywhere. Repeated access to this short, informative, and rewarding content primes your brain to think the experience is fun or satisfying. Indulging in too many videos can cause people to develop short video addiction (SVA). This is a maladaptive pattern that tends to make it difficult for viewers to control their viewing of short videos. With the proliferation of short videos online, SVA has become a growing concern as it affects the efficiency of daily life and negatively impacts mental and physical health. This is why it is so important to understand this relatively new type of addiction. Less is known about the psychological mechanisms that increase vulnerability.
A new study conducted in China investigated how attachment anxiety, a relationship pattern characterized by fear of abandonment that often develops in early childhood, contributes to SVA. The result is frontiers of psychology.
We show that higher levels of attachment anxiety increase the risk of SVA. Poor attentional control, the inability to control what people choose to ignore or focus on, and difficulty processing their own and others’ emotions may partly explain this relationship. ”
Haodong Su, first author, Lecturer, College of Humanities, Anhui University of Science and Technology
road to addiction
Researchers recruited 342 students between the ages of 18 and 22 for the study and used a variety of scales to measure levels of SVA, attachment anxiety, attentional control (commonly referred to as concentration), and alexithymia, a personality trait characterized by difficulty identifying and describing emotions. Previous research suggests that alexithymia is relatively common among young people, particularly during critical developmental stages or when faced with stress.
The results showed that higher levels of attachment anxiety increased the likelihood of developing SVA. This sensitivity may be shaped by both attentional control and alexithymia, both of which are mechanisms that shape emotional processing. Previous research has shown that high levels of attachment anxiety lead to decreased attentional control, and that people with high levels of attachment anxiety tend to exhibit more severe alexithymia traits. If these mechanisms cannot fully control emotions, people may begin to rely on external control devices, such as short videos, to cope with their negative effects.
“Those with more severe alexithymia symptoms showed significantly higher levels of SVA, indicating that difficulty identifying and expressing emotions may lead to increased reliance on short videos as a form of emotional escape,” Su explained.
Decreased attentional control often enhances and increases levels of alexithymia, but also mediates the relationship between attachment anxiety and SVA.
protected by caution
Poor attentional control may make teens more susceptible to becoming absorbed in short videos, but training their concentration may have the opposite effect and also play a protective role in the development of SVA.
“Young people who are better able to regulate and sustain their attention are less likely to develop addictive patterns of using short videos, even if they experience emotional difficulties such as attachment anxiety,” Hsu noted.
For young people who struggle with concentration or alexithymia, small measures like setting time limits for video viewing, designated periods of no cell phone use, and establishing routines that encourage emotional reflection can be a helpful starting point.
”Attentional control is not a fixed ability and can be improved with practice. “Strategies such as mindfulness training, reducing multitasking, and intentionally scheduling periods of focused activity may help strengthen attentional control and reduce the risk of SVA,” Su said.
The researchers note that the data used in the study was self-reported by students and may contain bias. The study’s cross-sectional design provides a snapshot, and the results indicate an association rather than a direct cause-and-effect relationship.. There was also a gender imbalance in the sample, with approximately 72% of participants being male. Because attachment anxiety and attentional control differ by gender, future studies with more balanced samples will be important to determine whether these patterns hold across genders. Longer-term studies are also needed to confirm the relationships identified here.
“Our findings show that enhancing attentional control and emotion recognition, rather than relying solely on limiting technology use, is effective in preventing SVA,” Su concluded. “Short video addiction is not just a matter of viewing time, but also of emotional and cognitive regulation.”
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Reference magazines:
Together with Mr. H. others. (2026). From attachment anxiety to short video addiction: The role of attentional control and alexithymia. Frontiers of Psychology. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1764536. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1764536/full
