Skip to Search Skip to Live Player Skip to Content Skip to Footer

Joel Katz

Study Claims Scrolling TikTok Increases Boredom

Author Joel Katz
Illustration of TikTok logo on a smartphone

My wife, Kathleen, loves TikTok, I mean loooooves TikTok. She doesn’t ever post anything, she just loves watching videos for hours. When she’s bored or looking to escape for a bit, she takes a glass of wine, sits on the gazebo, and scrolls through and watches video after video. I can hear her laughing from inside the house.

That’s why I feel she may be the exception to a recent study that looked at people who constantly watch TikTok or Instagram videos on their phones to fight boredom. It’s suggested that they look into another form of entertainment to keep themselves amused.

It seems that the scientists working at the University of Toronto Scarborough claim to have found that scrolling and watching videos to kill time can seem tedious and dull to the point where it actually makes you feel even more bored. Their findings were published in The American Psychological Association’s publication PsycNet.

You may be thinking, “Not me, I jump ahead in the video to see the good parts.” Wrong, the study also discovered that hitting that digital fast-forward button actually makes the problem even worse.

What is Digital Switching on TikTok?

The term for jumping from one TikTok video to another is called digital switching and the findings of the scientists show that “this behavior paradoxically intensifies boredom.” The study involved seven different forms of analysis and used 1,200 people throughout the course of the study.

ALSO READ: New Jersey Author’s Nostalgic Novel “I Remember Summertime” Takes You Back to the ’70s

According to the scientists, the final conclusions found that it’s normal for “people to consume media this way to avoid boredom. However, this switching behavior makes people feel more bored, less satisfied, less engaged, and less meaningful in some instances.”

They also found that those who participated in the study were allowed to watch whatever they wanted, the switching from video to video on TikTok didn’t take away the boredom they were experiencing during the exercise.

Personally, I have a similar experience with a feeling that I’m sure you’ve experienced as well. I’ll watch video to pass the time, and feel like I’m being entertained. However, when I’m done I feel like I’ve just wasted a lot of time that could have been put to better use.

Perhaps it may be a good idea to set a timer for 10 or 15 minutes to limit the scrolling and hopefully inspire me to do something productive. There’s not much worse than feeling like you want a redo because you realize that you accomplished absolutely nothing at the end of the day.

Joel Katz is the Morning Show Personality, Assistant Program Director, Podcast Host, Voiceover artist, audio producer, and Digital Content Writer for Magic 98.3. Joel has been working in New Jersey radio since college and started at Magic in 2002 as the Morning Show Host, “I can’t think of another place where I’d fit more perfectly; it’s just a great company with awesome people.” Joel is married to Kathleen, his elementary school sweetheart (they were each other’s first dates at age 9), shares a birthday with his oldest son, Ty, and has twins, Kiera and Liam. Joel runs at least 3.1 miles every day and enjoys playing basketball, doing laundry, saving his turn signal for when he really needs it, kissing dogs through a fence, using coasters, making that cool noise by rubbing his fingers on balloons, and chasing after ping pong balls on a windy cruise ship.

 

From Blake Lively to Jimmy Fallon, 5 Celebrities Rumored To Be Unkind

From Blake Lively to Jimmy Fallon, there are many celebrities rumored to be unkind. Some of them are obvious, but others might come as a surprise!

Sometimes, I’ll be watching something on TV or reading in the news and will get a random feeling that I don’t like that celebrity or person. Maybe it’s something I saw them do or say in an interview, or maybe there’s a report of them treating someone else poorly. However, it seems to happen all the time. Now, I’m thinking there might be some truth behind the whispers that these five celebrities are rumored to be unkind.

What Celebrities Rumored To Be Unkind?

They say you never want to meet your heroes because they might end up being jerks. That would spoil everything for you! It would be heartbreaking to learn or witness one of your favorite celebrities treating people horribly or being unkind. We relate to these celebrities and want them to be the people we’ve built up in our minds, but that doesn’t always end up being the case.

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to meet a few celebrities. Some of them went out of their way to be nice and kind, while others were surprisingly rude and kept asking me where the deli tray was. Now, I’m not going to “out” these celebrities here today. Instead, I’ll be sticking with the rumors. Let’s be honest; it’s much more fun to speculate than to be told someone’s definitely a jerk. When you’re dealing with rumors, there’s always a chance that they could be wrong, and they might be great people! However, like they say, there’s a bit of truth in every rumor!

Of course, there are many other celebrities who are rumored to be unkind who didn’t make the list. I wanted to cap it at five because I could end up going all day on this subject. Additionally, there are celebrities who are clearly mean people, and it’s well-documented. So, people like Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, or Chevy Chase aren’t going to end up making the list. Even though there have been reported and rumored stories about their poor behavior for years. Recently, the subject of mean celebrities has gained legs online after reports of Blake Lively treating journalists and interviewers rudely. Does it make her an unkind person? No, she could have just been having a bad day. However, it shows a glimpse into what could be reality.

Do you have an example of a celebrity rumored to be unkind? Let us know who your examples are. Until then, check out my list of 5 Celebrities Rumored To Be Unkind below!

5 Celebrities Rumored To Be Unkind

  • Jennifer Lopez

    Let’s be honest, you probably were expecting to see her name here. This probably doesn’t come as a shocker and you’ve likely seen the rumors online. They’ve been going on since she entered the spotlight several decades ago, it’s nothing new. The internet has long suspected that she wasn’t a good person and I totally see what they’re talking about. Recently, the internet even accused her of arranging photos with the paparazzi to look like a normal relatable person. Unfortunately, everyone seems to have seen through that. She just seems like the type of person who would never celebrate her friends’ accomplishments. It’s J. Lo’s world and we’re all just living in it.

  • Ellen DeGeneres

    You might be an unkind person if you end up losing your talk show after so many people, including your own staff, basically called you out for being toxic. Well, that’s apparently what happened to Ellen DeGeneres. After dancing her way into our hearts, we felt like we really knew her! Unfortunately, what you see isn’t always what you get. There’s often more behind the curtain. In Ellen’s case, even she claims to have been kicked out of show business for being mean, per The Guardian. How mean do you have to be to get kicked out of show business? Do you know how many jerks and mean people make a living there? Yikes.

  • Demo Lovato

    Look, anyone who sings a song called “Sorry Not Sorry” just can’t be a good person, right? What a rude saying! However, I feel like it fits Demi Lovato. For years, she’s been rumored to be a Mean Girl in the way she treats others including other pop stars, per Yahoo! There’s something about her energy and her vibe that just makes me think she’s not a good person. She could be! She’s been through a lot! I hope she’s happy and healthy. I also hope I’m wrong and she’s actually very nice.

  • Jimmy Fallon

    I didn’t want to include Jimmy Fallon on the list, but I have to be up front and honest. A couple of years ago, Jimmy went through something similar to Ellen but he made it out with a job and his career intact. Reports came out alleging he has a drinking problem and would treat staff horribly, per Vanity Fair. It sounds like the funny man wasn’t very much fun to work with! That’s always a disappointment, especially in comedy where you’re supposed to have fun and relax. Not a good look. To his credit, he did apologize for his actions.

  • Katy Perry

    Last, but certainly least…Katy Perry. There have been many rumors about her over the years and many rumors turned into reports as we watched her be rude to contestants on American Idol with our own eyes! It’s out there in the open for everyone to see. In fact, it’s gotten so bad for me that I’ve started judging her husband Orlando Bloom for being a bad guy simply because he’s married to her. If you’re married to an allegedly bad person then that makes you an allegedly bad person. That’s just (alleged) logic!

Sign Up For The Magic 98.3 Newsletter

Get the latest celebrity and music buzz, info on events you need to know about, plus exclusive contests, game and more!

*
By clicking "Subscribe" I agree to the website's terms of Service and Privacy Policy. I understand I can unsubscribe at any time.
Author Joel Katz
Category:
Tags:
,,

More Human Interest

Load More