How does short-form video use relate to academic procrastination and losing track of time?

Why losing focus is the hinge between scrolling and procrastinating

The most consistent explanation across these studies is that short-form video use and procrastination are connected through attentional control — the everyday ability to keep your mind on a task and resist switching away. Among Chinese undergraduates, higher short-form video addiction was associated with lower perceived attention control, and that lower control was in turn linked to more academic procrastination [4]. A separate study of undergraduates found that attentional control and boredom proneness helped explain the path from short-form video addiction to academic procrastination [2].

This fits the experience of losing track of time. Short clips are designed to be brief and immediately rewarding, so the next one is always easy to start; the cost is that the habit of switching away is rehearsed over and over. The studies describe this as a mechanism linking the two behaviors, not as a proven cause. What they consistently observe is that people who struggle to hold attention are also the ones who report more delay on academic work [2][4].

The pull of the next clip, and why boredom matters

Boredom proneness appears alongside attention in the same pathway. In the undergraduate model, short-form video addiction was associated with academic procrastination partly through attentional control and boredom proneness [2]. The plausible reading is that academic tasks feel comparatively slow and unrewarding next to a feed of short clips, so a person who is easily bored reaches for the phone instead of starting the work. That is an interpretation of the pattern, not something the studies directly demonstrate.

The same pattern shows up beyond Chinese undergraduates. Among young Pakistani adults, Instagram Reels addiction was associated with academic procrastination [5]. Because Reels is a short-form video format, this suggests the link is not specific to one app or one country, though each study measures its own group and the strength of the association may differ.

Does the scrolling come first, or the procrastination?

Most of this evidence is cross-sectional, meaning use and procrastination are measured at the same time, so it cannot settle which comes first. One study tried to address timing directly: a three-wave longitudinal study of university students tested whether algorithm-driven short-video music consumption was prospectively associated with attentional control, academic procrastination, and academic flow [3]. Tracking the same people over multiple waves is a stronger design for asking about order, but the finding is still described as a prospective association rather than proof of cause.

There is also a hint that the relationship runs in more than one direction. A study of adolescents in an online learning environment proposed academic procrastination as a mediator in the pathway involving short-form video use, psychological resilience, and problematic use [1]. In other words, procrastination may sit in the middle of the story rather than only at the end of it, which makes a simple "videos cause delay" account too tidy.

What this means if you recognize yourself in it

The practical takeaway is that the time-loss problem is probably about attention more than about willpower. If short clips are tied to procrastination through weaker attentional control and greater boredom proneness [2][4], then the useful lever is protecting focus — for example, keeping the phone out of reach during a work block — rather than relying on resolve alone. The longitudinal evidence is consistent with short-video music consumption predicting later attention and procrastination outcomes [3], but it does not yet show that cutting back reverses the pattern.

One more caution about scope: these findings come mainly from undergraduate and young-adult samples in China and Pakistan [2][4][5], with one adolescent online-learning sample [1]. They describe students well; whether the same pattern holds for other ages or work settings is not established by this evidence.

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