One of the great enablers of procrastination and potentially more serious consequences is the advent of an endless stream of free (and questionably legal?) content available on YouTube. According to BBC News and TechCrunch, a blog, YouTube serves up 100 million videos per day (68 per user per month, on average) and receives 65,000+ new video uploads per day. Excessive YouTube usage leads to problematic internet use for several reasons. Caplan’s model is definitely relevant here.
This online psychological space may lead to Problematic Internet Use because of Caplan’s two factors. Caplan (2004) states that problematic internet use, problematic behavior related to spending too much time online, has two major components: excessive use and compulsive use. Excessive use is when one spends more time in an online space than is normal or that a person had planned to spend. YouTube, like many other areas of the internet, is designed to make you stay on their site and explore it for as long as possible. With so much media content and the way that YouTube is set up, there is literally an endless stream of videos that can be delivered to one user. After finishing one video, one sees links to 3 more related (and frequently popular) videos in that same video window: just a click away. What starts out as taking a short break by viewing one video can turn into excessive use as one ends up spending possibly 30 minutes to an hour watching dozens of videos. Compulsive use is when one feels they cannot control their online activity and they feel guilty about this lack of control. Often, one feels guilty after compulsive use of YouTube because they feel guilty that they cannot control their consumption of YouTube media and they end up procrastinating and being guilty that they could not finish their work on time.
Many unique affordances/features of YouTube entice its users to “over-use” its site and lead these users to PIU behavior. YouTube has an almost endless amount of content (interactivity/variety/searchability), all of which is free (affordability) and accessible to anyone with a computer and an internet connection (access).
Unfortunately, I would argue that the Caplan’s Theory of PIU and Psychosocial Well-Being is not as applicable with YouTube because YouTube is an inherently social medium more than an individual activity. Much of the time, you are brought to the site (and into possible PIU) by a friend who sent you a funny video or by a new video being announced by someone to whom you have subscribed. Due to this social design, YouTube is less useful in alleviating individuals with negative perceptions about their social competence and who prefer online interaction, although PIU of YouTube may lead to increased procrastination and problems completing schoolwork or other work. Therefore, Caplan’s “vicious cycle” is not as pervasive on YouTube. Wallace’s 4 factors may be more appropriate for describing PIU of YouTube, especially with operant conditioning (rewarding behavior with a variable schedule, making it more difficult to stop that behavior) is very present on YouTube. One may constantly subscribe to different producers to be notified when they upload a new video.
While an obsession with YouTube may lead to PIU, it leads more towards increased procrastination and avoidance of what one needs to do than towards an avoidance of social situations, since it is inherently a social online psychological space.
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3 comments:
Joe, I also wrote about YouTube and you make some great points about how it affects procrastination. I wrote that excessive use mitigates procrastination because the deadline is more imminent after excessive use. You're mention of guilt is also applicable and explains how excessive use doesn't develop as a feedback loop.
Although YouTube is a social medium as you mentioned, I believe it's also an individual medium as well. Anyone can log into youtube.com by themselves and still feel the effects of addiction. However, this addiction is only worsened by the social nature... for instance registered users who comment on each others videos must feel a strengthened addiction.
Hey Joe,
I agree with you that Youtube indeed can easily lead to obsessive and compulsive use. Although I’d also like to point out that the integration of Youtube onto many different platforms is another reason why it is so pervasive. I can watch Youtube on my iphone using the specialized Youtube channel, the site works with the Wii so you can watch it on TV, and of course many other portable/home entertainment devices such as smartphones and PC media centers can all easily take advantage of the accessibility and affordability of its service. The intentionally low resolution and inferior sound quality allow quick and efficient streaming, thus satisfying the viewers’ need for instant gratification.
In addition, like you said, the ability to easily share and upload videos contributes greatly to Youtube’s popularity as well. It is easy to tag favorites or bookmark certain videos and send the links to friends, or make your own video to broadcast a message to the world. Although personally I think this level of communication is still inadequately refined by technology, it is for certain an important breakthrough.
Hi, Joe,
I wrote mine on "watching TV online", kinda similar to Youtube but it actually includes a lot of different kinds of sites with their unique features and stuff.
I would like to point out that Caplan's Theory on PIU and Psychosocial wellbeing may be applicable to Youtube. For one thing, Comments are enabled on many videos on Youtube, allowing you to interact and share your opinion with others who made or watched the video you just watched. This turns Youtube into something similar to an asynchronious forum, with each video as a thread. And as we know, people who have psychosocial problems or feel lonely may prefer online interaction (which includes asynchroneous forum) than real life interactions. And this would start Caplan's "vicious cycle".
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