'Short-form Becomes Routine': 30.6% of High School Students Say "It's Hard to Read Long Texts for Over 10 Minutes"

Jinhaksa Surveyed 3,525 High School Students
Learning Focus Undermined by Algorithms

It has been found that one out of three high school students has difficulty concentrating on reading long texts for more than 10 minutes. The daily use of short-form video content is believed to be affecting teenagers' ability to focus while reading.

Getty Images

On March 18, Jin Haksa, an admissions information provider, announced the results of a survey on "reading concentration and short-form usage habits," conducted with 3,525 high school students from February 2 to 11. When asked, "Have you often found it difficult to concentrate on reading long texts for more than 10 minutes?" 30.6% of respondents answered "yes." Specifically, 8.4% said "very much so," and 22.2% said "yes." Meanwhile, 28.5% answered "neutral," 26.0% said "no," and 15.0% said "not at all."

Jin Haksa interpreted the results as "an indication that this could pose a learning burden for high school students who need to read and analyze lengthy passages on college entrance exams or in textbooks."

This decline in concentration appears to be closely related to the habitual short-form viewing habits that have become commonplace among high school students.

More than half of the respondents (57.9%) said they "habitually open short-form apps (such as YouTube Shorts or Reels) without any specific purpose." Specifically, 35.8% responded "yes," and 22.1% said "very much so." On the other hand, only 17.1% answered "not at all" (4.6%) or "no" (12.5%), indicating that the vast majority of students habitually consume short-form content.

It was also found that it is common for students to spend more time watching short-form content than they initially intended. When asked whether they can control their viewing time, only 20.1% said they "can stop whenever they want." Eight out of ten students (78.4%) responded that they end up watching for longer than they intended. Specifically, 51.6% said "I can usually control it, but it sometimes gets longer," 20.1% said "I often watch longer even when I want to stop," and 6.8% said "it is hard to control." The algorithmic structure that continuously plays short videos appears to be weakening students' self-control.

Woo Yeoncheol, head of the college admissions strategy research center at Jin Haksa, commented, "The ability to extract core information from long texts is a key factor determining scores on both college entrance exams and school grades." He further analyzed, "As the use of short-form media increases, the brain is becoming increasingly accustomed to only short and intense stimulation." He advised, "To restore study concentration, it is important to physically distance oneself from smartphones during study sessions and to intentionally practice reading long texts such as textbooks or newspaper articles to the end."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.