It's common to end up falling into the trap of watching videos on social media when we're bored and don't know what to do. Far from what it might seem, a study claims that this habit can make the problem worse. In other words, we can get even more bored. At least this is what a study carried out by the University of Toronto in 2024 shows. According to the authors, boredom is related to our attention: we feel bored when there is a gap between how attentive we are and how much we want to be. In this way, when we are constantly changing videos, we never end up committing to any, because we are always looking for a more interesting video. On the other hand, the study also points out that this user habit makes their consumption experience less satisfactory, less attractive and less meaningful. On the other hand, researchers encourage users to let some time pass before pressing the button to change videos and look for different ways to maintain concentration while watching it, as if they were in a movie theater.
Cat, cooking and cleaning videos: Why do we like them so much?
We analyze with experts what secrets are hidden behind these videos that triumph on social networks
BarcelonaHands cut onions, tomatoes and carrots quickly and perfectly. In the background, a ray of light enters through the window of a modern kitchen. vintage. ScrollA woman cleans a bathroom in fast motion until it is spotless. ScrollAn adorable cat plays with a ball on a sofa in any house. Scroll...And so on and so forth. Many of us declare ourselves addicted to the videos that platforms like Instagram or TikTok bombard us with without stopping. Day and night, we have the opportunity to get caught up watching videos in which people, often anonymous, appear doing all kinds of household chores that, apparently, have nothing extraordinary. How can watching them cause such addiction?
Although there are studies, such as one published in the journal Computers and Human Behavior, which confirm that people who watch cat videos afterwards feel more "energetic and optimistic", there is a basic component that surrounds much of the reels that we find on the networks: ASMR, an acronym for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. In other words, the videos that hook us usually give us pleasurable bodily sensations, either through sound or sight. An example would be those of cooking or cleaning, where slow, safe and repetitive movements are usually seen. In this way, just by watching them, our system secretes oxytocin, the hormone related to pleasure, as if we were receiving the stimuli outside the screen.
Easy and everyday
Many of these videos are cooking videos, where you can choose from a multitude of recipes that appear to be very easy and quick to make. Cooking videos already worked very well on television before, the difference is that back then they lasted half an hour, when on social media they barely last a minute. This is what Sílvia Martínez, director of the Social Media master's degree and professor of information and communication sciences at the UOC, says. "It's true what they say that food enters through the eyes. And if they are also easy recipes that can be made in a short time, the combination is perfect," she says. On the other hand, another key to its success is that in the videos, the audience is able to see the food in the videos, and ... reels The posts are not made by professional or famous chefs, but by anonymous people. "It's a quicker and easier way to connect and generate interest: they can do it, so can I," he says.
The formal aspects of these videos are also very important: their speed, the filters, the music, the fact that they are linked one after the other, the comments, the likes and the whole environment that makes up the image makes us feel closer and more connected to what we are seeing than if it were just a recipe or a cleaning trick.
Roger Canals, professor of anthropology at the Faculty of Geography and History at the UB, who specialises in visual culture, has also analysed this. "These videos are somewhere between the everyday and the extraordinary," he says. On the one hand, we see spaces and situations that are very familiar to us, such as a person preparing macaroni or another person testing a robot vacuum cleaner, but which at the same time are presented as having a kind of exceptionality. "It's like magical realism, when filters, speed and extraordinary ease are added to something as everyday as making a salad," continues Canals, who assures that this point of marvelling at an everyday event is very attractive.
On the other hand, the anthropologist assures that this "daily miracle" could also be understood as a kind of "consolation" of our daily life. "Washing, scrubbing and making dinner are things we do every day and sometimes as if they were a condemnation, but what these videos show is that all these tasks can become moments of joy, happiness and even creativity," he points out. "In the end, the possibility of making our life a little more fun and joyful is always there," continues Canals, who has also observed how these reels, seemingly banal, about everyday life, are surrounded "by a somewhat transcendent and religious, almost mystical rhetoric."
"It's not just about making a salad, but making a salad because it relaxes me and makes me feel good about myself. It's not just about cleaning, but cleaning because it makes me feel at peace," he continues. It's a rhetoric linked to well-being, health, balance, values and peace." All of this is a symptom that we really live in a very competitive, problematic and conflictual society, and we look for everything that is closest to us, such as the events of everyday life, as small sparks that allow us to balance this tension and conflict in our society.
One of the phenomena that have emerged in recent times around this type of videos is the appearance of the so-called tradwives, women who defend the role of the lifelong housewife. "With these videos, the house becomes a refuge and conveys the consolation that the ordinary aspects of life, such as staying up cleaning and cooking, can be very pleasurable," reflects Canals, who associates this phenomenon with the most conservative values of society. "In addition, it shows a highly individualized world: everyone makes their own avocado salad, there is no common mobilization, but rather a romanticization of individualization," she continues.
But not everything is as relaxing as it might seem: digital culture, as a reflection of society, also continues to lead us to a competitive world with the challenges, the challenges. "Although it is presented in a playful image, even as a cooperative game, in the end it is about who makes the dish better and in less time," reflects the anthropologist. "It is very typical of a capitalist society, the fact that even the smallest things in our lives end up being shown with a competitive dimension that enters into the interior of the homes," he continues. "Now, even in our most domestic and habitual jobs, we aspire to do it as well as the anonymous people in the videos, because if they can do it, so can we," he concludes.
