Over the last 10 years or so, short-form content has become popular on social media: short videos, short posts. People have gotten used to getting quick answers from small amounts of information without double-checking the source.
On one hand, this simplification is obvious and logical given such an abundance of all kinds of information. But it also has a downside.
Read on to learn about the consequences of short-form content’s popularity, and what, in our opinion, constitutes “proper” simplification.
The Popularity of Short-Form Content. Clip Thinking
The audience that is now joining us comes without any metaphysical background behind them. Added to this is clip thinking.
This could be called a consequence, a quantum leap, but with the opposite effect.
When we talk about a quantum leap, it’s assumed you’re leaping toward something good. But in this case, over the last 10 years, the collective consumption of short-form content on social media has resulted in an increased degree of fear and anxiety, and a shutting down of the functions of deep, thoughtful reading and analysis.
It’s not that people have become dumber, but they handle information completely differently.
Now the main reflex is: “I don’t know, I’ll just ask.” Few people bother to search Google or Yandex for an answer, double-checking something. Moreover, people have become very reliant on others’ opinions.
Telegram is the only social network where I actively participate and read comments. I constantly see this trend there: you start with one thing, somewhere down the line there’s a thread at the end, then they discussed something in the middle, went off on another topic.
There, Grandma Masha said something, passed it on to Uncle Petya, Uncle Petya said this, and the little dog barked. And then there’s a discussion about “the little dog barked.”
It doesn’t occur to anyone to read what was originally written and how it relates to what it eventually turned into. Interpretation upon interpretation, guess upon guess, assumption upon assumption, and none of it verified. This didn’t used to happen.
Before, there was much more responsibility towards information, among other things. Who else observes this among their loved ones?
I can’t say this is degradation, but it is a lowering of the level. And it would be great if the mind switched to the heart in this process, but these are not the same process; they are different processes. Just because you’ve started thinking superficially, not seeing the essence, cause and effect, has nothing to do with the heart.
I observe a weakening of the cognitive abilities of the mind, in general, in humanity. Moreover, I see en masse how people react to my requests to go to Google and find the answer there; they often even accuse and attack: “Is it that hard for you to just tell us?”
I left “Zapretgram” and don’t want to go back, because there, to get anything done, you need those stupid reels. I can’t call them anything else.
When I see serious, cool specialists, my colleagues and acquaintances, posting this nonsense, I get the feeling they have to simplify themselves down to a paramecium or an amoeba to get a crazy number of likes, comments, and subscriptions.
If you want to grow your readership and followers, become an amoeba, a paramecium. I don’t need followers who come for that paramecium.
Some people are genuinely great at conveying deep meanings in reels and short videos, but usually, something extra is needed there. Although we do have short 2-5 minute videos.
At one point, I was incredibly happy that streams and live broadcasts appeared. Then all sorts of stories came along, sometimes called clips, shorts, it doesn’t matter.
People have been trained to consume short content. This has led to people no longer reading articles or long posts. They read the first sentence and ask a question without reading further.
Our articles are 6,000 characters long; there aren’t just one or two sentences, there are hundreds. Before, those who were hungry, greedy for information, searching for answers to questions, would randomly stumble upon the Keys of Mastery and spend hundreds of hours rereading articles.
But now, they don’t want to explore or search for information; it’s easier to write in a chat or comments and wait for someone to reply. And that’s an endless game of telephone. I won’t even mention fact-checking across multiple sources.
But if before we used to say it was young people spending time on “TikToks,” shorts, and memes, now women and men my age, 40+, are also susceptible to this.
I’m happy when people honestly admit, “I didn’t understand,” because before they were embarrassed, thinking, how can I, I’ll look stupid.
See also: What the Popularization of Spirituality and Positive Thinking Has Led To
Fragmented Requests Without Context
One form of short content is messaging on social networks. When you and a friend are texting, tossing phrases back and forth, everything might be clear to the two of you.
But the problem is that this carries over into real life.
I periodically check our Support Service to read what’s happening there, what kind of requests come in. Before, when someone reached out, they would say: “I am so-and-so, I want this, this, and this.” Sometimes they’d forget to write their email, but at least it was clear.
Now a person comes with a request, and you have to pull a lot of information out of them to give an answer. It’s unclear what it’s written for, what to do with it; it seems like there might be a solution, but who are you writing to? There’s no first name, no last name, no identifiers, no recognition.
When you meet with friends, you don’t need to introduce yourself, say who you are, what you do; everyone knows you. And imagine you go to an unfamiliar place and behave exactly the same way, and you’re surprised that people react to you somehow differently. But nothing is known about you, and you show nothing.
And this is also one of the features born on social networks. We simply don’t think, when going somewhere, that we need to provide a complete set of information.
Those who have worked with techies, with programmers, have been trained by them, because until you provide everything, they won’t even budge. You need to gather everything, not just show it, but provide proof, and only then do you ask your question.
And somehow this got internalized. Wherever you go, you lay out the full picture: came here, clicked here, got this result, it should be different, I assume. And with screenshots right away, so the issue gets resolved faster.
But why am I drawing your attention to this? The same thing happens in your thoughts, in your head. And then you wonder why the issues in your life don’t get resolved. You’re not providing any context. The way you write, communicating in fragments, reflects the way you think.
There’s no context there, there’s nowhere for an answer to come from, because nothing is known.
If everyone were telepathic and clairvoyant, that would be a super skill. You read something or watch something, and a portion of information goes along with it immediately. But we don’t live in a society of telepaths and clairvoyants yet.
That’s why it’s important to be able to convey information, or rather, your thought or need. If you don’t know how, you need to learn.
See also: Why an inner request is important and how to formulate it to get what you need from life
Unexpressed needs. “You imagined it yourself, you got offended yourself”
There’s another side to this, when you don’t express your need in words. It turns into “you imagined it yourself, you got offended yourself.”
There is some need, some want, a desire, but you don’t voice it.
For example, a wife waited for her husband in the evening, set the table, lit candles, but he came home tired, ate, and didn’t notice anything. She sat there, didn’t say a word, and then got offended herself.
The same thing happens from the men’s side. It’s just that in men, offense is expressed as anger, rage.
Why voice it at all? Well, it’s time for everyone to become telepaths and clairvoyants. I just thought it, and you already read it.
Thanks to this short-form content, to truly understand someone, you really do need to be a telepath. I won’t express my emotions, you read them off me. I won’t voice my thoughts, you figure them out yourself.
But that’s how someone behaves who does the exact same thing to others.
It gives the impression that the whole society is supposedly ready to be in 5D, or rather, to use the abilities and possibilities of 5D, because all their other functions are falling away. But at the same time, they won’t be able to be there themselves because they exist in the 3D world.
The gap between the level of information and applying what you’ve read in life
Alongside the trend for short content, I see a continuation of the trend of information consumption.
The gap is growing in terms of the level of being informed (people come more informed), but in terms of action, and most importantly, applying everything they themselves talk about, this gap is widening.
For 2023, we set a goal at the Learning Center to move the audience into practice. Because many people do a meditation once, just for show. And nothing changes from that.
A false sense of spirituality appears: “I am working on myself,” but you don’t deal with some important aspects. And so we created a practice tracker where you can check in every day.
For those who are not clients, we made a selection of basic practices. For clients, we transformed the “Support Webinar” into a “Practice Workshop,” which now has over 20 individual practices.
Then we went further, and in the new version of the “Dance with the Shadow” course, we added weekly practices. We essentially led people through it so that you do very simple tasks every day, but the result you get at the end is amazing.
We have also already implemented this in the form of cards, where you only need to do one action: one mantra, one question, one practice. It’s very clear, very digestible.
The Value of Regular Simple Actions. Simplification
Before, I used to look at such simple things skeptically. Because those of you who have self-discipline and willpower just take it and do it every day. But people love it when they do something together.
That’s why we’ve already launched several challenges.
We set ourselves the goal of simplifying as much as possible, but not in the sense of dumbing it down to attract new people. That’s not the kind of simplification.
I saw the value in simple actions, because any person can do one simple action over the course of a week. Simplify in order to get a big result.
One simple action every day, after 30 days, gives a tremendous result. You just need to do it.
Who has noticed this trend towards preferring short content among their circle?
The article is based on broadcasts #16 Ask KM, #18 Ask KM