Seeing Your Mindless Face: How Viewing One's Live Self Interrupts Mindless Short-Form Video Scrolling

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that self-related cues, especially subtle ones like a black screen, can effectively interrupt mindless short-form video scrolling and promote self-control.

Contribution

It introduces a novel app with self-related cues that disrupt mindless viewing and provides design guidelines for self-awareness interventions in mobile media.

Findings

Self-related cues disrupt mindless video viewing.

Black screen cues increase users' intention to use the intervention.

Subtle cues are preferred over explicit self-images.

Abstract

The widespread, addictive consumption of short-form videos, which allegedly causes "brain rot," has become an urgent public concern. This study proposes that self-related cues serve as an intrinsic, self-reflective strategy that enhances self-control over media overuse. We developed an app that de-immerses users by periodically displaying different self-related cues (live camera, selfie, name in text, and black screen) and tested their effects in a laboratory experiment (N=84). Overall, findings show that self-related cues effectively disrupt mindless viewing, enabling users to voluntarily stop short-form video consumption. Interestingly, the black screen, intended as a control, elicited the greatest intention to use the app: Participants noted in the follow-up interview that they preferred the subtler reflection on a black screen over the explicit image from a live camera. The findings offer practical design guidelines for implementing self-awareness interventions in mobile contexts, including which modalities work best and how real-time contextual anchoring enhances effectiveness.