TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning

For me, the worst part is that it is so hard to go back to previous forms of media. I often delete these short form content apps in an effort to quit them, but it is now so difficult to get engaged with "slower" forms of media. The thing with Tiktok isn't the length of the media, it's just how fast-paced and "catchy" it is. I could watch an hour long fast paced video just fine, but watching a slow paced show, or reading a book is so much more difficult.

It truly is like a drug.

Try the video speed adjustments. Most sites offer 2x now. Up to 4x is getting around, and that's generally going to be past what most people can understand for speech, even with practice. I do a lot of YouTube long-form content but I do a lot of it at 2x or even 2.5x. There's also a lot of such things that are effectively podcasts with irrelevant video backgrounds, or only rarely relevant video, so you can do something else entirely while listening.