Overview
In the digital age, sharing funny photos and videos has become a common practice among friends and coworkers. However, some references in pop culture suggest that sharing such videos, particularly long-duration videos, may be annoying rather than enjoyable for the recipient.
To investigate this claim, we designed a short experiment testing whether the length of a video affects the level of interest or annoyance experienced by the recipient.
The Experiment
For our experiment, we recruited 400 survey takers from Amazon Mechanical Turk. Participants were presented with a vignette scenario in which a friend or coworker wanted to show them a funny photo or video of varying lengths. Unbeknownst to participants, we randomly assigned whether the medium in question was a photo, a 30-second video, a 2-minute video, or a 5-minute video. The photo condition served as our control group.
Participants were instructed to, “Imagine it’s almost the end of the workday and a friend/co-worker approaches you wanting to show you a funny [photo / 30-second video / 2-minute video / 5-minute video].” We randomized which of the four conditions participants saw [in brackets].
Each participant was then asked “On a scale from ‘annoyed’ to ‘interested’, how do you feel? (1 = Very Annoyed, 7 = Very Interested)” using a 1-7 scale.
Results
Overall, videos did not seem to be too annoying relative to a photo. Comparing the video conditions against the photo condition (avg. = 4.97), we found only marginal differences for the 5-minute video (avg. = 4.56, p = 0.067) and the 2-minute video (avg. = 4.60, p = 0.096), but not for the 30-second video (avg. = 4.79, p = 0.421).
Additionally, when analyzing all four conditions linearly, we observed a marginally significant effect (p = 0.085), suggesting that each additional minute of video length caused a -0.07 reduction in interest and increase in annoyance on the 1-7 scale.
It is essential to note that these effects are relatively small. Replicating the experiment would be necessary before definitively asserting that longer videos reduce interest or increase annoyance. Moreover, individual preferences likely play a significant role, as videos shared by friends with similar senses of humor are likely to be more interesting and enjoyable.
Conclusion
Although the results suggest a potential link between video length and viewer interest, the effect is relatively weak and should be further examined. Nevertheless, if you plan to share a long video with a friend or coworker, you may want to ensure that they genuinely wish to watch it. A simple courtesy of asking for their interest beforehand may avoid any potential annoyance.
Methods Note
We used Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis to test for significant differences in interest/annoyance across our experimental conditions. A small p-value (less than 0.05) indicates a statistically significant difference. To explore significant interactions between the main results and participant demographics, we employed OLS regression analyses with interaction terms. Data and survey materials for this study are available upon request.