Elon Musk has said that short-form video content may be one of the inventions that has reduced people’s quality of life, warning that it is h+rming attention spans and cognitive health.
The Tesla and SpaceX chief made the comment during a recent interview with Katie Miller, released on December 9, 2025, where he discussed wide-ranging issues including the future of humanity, artificial intelligence, aliens and religion.
When asked to name an invention that has “made us worse, not better,” Musk said, “Maybe short-form videos,” saying they appear to be “r+tting people’s brains.”
Short-form video content rose to global prominence with the rapid growth of TikTok, the social media platform owned by Chinese technology company ByteDance. Launched in 2016, TikTok popularised brief, highly engaging videos lasting from a few seconds to about a minute.
Following TikTok’s success, other major social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube introduced similar features, further expanding the influence of short-form video content worldwide.
