The Rise of Bite-Sized Content 

Bite sized content seems to have taken the world by a storm! You either consume them or create them. What began with Vine back in 2015 and then moved on to platforms like TikTok, is now a phenomenon that has changed the very landscape of internet and the very way content is consumed in today’s day and age. Every platform seems to want to recreate the hype and consumer base that bite sized content has now; there’s Snapchat, Instagram reels and YouTube shorts. 

The numbers are quite alarming to be honest. These 30-60 sec videos have billions of people glued to their phones, scrolling away. What’s more interesting is that half of this number is of people below the age of 24. A mere 7 years ago, these videos didn’t exist. That was a time for longer, more detailed videos. Today there are over 700 million short videos created and posted every (?) 

Did people have more time then? Has the world suddenly picked up its pace so that people only have the time and attention span for bite sized content? Today our attention span down to mere second, less than that of the proverbial goldfish.  

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Why Bite-Sized content? 

It makes us wonder, why have these short videos taken the world by a storm?  

Bite-sized content is easy and takes less time to consume. With every passing day, fat books with information stuffed in them is becoming more and more obsolete. Any information you need to learn can be broken down into short, easily consumable videos and thus the world makes the obvious choice of choosing these over any other form of content.  

Bite sized content gives people an option to learn in a more fun, engaging, attractive and quicker way. Moreover, with the rise of technology and social media, attention span is already on a steady decline making bite sized doses the preferred form of content consumption.  

Bringing the world closer 

Bite sized content, however, has made the world smaller. It has given people the chance to reach out with people across the globe, especially during the pandemic. When the pandemic struck, many museums around the world faced indefinite closure and through this content form have acted swiftly to reach out to their audience, especially the younger audience, across the world in a fun, engaging and innovative way.  

The Uffizi Gallery in Florence, which just established its official new website three years ago, is using short video to attract new audiences to their statues and paintings. By matching exhibits with emojis, music lyrics or funny quotes, the museum is making its artwork more accessible and relevant to the young generation of art lovers. 

Small businesses too are also using short videos as a way to reach new audiences who might have never heard of them or their products before. In 2018, Douyin, the leading Chinese short-video platform, as part of a social responsibility initiative to alleviate poverty in China, launched a campaign to help individual farmers and small businesses in China’s mountainous areas sell farm produce. As one of its pilot projects, Douyin invited content producers to create four 15-second short videos showcasing the quality of their products.  

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Learning in Bite-Sized 

Another amazing and unprecedented use of bite sized video content was to facilitate learning and information sharing during the pandemic. Not only it is an engaging and attracting way to encourage people to learn, it is a surprisingly effective way to teach and learn through these bite sized doses as it uses audio-visual as well as textual cues.  

Many viewers have also commented that the benefits of bite-sized content are that you can discover new interests and learn new skills with a scroll of your phone screen.  

Back in 2019, Tik-Tok launched a campaign in India whose primary goal was to increase learning for the Indian Digital Community. This ignited the demand for short educational content. Tik Tok then started collaborating with educational institutions, social workers and popular content creators to develop short videos which were 15 seconds long. In a few short weeks, the campaign had created 10 million videos and a whooping 48 billion views. The future for bright sized learning is bright, as the possibilities are infinite. From educational to recreational, from personal to professional, it can be used for anything and everything.  

Bite-sized are the future of content creation, learning and connecting. It is a great way to reach out to new people and also to learn about other communities and other ethnicities because believe it or not you can travel the world and back all by sitting at home and consuming data through your phone in the form of bite-sized content.