The TikTok Effect: How Short-Form Video is Rewiring Young Brains Once upon a time, boredom existed. People waited for buses without staring at glowing rectangles. Students read books longer than a nasi lemak receipt. Conversations lasted more than seven seconds before someone felt the urge to check their phone. Those days, apparently, are now ancient history. Welcome to the TikTok era , where attention spans are shrinking faster than ice cubes in a Malaysian afternoon. Short-form video platforms didn’t just change entertainment. They quietly rewired how young brains process the world. Every swipe delivers a burst of instant stimulation: jokes, drama, beauty hacks, conspiracy theories, someone dancing next to a cooking tutorial, followed immediately by a guy reviewing fried chicken somewhere in Shah Alam. It’s a nonstop dopamine buffet, and the brain loves it. That’s the problem. The human brain wasn’t designed to process hundreds of micro-entertainment clips in a singl...