To Practitioners Addicted to Watching Short Videos

(Minghui.org) I’m a new practitioner and a professional producer of short videos. I recently read a cultivation article discussing the dangers of being attached to watching short videos on your mobile phone. I’d like to share my thoughts on this.

A Vivid Dream

A few days ago, I dreamed I could fly through the air, and I saw my husband who creates short videos and mainly makes artworks for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He was laying on the sofa at home while managing a video on his phone.

He directed a group of young men and women to dance, and they performed very distorted modern dance moves.

I also saw China’s top female star leading a crowd on the plaza below. Countless people followed her—including many Westerners—and participated in this massive production.

In the dream, I flew up to the building to play. When I returned, I searched everywhere for my phone, thinking I must have left it upstairs. I eventually found it buried under a pile of filthy food scraps and soaked in pickle juice.

Realization After Waking Up

After I woke up I realized that smartphones are now the root of all evil for practitioners—they are garbage soaked in filthy juices and the main tool evil spirits use to control humanity.

Entertainment programs use short videos. The deviant performances I saw my husband directing were videos we produced to bolster a CCP campaign.

My husband and I are professional short-video producers and self-media bloggers. Our videos often trend across platforms, and garner tens of millions of views. We brainstorm to create viral hits and gained extensive experience in audience engagement. We understand the algorithms of different platforms and we know “traffic secrets” used to produce various types of short videos.

My Experiences in Producing Short Videos

Based on my experience, nearly every short video you scroll through on mainstream media platforms is designed to hook you into developing an addiction to the medium. Every video recommended for you is chosen by the platform’s algorithm and personalized to align with your preferences. Just imagine the power they hold! They are a deadly trap that causes harm without leaving a trace.

Almost every producer whose content appears in your feed is a “top-tier” creator who carefully uses multiple layers of algorithmic filters to perfect the content. They use every trick in the book to hook you, many of which are unscrupulous. People can’t resist these temptations.

They are also a huge temptation for practitioners who still have human attachments. The moment they open a short video, they are instantly and subconsciously drawn in. Their minds become numb, and their conscious will is powerless to resist. Practitioners shouldn’t be complacent and think we can control ourselves and discern good from bad; that’s simply not the case.

Consider this: every day, tens of millions, perhaps even hundreds of millions, of professional creators work hard to produce captivating content in pursuit of fame and fortune—they dedicate immense effort to achieve their goal. Platforms are continually devising ways to motivate creators to innovate and fiercely compete for market share. How many can resist this mindset and create content for the greater good?

An Irresistible Force

The most powerful force in this devil’s den is called “attraction.” It is an irresistible force that targets your vulnerabilities and draws you in. I see how this substance can cause viewers to lose themselves, numbing their main consciousnesses while subtly instilling distorted ideas into them, like a pipeline conveying substances.

Behind what you see is a miasma of fame, fortune, and desire—powerful, often utterly base, and devoid of morality. Especially rampant are the demons of lust and passion, which are used to poison humanity in ever-changing ways, convincing people that this is the normal state of the world and causing them to grow numb to it. Humanity is being pushed towards destruction in this era of endless entertainment and chaos. We cultivators must stay clear-headed.

When I created short videos, I focused on increasing the number of views, attracting subscribers, and monetization. To engage audiences, I meticulously planned every second—designing specific thrill points to keep viewers interested. I calculated how many such moments were needed to prevent viewers from clicking away, and crafted explosive openings and ending twists.

I repeatedly refined videos until they delivered the excitement, thrills, and unforgettable moments viewers crave. The number of likes, comments, and shares determine how much traffic the platform gets. To tap into the largest traffic pool, I pushed myself relentlessly. Today’s Chinese creators are especially skilled at this—they’ve developed countless addictive strategies, and are driven by unimaginable profit.

The creators exploit human weaknesses by identifying what people obsess over and they tailor the content for them, under the saying “where there’s demand, there’s a market.” They’ve made audience engagement a profession, a specialized skill.

Society idolizes social media stars who are masters of the law of attraction. It’s safe to say that most short-video creators focus solely on engaging their audience. Those seemingly casual shares you see? Each one was meticulously crafted. Can you resist? The live streaming industry uses the same principle.

Short videos are addictive because they’re so accessible—just a tap on your phone delivers instant gratification and temporary joy.

When you crave a beautiful life, the video shows carefully crafted, scripted, filmed, and edited idyllic scenes, making you feel life is worth living and the future holds promise. When you seek comfort and ease, it provides hilarious, quirky, and lighthearted sketches, making time pass quickly and helping your mind and body relax. When you yearn for romance, it offers love stories, featuring handsome men, beautiful women, and celebrities, fueling your dreams and making love seem like a magical elixir. If you are focused on family and education, it shows adorable kids, exotic locations, elite schools, and diverse hobbies—making you yearn to have a child as charming as those you see.

In short, whatever you obsess over will be delivered in content more dazzling and unexpected than you could imagine. Your perceptions are constantly upended, and you don’t realize that you’re willingly being brainwashed. When you finally lift your eyes from your phone, you feel drained.

What Master Taught on This Topic

“Question: My cultivation state has had ups and downs. Sometimes I am attached to doing things that I’m fond of, such as spending time on the computer, on video games, or on my mobile phone, and it’s been to the detriment of my cultivation. How can I get better control of myself and stay diligent?

“Master: I’d like to give you my take on what people normally refer to as “addiction.” In the medical sciences it’s believed that addiction occurs when the part of the nervous system associated with addictive behaviors is stimulated and develops to a sufficient degree. But that’s not it. What’s happening, then? Over time, that addictive substance accumulates, and forms inside of your body an identical version of you that comes to control you. Because it is composed of strong attachment, and has your appearance, it has an equally strong desire to control you; it was formed out of strong desires, after all.

“It strikes me how easily human beings are controlled by foreign entities. The human body is really just a vessel made up of the foods a person has consumed and that is inherited from one’s parents. With the consumption of food, it grows, but it is really weak, as anyone or anything can control it. Things that are formed in other dimensions are sentient, and though their plane may be low, they still have the ability to control people since the human body is weak.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2019 New York Fa Conference”, Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. XV)

Eliminating My Addiction

I used to spend hours binge-watching short videos. I was completely absorbed, and justified my obsession by claiming it was a professional requirement. Short video platforms argue that audience demands and preferences are constantly evolving. The so-called iterative updates mean that content that worked yesterday won’t necessarily work today.

This keeps producers constantly on edge, fearing viewers will tire of the old and expect them to innovate new tactics that grab people’s attention so they explore fresh traffic secrets. This environment is a battleground where creators compete for traffic and audience time, what we call “internal competition.” This digital realm is a vast, all-encompassing web of traffic codes. Behind each stream of traffic are real, living people, all caught in this net, driven by these codes as if they’re under a spell—powerless to resist, their souls are detached from their bodies. And I was the most “involved” of all. I accumulated massive karma in the process.

Through practicing Falun Dafa, I gradually understood that many of my previous standards were wrong. If you don’t have a pure heart when making short videos, the content you post will harm people. This is because self-media acts as an amplifier, and is similar to propaganda; it can amplify both positive and negative messages.

I used to watch short videos day in and day out; I couldn’t even put my phone down when I ate, and sometimes I stayed up late searching for content. The first thing I did after I woke up was to check my phone. Over time, these activities severely damaged my eyesight.

After practicing cultivation, I realized that watching short videos is a strong attachment—it’s addictive and difficult to break. I resolved to cultivate away this habit and refused to let it control my life. Now, apart from studying the Fa and reading sharing articles, I’ve managed to control myself and rarely touch my phone anymore—unless it’s necessary for work. I can tell that behind those so-called “exciting” short videos, creators have gone to great lengths, even scheming and plotting, to capture people’s attention, all for fame and profit.

I hope practitioners who are attached to videos quickly wake up and recognize the corrupting influences behind them. They are not merely causing harm, they are the product of various distorted notions that emerged after society’s severe moral decline. They appear in various entertaining and seemingly lighthearted forms precisely to lower practitioners’ guard and exploit their vulnerabilities.

While I wrote this, I thought about practitioners who know they need to eliminate their attachment to short videos, but find it difficult to break free and exercise self-control. This causes them great distress.

I believe the key is to seek Master’s help at critical moments. When I resolved to remove this attachment, I silently asked Master to help me let it go. Otherwise, for someone like me who spent every waking moment immersed in short videos, except when I was asleep, it would be impossible to break the addiction.

Master helped me remove that substance. I no longer think about watching videos on my phone. Even when I occasionally open it, I can control myself. I no longer feel lost or restless without this, like I did before. It’s similar to alcohol addiction—relying solely on willpower to quit is extremely difficult. But when practitioners genuinely wish to cultivate, Master helps remove that long-formed substance.

This is my understanding at my level; please kindly point out anything inappropriate.