Life in clips

Short videos are not merely a trend but are transforming how Chinese people engage information, Chen Meiling reports.

Wei Bingbing says short videos are like "spiritual drugs" to her. Rappers, cute cats, handsome young men, spicy rice noodles, the latest movies, alluring sceneries in the Tibet autonomous region and the Maldives-"There are videos about almost anything you'd like to know about", the 25-year-old says.

The Beijing public relations worker has spent three to four hours a day on the short-video app Douyin, known as TikTok overseas, since 2018.

Most of the time, she watches Douyin during work breaks, before bed and on the 40-minute subway trips to and from work, a habit shared by many commuters, Wei says.

"You get addicted quickly. It's like eating sunflower seeds. You want to stop, but you can't," she says. "It has become part of my life. Without it, my life would be incomplete."

Market-research firm Sensor Tower reports that TikTok and Douyin were downloaded more than 626 million times globally during the first half of this year, ranking first in all popular apps worldwide.

Their revenue on the App Store and Google Play reached over $90.7 million in June, increasing more than eightfold year-on-year.

Short videos are also part of Wei's social life. She and her friends share the hottest topics they find on Douyin in a WeChat group and talk about them in person.

"How can I join the conversation if I don't know the latest buzzwords and jokes?" she says.

Watching fun short videos can ease work stress, and the targeted content can satisfy people's eagerness for information, she says, adding the only shortcoming is that she can lose track of time.