College students do not spend all their lives studying or preparing for the next exam, which isn’t something that bears repeating.
Once that pencil is put down, every one of them has their own hobbies or different uses of their time. Watching content on streaming or video platforms has always been one of those.
As time has gone on and students have grown, so have their interests in different subjects and niches within the long-form content of apps like YouTube, watching streams of all kinds on Twitch, but also the shorter-form content on apps like Tiktok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels.

What makes that kind of content interesting to college students? What type of content entices a college student audience? Do most students watch the people they did when they were growing up, or is the nuance of new creators what has increased the attention towards content creators who focus on making longer videos?
College students who were in elementary through high school when YouTube came about were likely to have content creators who moved to apps like TikTok or stayed but began making different videos that expanded their content range.
Long-form content is still a staple of apps like YouTube, but three- and even ten-minute content has made its way to TikTok for most creators. However, it mostly has to do with the genre or niche of the video.
Long-form content is primarily used to delve deeper into a given topic; that subject can be serious, like explaining the world’s history from the very first recorded year of history to the end of last year.
This kind of content can be most interesting to students who want to understand the world in short bursts better, whether due to the area falling out of focus in school or just a drive to learn more as time goes on.

They can be used to pass the time and review things someone has seen before, like movie and show reviews.
Content like this is likely the most versatile, as niche projects can be reviewed so much that they gain more traction as time goes on, or deeper conversations on existing pieces of entertainment can be had to have a more nuanced and developed look at entertainment that has shaped the world.
The most popular variety is for entertainment, which includes even answering questions a person never really thought to ask, like the discussion of true crime or what is considered the most marketable product in a store after combining them together. Of course, that can also include gaming and vlog content, arguably the most popular.
True crime is a controversial topic in nature, as there are groups of people who find the practice of having online discussions based on crimes to be disrespectful. In contrast, other groups express that they merely wish to gain an understanding of why someone would commit crimes of a given nature.
The nuance that deep and lengthy discussions can provide is undoubtedly one of the many reasons this kind of content is so popular, as every single one of these options has so much to discuss.
Vlogs and Lifestyle content are even more popular than gaming, and they do not necessarily have to deal with nuanced conversations. Still, there are times that creators get personal, whether for gossip reasons or for something that gives meaning to the content outside of the escapism.
The desire for escapism applies to all these niches but primarily to gaming. Particularly when watching a game with a meaningful story being played. Though, that isn’t all the gaming genre of video provides. Its representations of different struggles and conversations also bring forth a realness in its content.
Though the genre is not purely grounded in its ability to be serious, it can also build community and educate not only in the game being played but in the structure of gaming and how to be more immersed in the community.
Both short- and long-form content are very interesting and versatile despite being able to do many similar things and apply many of the same messages.
The entertainment format is still different enough to warrant a discussion as to how, despite the belief that short-form content is the only thing college students who are Gen Z view, it actually is not the case.

The truth is, it would generally be incorrect to say that most people at all either only watch short-form or long-form content. Each has a different amount of time to commit, so if short-form were to prevail compared to long-form, that would likely be a reason why.
Short-form content is often demonized in discussions between ages and generations, as most older generations believe short-form content is only to be used as a distraction from responsibility.
While a break from responsibility should never be attacked in such a way, that is also a vast oversimplification of what short-form content can actually do.
Short-form content can be watched when a person has only a tiny amount of time to spare but wishes to watch something that may help their process and not be so taxing.
It can be used to find different kinds of content that provide information on the state of the world or the state of a specific person’s political interests and wellness, which can be better fact-checked outside of the app after it’s been learned.
It can even be a tool for people with disabilities or people who feel unsafe to acknowledge that they are not alone in the way that they think. At the end of 2024, it became a place where internationally popular recipes could be found and made with family.
College students are expected to learn as much as possible about the world and their career fields and have nuanced discussions.
If they can find interesting information and learn something along the way, what could be the harm in letting the internet be used in a positive and relaxing way?
