The popularity of media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube gave rise to the phenomenon of “doomscrolling,” an activity in which users spend excessive amounts of time ‘mindlessly’ scrolling through short videos, reinforcing the widespread belief that especially young people are addicted to this form of entertainment. Yet the data tells a different story. Although YouTube Shorts of up to three minutes account for around 75% of total views on the platform, more than half of the time spent on YouTube is devoted to videos longer than 20 minutes. At the same time, short-form content is becoming longer: Instagram now allows videos of up to three minutes, and TikTok even permits uploads of up to one hour. The rebirth of long-form video content suggests that young people are not excessively distracted by or addicted to short videos, but are increasingly pushing back against them and seeking longer, more immersive media experiences.
In 2020-21, a wave of unexpected regulations by the Chinese government targeting several sectors, including real estate, private education, and fintech, combined with rising international tensions surrounding the COVID pandemic, led Western financial markets to label China as “uninvestable.” Less than five years later, that consensus has already collapsed. In 2025, Chinese equities rank among the world’s best performing markets. More specifically, China’s power companies are emerging as global leaders underpinning AI investment, with CATL’s batteries becoming the standard even for American data centers. Finally, just weeks ago, China issued government bonds in both US dollars and euros, and demand from Western investors exceeded supply by a factor of 25 to 30, highlighting the growing willingness of Western investors to increase their exposure to Chinese assets.
The uproar in Europe over the United States’ new national security strategy, which pledges support for European parties resisting the EU’s supranational power, misses a simple fact: these parties, such as Germany’s AfD and France’s National Rally, are already at the height of their influence, shaping the EU’s agenda from within. Just last month, a united front of right-wing parties in the European Parliament, from "extreme" to moderate, voted to weaken environmental regulations, exempting 80% of companies from the EU’s corporate sustainability reporting rules. More recently, the EU agreed to allow member states to establish asylum processing centers in non-EU countries. In short, even without US meddling, Europe is already drifting away from supranational rulemaking by the EU and toward greater national sovereignty.
