We live in the age of the short attention span. And yet: Finding a recipe in a post requires first scrolling past a “novel” detailing the chef’s personal experience with the dish. Even platforms once known for short-form media are stretching the limits: YouTube videos once were within 10 minutes; now they can and do reach 12 hours. Even TikTok is going long, reportedly testing a new limit of up to 15 minutes for some creators.

Surely some of this is born of genuine audience interest. Length, after all, is sometimes associated with quality. Sometimes, storytelling deserves a surprising length. Other times, it does not. Online media are frequently lengthened not because the subject demands it but because creators are attempting to game algorithms (算法) to make more money. Algorithms, on the most basic level, are supposed to recommend whatever else people post online. Yet in the process, they end up encouraging people to generate a lot of junk.

Some of these apps seem to realize what they’ve done. TikTok and YouTube give users the ability to speed things up. But the solution only underscores the problem. Because it gives rise to all those ads that run before videos or between paragraphs. Any extra real estate for these ads, be it space on a page or time on a podcast, is a chance for platforms to make more money.

Some algorithms may in fact prioritize length as an indicator of quality. But it’s hard to say for sure, because tech companies tend not to give many details about their inner workings. In some ways, whether an algorithm prefers longer videos matters less than whether creators think an algorithm does. If people start believing that longer videos do “better”, they’ll make more of them.

People are afraid that generative AI will pollute the Internet. But social-media and search algorithms have been doing that for years. It’s even cheaper and easier for generative AI to produce long content. All of this is just a taste of what’s to come.

【小题1】How does the author introduce the topic?

A．By telling stories.	B．By referring to studies.
C．By giving examples.	D．By offering personal experience.

【小题2】Why do the online media creators often lengthen their content?

A．To enhance their storytelling abilities.	B．To take advantage of algorithms for profit.
C．To gather data concerning popular subjects.	D．To provide the audience with interesting ideas.

【小题3】What does the underlined word “underscores” mean in paragraph 3?

A．Highlights.

B．Upgrades.

C．Overlooks.

D．Forecasts.

【小题4】What can be inferred from the last two paragraphs?

A．Algorithms are sure to pick out longer videos.

B．The development of AI will facilitate longer content.

C．The best content is lengthened by video producers.

D．Search algorithms are easily polluted and destroyed.