Localized title: They Put “How to Cure Dopagaki” in a Short Video, and It Turned Into a Box Trap — Fighting Dopamine With Dopamine, Courtesy of the Algorithmic Hunter
1. The setup: the cure was, unbelievably, a short video
In August 2026, the Japanese internet slang term “Dopagaki” became a major topic on social media. It is a self-mocking or derisive label for the state of endlessly chasing brief bursts of stimulation from short videos and social media. It is internet slang, not a medical diagnosis.
Then psychiatrist Shion Kabasawa posted on X: “How to cure ‘Dopagaki.’ I made it into a short video.”
The setup was almost too strong.
“We are going to help people who cannot stop watching short videos. First, please watch this short video.”
No wonder the replies immediately turned into lines such as “fight dopamine with dopamine,” “are they so far gone that this would not reach them unless it was a Short?” and “is this an improv-comedy contest now?” The entrance and exit were in the same place, like handing out a stop-smoking guide inside a cigarette pack.
2. What the original news actually showed: a tendency for scores to be lower as use got longer
The Sankei News article that helped trigger the discussion drew on Japan’s 2026 National Assessment of Academic Ability and examined the relationship between time spent on social media and academic performance. Its headline said that half of ninth graders spent more than three hours a day on social media, and the article also quoted a minor saying they would not know what to do if social media disappeared.
Japan’s Ministry of Education itself explained, in an analysis released on August 3, 2026, that students who spent more time on social media, video viewing and similar activities tended to have lower correct-answer rates and scores across subjects.
But the ministry’s same explanation also found a tendency for students who were more confident in their ICT skills to score higher. So the conclusion is not “looking at a screen makes you stupid.” A smartphone is not a poisonous slab. Questions of use, time allocation and other factors are mixed together.
3. “Social media lowers grades” and “study time got displaced” are different claims
One reply made the point this way: “Wrong: more social-media time lowers academic performance. Correct: less study time lowers academic performance.” That is an important challenge.
A day has only 24 hours. If social media expands by three hours, those three hours have to come from somewhere: study, sleep, exercise, reading, family conversation, or another activity. Thinking in terms of time displacement can explain an association with grades without assuming that social media itself is intrinsically toxic.
Other factors may also influence both “time on social media” and “grades”: already struggling with schoolwork, disrupted sleep, an unstable home environment, high stress, and so on. That is why a cross-sectional aggregate is not enough to draw a single arrow from “social media” to “lower academic performance.”
Do not take a permanent marker and add a causal arrow to a correlation chart. That is Statistics 101.
4. Even so, “it merely steals time” may not explain everything
At the same time, a growing body of research suggests that short-form video may not be explained by time theft alone.
A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis in Psychological Bulletin combined 71 studies and 98,299 participants. Greater short-form-video use was associated with poorer cognitive functioning overall at an average of r=-0.34, with associations of r=-0.38 for attention and r=-0.41 for inhibitory control. In rough terms, the relationship was not zero, and it was especially noticeable for sustaining attention and stopping impulses.
However, a 2026 systematic review focused on young people found that 88% of its 42 included studies were cross-sectional. So current research still cannot fully separate the possibility that short videos reduce attention from the possibility that people who already find it harder to sustain attention use more short videos.
The research is saying neither “not guilty” nor “case closed, guilty.” The current state is closer to: the circumstantial evidence has piled up enough that the investigation is still very much ongoing.
5. “Dopamine comes out, therefore addiction” removes too much of the explanation
“Dopagaki” has an almost unfairly perfect ring to it, but it is not a medical term. Explaining the brain with the single phrase “dopamine addiction” is also far too crude.
Dopamine is not simply “pleasure juice.” It is a neurotransmitter involved in complicated ways in reward learning, motivation, and learning what matters. There is no simple meter that says, “A new video appeared, X milliliters of dopamine were released, therefore addiction.”
The more useful things to watch are behaviors such as wanting to stop but being unable to, using longer than intended, cutting into sleep or study, and letting other activities disappear.
Ironically, sprinkling the word “dopamine” over an explanation to make everything sound scientific is itself a rather dopamine-flavored shortcut.
6. “TV in the Showa era, games in Heisei, smartphones in Reiwa” — is it all the same story?
There is some truth to the counterargument that “people used to say TV addiction and game addiction too; youth-bashing has merely changed media.” Adults have a long history of declaring that children are doomed whenever a new form of entertainment appears.
But short-form video also differs from old television. You can move on after a few dozen seconds. One finger gives you an endless stream. Recommendations change for each user. There is no fixed ending time. And the instant you think “this is boring,” you can move to the next item in 0.2 seconds.
Television had the wall of a program schedule. Games had stages and save points. A short-video feed is a station announcing: “Last train? There isn’t one. Another train arrives 24 hours a day.”
So both “this is exactly the same as before” and “smartphones alone are the worst thing in history” are sloppy conclusions. We need to look at both the similarities and the new design features.
7. Enter the “box trap for catching raccoon dogs” theory
Looking at the whole sequence, it starts to feel strangely like a box trap.
The bait is a short, pleasant video. Entry is free. One item after another appears, increasingly matched to your preferences. The user learns, “If I come here, boredom disappears immediately.” Then, when a spare moment appears, the app opens before deliberate thought does.
And then the feed serves a short video called “How to Stop Watching Short Videos.”
It is as if you put bait inside a box trap to catch a raccoon dog, except the bait itself says, “Watch out for box traps.”
And immediately after reading it, there is another piece of bait sitting right beside it.
8. Real box traps also start by making the target feel safe
What makes the metaphor funnier is that it is not pure fantasy. The Wildlife Management Research Center in Hyogo explains a basic box-trapping procedure: first use bait to lower a wild animal’s wariness, let it become comfortable entering deep into the trap, and only then use the trigger.
The basic pattern is:
put out bait → let it eat several times without anything happening → it learns this is a safe feeding spot → it goes farther inside → the trap activates.
Force that into a short-video-feed analogy and you get:
recommended video → instant reward every time the app opens → “come here when bored” becomes a habit → sessions get longer → suddenly an hour is gone.
Of course, human app use and wildlife trapping are not the same scientific model. But as a metaphor for entering with little resistance and having behavior reinforced through repetition, the picture fits almost suspiciously well.
The algorithm is remarkably good at baiting despite never joining a hunters’ association.
9. So is “treatment by Short” actually wrong?
This is the most interesting part: not necessarily.
If your target audience watches only short-form content, putting a 30-minute lecture somewhere else may mean they never reach the entrance at all. If a short video delivers health information or public education and then moves people toward a longer explanation or a real-world action, it is rational in the sense of going to where the audience already is.
The problem is the exit design. Half a second after a Short makes you think “I should put my phone down,” the next stimulus arrives from the bottom of the screen. If the treatment message is merely consumed as one more item in the feed, it becomes a stop-smoking poster stuck to the bottom of an ashtray in the smoking area.
For it to work, the path cannot end at “watched it.” It needs to lead to something outside the feed: disable notifications, close the app, put the device in another room, switch to long-form content, or another concrete action.
10. Why the replies turned into an improv-comedy venue
Responses to the post quickly spread in directions such as “fight dopamine with dopamine,” “you are showing that in a Short too?”, “are they so far gone that only a Short can reach them?”, and “does this apply to adults?”
That is not merely people making fun of it. The form of the post itself collides with its message, so the contradiction is visible before anyone has to explain it.
Other reactions matter too: “better to sit quietly looking at a phone than make noise on a motorcycle,” “Showa had TV, Heisei had games, Reiwa has smartphones,” and “depending on how you use it, the same device can help you learn.” The analysis falls apart quickly if smartphone use is turned into a moral ranking of people.
There was also an online line claiming that “a philosopher said people without culture hunger more for stimulation.” In the searches conducted for this article, no reliable primary source for that attribution could be verified. If you are going to summon a philosopher into an argument, at least bring the philosopher’s name and book along.
11. Realistic countermeasures change the environment rather than relying on willpower
Looking at the research and at behavioral design, a more realistic strategy than “use sheer grit and do not look at your phone” is to reduce the entrances and the chains that keep the behavior going.
For example, put the device out of reach while studying or working. Turn off unnecessary notifications. Remove short-video apps from the home screen. Do not bring the phone into bed. Decide when you are going to watch Shorts. If you need specific information, search for it deliberately instead of making an infinite feed the entrance.
The important thing is not to turn this into a religion where “watching a Short means you lost.” Short videos can also be useful for learning, as an entry point to news, or for discovering hobbies. The issue is whether you are using the system, or whether you suddenly notice that the system has kept using your attention and time.
The strongest box-trap countermeasure is not lecturing the raccoon dog. It is changing the route to the feeding spot in the first place.
12. Conclusion: a box trap for Dopagaki — but with an exit, the entrance can still be useful
Reduce the whole episode to one picture and it looks like this:
“Want to stop watching short videos? Click here” → play a short video → the algorithm prepares the next video.
Visually, it is a box trap. And once you learn that real box trapping begins by baiting the target and lowering its wariness, the metaphor becomes needlessly high-resolution.
But the data should not be turned into part of the joke. What the Ministry of Education reported was a tendency for longer use to be associated with lower academic performance. Research has also found associations with attention and inhibitory control, but the causal relationship is still being sorted out. Reducing human behavior to the single word “dopamine” is crude too.
So the most defensible conclusion is neither to demonize short-form video nor dismiss the entire issue as another generational panic. Understand the strength of the persuasive design, and design your own exit.
And about this particular public message, there is still one line that deserves the last word:
Fight dopamine with dopamine. Meanwhile, the next Short is already waiting beside the trap’s exit.
