Is this a young people thing? I'm 40. I have never liked Shorts. What am I supposed to get out of 10 seconds of video? And all the sudden jump-cuts, and big obnoxious one-word-at-a-time subtitles... They're all literally unwatchable.
Also, what you’re describing sounds like when you’ve haven’t spent enough time on the shorts for the content recommendation algorithm to learn your preferences. Which I agree, is unwatchable. I saw it recently when my friend put on YouTube shorts on a guest account (on an Airbnb smart tv). it was bad. But spend enough time and that will change. But best you don’t!
Then again, I hardly use YouTube, so I don’t think I’m the target audience for this.
"is it a young people thing": no, obviously not because nothing is.
You're just as prone to addictive behaviours at 20 as at 40 at 80.
There might be some differences as to how you happen to be exposed, perhaps because of how your literal social network is behaving, but that's obviously not intrinsic.
I mean, yes, perhaps "young people" are slightly more likely to be exposed to it via advertising/peers/etc, but anyone with a similar exposure can be a victim.
I think that's all related, is at least partially a matter of what I'm accustomed to, but is largely just an inherent part of how I am.