Are YouTube viewers treating long-form videos like Shorts?

A recent report published by the social media engagement platform Metricool delivered some telling results about YouTube‘s long-form videos. Those uploads, which once made up the entirety of the YouTube library, are still popular. The arrival of YouTube Shorts, however, seems to have changed the habits of the typical U.S. YouTube user.

These ideas come from Metricool’s 2026 YouTube Study, a broad survey of the titular video destination. By pulling data from 799,718 videos across 71,177 accounts, Metricool drew sweeping conclusions about the U.S. creator economy.

Let’s start with the uncomplicated good news: The line is still going up. Year-over-year, YouTube videos are getting more views on average, no matter the format. On the long-form side of the platform, views are up 76% year-over-year, according to Metricool, while watch time has risen by 11%. Shorts traffic, meanwhile, has more than doubled year-over-year, with 61% of all measured views now coming from the Shorts feed.

If you look at the difference between the long-form viewership uptick and the long-form watch time uptick, you should suss out the most notable result of Metricool’s 2026 YouTube Study. While viewers are watching more long-form videos, they’re moving on to the next one at a rapid pace, with much less average watch time than in previous eras. YouTube’s long-form engagement is down 45% year-over-year, Metricool reported, and even on Shorts, the average view duration has fallen dramatically, even as YouTube facilitates longer videos

The decline of long-form attention spans has massive ramifications for advertisers. If viewers are clicking away earlier, then there are fewer opportunities to serve mid-roll ads to those viewers. That’s how Metricool explains a negative trend it observed: A 51% year-over-year drop in YouTube ad impressions.

Years after observers worried that Shorts would cannibalize YouTube’s long-form viewership, Metricool has hit on a different concern. Shorts hasn’t taken away from long-form videos, but has seemingly assimilated them instead. Long-forms now behave more like Shorts.

Metricool’s solution to that problem involves — you guessed it — gaming the algorithm. Once upon a time, YouTubers posted as often as possible to please the watch time machine, but in the current meta, Metricool is pushing restraint. “2-4 videos per week is the sweet spot for maximum long-form video views,” reads the report.

Some creators and brands may need to adjust their approach on YouTube, but even as the platform changes, it is still indispensable. Metricool’s findings show that YouTube reaches nine out of every ten Americans, so it remains the place to go to make your voice heard, even if viewers might tune you out sooner than before.