Short-Form Video Use Disorder (SFVUD): From Acquired Deep-Reading Resistance to Diagnosis A Narrative Review, the Cognitive Capture Cascade Model, Proposed Diagnostic Criteria, and the Amr and Khulood Short-Form Video Use Scale (AK-SFVUS)

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A clinical and educational pattern is becoming hard to ignore: capable readers report a near visceral resistance to sustained text, while the same individuals scroll fluently through hundreds of short videos at a sitting. We name this emerging endpoint acquired deep-reading resistance and argue that habitual short-form video consumption is one of its proximate drivers. Synthesizing behavioral neuroscience, cognitive psychology, reading science, and the fast-growing short-form video addiction literature, we make four contributions. First, we propose a mechanism-based clinical term, Short-Form Video Use Disorder (SFVUD), formed by analogy with internet gaming disorder and ICD-11 gaming disorder, in preference to brand-anchored labels. Second, we integrate the evidence into a staged framework, the Cognitive Capture Cascade, linking variable-ratio reinforcement and algorithmic personalization to dopaminergic recalibration, prefrontal disengagement, and the behavioral extinction of effortful reading. Personalized feeds recruit the ventral tegmental area and default mode network while suppressing dorsolateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate control regions, sustained attention on screens has fallen from roughly two and a half minutes in 2004 to about forty-seven seconds in recent samples, and meta-analyses show a durable paper advantage for demanding text. Third, we offer provisional DSM-style diagnostic criteria for SFVUD. Fourth, we introduce a brief screening instrument, the Amr and Khulood Short-Form Video Use Scale (AK-SFVUS), which nests six core items on the components model of addiction within a novel deep-reading-resistance subscale. The disorder, criteria, and scale are presented as falsifiable proposals offered for empirical validation. The causal record is incomplete and largely cross-sectional, yet the convergence across methods justifies clinical attention now.