TikTok is reportedly experimenting with 3-minute videos

Let's see if our attention spans can handle it.

Abrar Al-Heeti Video producer / CNET

Abrar Al-Heeti is a video host and producer for CNET, with an interest in internet trends, entertainment, pop culture and digital accessibility. Before joining the video team, she was a writer for CNET's culture team. She graduated with bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Though Illinois is home, she now loves San Francisco -- steep inclines and all.

Expertise Abrar has spent her career at CNET breaking down the latest trends on TikTok, Twitter and Instagram, while also reporting on diversity and inclusion initiatives in Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Credentials

Named a Tech Media Trailblazer by the Consumer Technology Association in 2019, a winner of SPJ NorCal's Excellence in Journalism Awards in 2022 and has three times been a finalist in the LA Press Club's National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards.

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Abrar Al-Heeti

Dec. 2, 2020 2:07 p.m. PT

2 min read

Longer TikTok videos could be coming to a screen near you.

Angela Lang/CNET

Short-form video app TikTok is reportedly looking to make its content a little longer. Social media commentator Matt Navarra shared a tweet Wednesday featuring a message from TikTok saying some users now have "early access to uploading videos up to 3 minutes long."

😮 TikTok is rolling out ability to upload longer videos of up to 3 minutes long 🤳🏻 pic.twitter.com/9ifs7s7Uh3
— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) December 2, 2020

TikTok's current limit is 60 seconds, which caters to the short attention span of many users. One person commented on Navarra's tweet: "My attention span is now a minute long thanks to TikTok. And now they think we're gonna watch three minute videos?"

On the other hand, this could help to eliminate the dreaded "like for part 2" messages that some creators subject us to because they can't manage to fit all the content into a 1-minute clip.

TikTok didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

It's not surprising or rare for a social media platform to expand its content limits. In September, Instagram extended the time limit for clips on Reels, its short-form video platform, from 15 seconds to 30 seconds. And in 2017, Twitter doubled its 140-character limit.

TikTok has seen an exponential rise in popularity amid COVID-19 lockdowns, surpassing the 2 billion global download mark early on in the pandemic. This comes despite a tumultuous year in the US, with the Trump administration pushing to bar downloads of the app, citing data privacy concerns, and insisting that TikTok parent ByteDance sell off TikTok's US business. ByteDance struck a preliminary deal with software company Oracle and retail giant Walmart, but the agreement still needs to be finalized.

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