I thought my phone couldn’t be any worse for my brain – then I started watching microdramas on it | Imogen West-Knights

I have long known that internet detritus is bad for me. But with these dramas told in episodes under two minutes, I swear I can actually feel the damage being done

Seven or eight years ago, a new kind of televisual entertainment was born in China. Microdramas: over-the-top, soap opera-type series with splashy, schlocky premises such as infidelity, arranged marriage and secret billionairehood, in which each episode is a mere 60-90 seconds long, took off there among an audience of the phone-addicted.

And now, as with many cultural phenomena that start in China, microdramas have made it over here. The form is forecast to take in $1.5bn in revenue in the US by the end of this year. Channel 4 announced recently that it was launching its first microdrama, and the UK is already leading Europe in terms of microdrama-watching, with 8.2 million of us tuning in to these things every month.

Imogen West-Knights is a writer and journalist