How exactly does watch time work?

[CramBoom]

This is new to me, I should make my videos longer. My current ones are close to 2 minutes (or under) because I find people tend to lose interest after a minute or two.

 

[soulred12]

This is new to me, I should make my videos longer. My current ones are close to 2 minutes (or under) because I find people tend to lose interest after a minute or two.

Well, you're still smart for limiting your video's length. Sure longer videos might get you more watch time, but people are more likely to click on shorter videos because they know watching the video they're about to click on will demand less of a time commitment from them. The hard part though is of course knowing when making the video longer or shorter will stop paying off in terms of overall watch time.

Also, if they want to quit after 5 minutes, they get to watch the entirety of a 5 minute video, but have to stop midway through a 10 minute video and find their place again when (if) they come back, which might make them less likely to click on the 10-minute video in the first place.

And, as you said, there is the attention span factor.