Gen Z students are watching other people study on YouTube



Don't want to study alone? Neither do thousands of Generation Z students. So they're turning on YouTube and watching other people study.

Yes, just study.

An emerging genre of YouTube videos called, "Study With Me" features people studying.

This video from Jamie Lee/TheStrive Studies goes on for 53 minutes. She doesn't speak. She doesn't give study tips, yet it has nearly 500,000 views.

And Jamie's channel has 93,000 subscribers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7roE5u2fhk&t=495s

If you search YouTube, there are hundreds of students posting videos just like this one. And they aren’t amateur study hour, either. Many videos feature high production values, tight editing and multiple camera angles.

Why? You ask.

An educational psychology professor told The Wall Street Journal it all has to do with our need to be social, but without being social.

“Think of it like parallel play. This is parallel studying: You’re ignoring each other, but that’s still much more preferable than doing it all by yourself," said Mitchell Nathan, professor of educational psychology and learning sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Last year, Study With Me video views tripled in the United States from 2016. Sparking marketers to take notice.

Marketers are now offering product placement and endorsement deals to some studiers, ranging from $100 per 10,000 views to a more bulk sponsorship rate of $10,000.