Zuckerberg's disclosure closes a loop the coverage has been tracking since 2018, when Facebook's decision to show fewer viral videos cut roughly 50M hours of daily watch time — a moment the company framed as a deliberate trade of engagement for well-being. Three years later, the same company is reporting that video now drives almost half of all Facebook time, with Reels as its biggest engagement engine.
The shift was steered, not organic: Zuckerberg had already redirected Facebook's teams to prioritize young adults over older users, explicitly leaning Instagram and Facebook into video and Reels. The engagement number is the payoff report from that pivot, and it sets up the monetization question the later coverage picks up.
First-order effects
Facebook's product and ad teams now have a mandate backed by their own data: Reels and short video get the surface area, and advertisers buying Facebook inventory are sold a feed that is half video.
Second-order effects
Attention migrating to Reels pressures YouTube directly — the 2017 mid-roll ad format with a 55% publisher revenue split showed Facebook already building YouTube-style video economics — and pushes publishers to produce vertical short video or lose feed distribution.
The pattern repeats on Instagram, where Meta later reported Reels consuming 20%+ of user time, forcing rivals like Snapchat and TikTok-adjacent apps to defend the same short-video session time.
Third-order effects
If the arc holds — engagement up, then monetization catching up, with Meta later crediting AI recommendations for 24%+ Instagram time growth while Reels approached revenue-neutrality — social feeds restructure around algorithmic short video, and engagement growth becomes an AI-ranking story more than a social-graph story.
The trend: Social platforms are converting their feeds into AI-ranked short-video surfaces, with engagement leading and monetization trailing by a year or more.
Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook earnings call talking about the metaverse: “The metaverse is a virtual environment where you can be present with people in digital spaces. You can kind of think of this as an embodied internet.”
@joshuaogundu
Josh on x
Partnering with established eyewear brands vs just trying to build your own brand is a smart move https://twitter.com/...
@gartenberg
Michael Gartenberg on x
Remember the Facebook phone they did with HTC? My point exactly. Although it can get very sunny in the Metaverse https://www.engadget.com/...
@mylesudland
Myles Udland on x
“metaverse” was mentioned 20 times on Facebook's earnings call last night https://s21.q4cdn.com/...
@smdiehl
Stephen Diehl on x
So basically Facebook metaverse is like Second Life but with more right-wing extremist and anti-vax content. Got it. https://twitter.com/...
@jamesliamcook
James Cook on x
Maybe Sony should bring back PlayStation Home and become a metaverse company https://twitter.com/...
@seldo
Laurie Voss on x
It's time to pivot to video! https://twitter.com/...
@pt
Parker on x
Nothing empowers people to build community and bring the world closer together like feeding them clickable videos to watch alone on their phone all day. https://twitter.com/...
@turnernovak
@turnernovak on x
This would imply TikTok now has ~2x total time spent watching video in the US than Facebook https://twitter.com/...
@codepo8
Chris Heilmann on x
Addiction machine in full effect. Mark Zuckerberg says video now accounts for almost half the time spent on Facebook, and that Reels is the “largest contributor to engagement growth” (Karissa Bell/Engadget) https://www.engadget.com/...
@niinegames
Philip Bak on x
The other half being in the settings trying to find where the hell to turn the auto-playing bastards off. https://twitter.com/...
@tprstly
Theo Priestley on x
Ah, that explains why Vice is pivoting to video. Again. https://twitter.com/...
@joshgnosis
Josh Taylor on x
it's a trap https://twitter.com/...
@anthonyquintano
Anthony Quintano Photography on x
Pivot to text? https://twitter.com/...
@amcmanus
@amcmanus on x
Remember when Facebook straight up lied about video engagement? Good times. https://twitter.com/...
@finchstrife
Chandler Wood on x
I swear, if this forces another “pivot to video” for companies who don't have the expertise or resources to do so... https://twitter.com/...
@karissabe
Karissa Bell on x
something something something PIVOT TO VIDEO (and then pivot to metaverse) https://www.engadget.com/...
@jason_kint
Jason Kint on x
As zuckerberg spits out video metrics, a reminder to what we learned about his predictions and bogus metrics from an unsealed fraud lawsuit on the matter a couple years ago. /6 https://www.niemanlab.org/...