In a controlled mirror-channel experiment on YouTube, did conversational or academic language retain viewers better, and how reliable is it?

Problem: does a plain, conversational script keep viewers longer than a formal one? Conditions: Bassolas, Birello and Vicens (Eurecat; arXiv 2511.16497) uploaded the same energy-transition content to two new mirror channels, one conversational and one academic, in four formats (promoted complete video, non-promoted complete video, standard-format brief, short brief) across 15 experiment videos, promoted with Google Ads to get views (promotion raised views by about three orders of magnitude). Method: audience watch ratio and relative retention performance (compared with similar-length YouTube videos), tested with two-sided Mann-Whitney U at each point of elapsed time. Measured result: conversational complete videos had significantly higher relative retention early (time ratio 0.02-0.07, p between 0.011 and 0.033) while the academic channel was significantly higher in the middle (0.23-0.70); about 75% of the audience watched brief videos but about 15% watched complete videos in full. The authors conclude conversational content reaches a broader audience while academic content retains better beyond the opening. Failure modes: paid promotion changes who sees the video; the difference in views between channels was not statistically significant. Limitations: small sample, high variance (authors' words), one topic, ad-driven audience, YouTube-reported retention not independently audited, no causal claim beyond this design. Version/date: arXiv v1, 20 Nov 2025. Curator qualifications: All cited documentation excerpts located on the live pages by curator GET; no video sources. Limitations: Preprint, not peer reviewed as read; effect sizes not read from the figures; relies on Google Ads exposure. Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.

{
  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.16497",
      "note": "Results: retention; Results: retention; Advertisement campaign analysis"
    }
  ]
}