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What could be just as annoying as ads when videos are playing?

Answer: Ads when videos are paused.

The whole point of the pause feature is so that viewers can look away from the screen, right? Well apparently, Hulu and AT&T think they can get viewers to watch something even when they’ve hit pause so that they can, you know, not watch something.

The companies revealed that they plan to launch a feature that plays ads while videos are on pause sometime next year. The ads would consist of short videos that play when a viewer hits pause, attempting to grab their attention before they divert it elsewhere. AT&T didn’t specify which of its services will get this addition, although both online services as well as regular TV are both possibilities.

It remains to be seen whether people will actually watch these ads, since usually we hit pause on a video so that we don’t have to pay attention to what’s on the screen.

Kate is a senior copy editor in Northern California. She holds a bachelor's degree in English with a minor in professional writing from the University of California, Davis.