Choosing a pov(point-of-view) for your story can be tricky. First person pov is hard to implement perfectly and therefore is often discouraged(although if you ask me, if you can do it then go for it by all means.) and a third person pov is very easy to write but often takes away some of the mystery from the story. Also, often, a story looks really static when written in one single pov. Therefore, pov shifts exist. They give the story a dynamic feel.

But this is where the problem arises. It appears that a lot of times, people often either forget or aren't aware of the purpose of pov shifts. The true purpose of a pov shift should be to give us a glimpse into another character's mind, to see things from their eyes. We are made aware of other character's opinion on our protagonist's actions. For example, A boy continues to glance at his crush occasionally. Does the girl notice?What does she think of it? Is she wary of it or is she happy because she likes him back too?The boy cannot know what is going on in her mind and therefore, the reader who is reading from the perspective of the boy may not know the reaction to this action. This is where we need a pov shift into the girl's mind.

But if the boy sees that the girl is looking back at him and smiling, we can fairly assume that she not only notices his glances but is also enjoying the attention. In this case, we do not need a pov shift as we can summarise her reaction from her actions.

What I am trying to show from this above example is that every time you want to make a pov shift, ask yourself, "Is this really called for?" because if you mindlessly keep changing the pov about ten times in a single chapter, the reader does not get time to settle in any of the character's head and therefore ends up getting confused. One moment the reader is watching the girl through the protagonist's eyes and the next moment they are jerked away from that mindset and thrown into the girl's mind and now they are smiling at the boy. This kind of haphazard teleporting from one character's mind to another doesn't allow the reader to connect to any of the characters and they end up feeling like there's a storm going on in their mind where every character is just flying around, only to stay with them for a moment or two.

Therefore, don't change your povs unless they are ABSOLUTELY necessary.

If you absolutely must change your povs, try to spread them apart. Don't use four or five pov shifts in one chapter. Even them out, maybe even schedule them. A good way to both, even it out and schedule it, is to alternate the povs between chapters. So if chapter 1 is in the boy's pov chapter 2 could be in the girl's pov. That way, readers will know what to expect; they are prepared for it. You can do this with 3 or 4 characters as well, as long as you are sure it is absolutely necessary and that you can manage to write them all and schedule them without making it messy.

This has been my opinion on pov shifts, a common issue I come across a lot of stories. I hope my advice helps you. Feel free to comment below what are your thoughts about frequent pov shifts(but please be respectful and civil.).