The News Feed Eradicator browser plugin (available for Chrome and Firefox) supports hiding the recommended videos on both the YouTube home page and in the sidebar next to videos. It did wonders for my focus.
How I spend less time on YouTube
51–60 of 220 posts
Re: How I spend less time on YouTube
#52I wrote the following CSS for the Stylus extension to keep me focused--it blocks out suggested videos at the end of a video, the videos in the sidebar, and the comments section:
.style-scope.ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer,.style-scope.ytd-comments,.style-scope.ytd-mealbar-promo-renderer,.html5-endscreen.ytp-player-content.videowall-endscreen { display:none; }
Re: How I spend less time on YouTube
#53What I really want is all my subscriptions to get auto-downloaded into Plex. And for Plex to have better library management tools from the player, so I can delete after watching or move to a category. Then show me all the algorithmic stuff when I'm on the website so I can find better stuff to subscribe to.
I was actually looking at building a script like this. Have you found anything that does it already? If not, I was just going to make a small python script with readonly access to my Youtube account that pulls down my Watch Later video IDs and feeds them to youtube-dl on my NAS. Sounds like a fun Christmas vacation project.
There are multiple articles automating this task using youtube-dl. There's also a recent project called tubesync[0] that provides a GUI and advertises itself as the sonarr/radarr for Youtube
Re: How I spend less time on YouTube
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Video is great for many things, but step by step instructions/tutorials ain't one of them.
I disagree. It is great because you can actually see where the steps are performed. It's sometimes faster than reading a bullet point than finding out where on the screen it is. And I did NOT grow up on videos, I just think they're neat. Of course, there are times when I dislike them too. It's not always black and white.
> you can actually see where the steps are performed. It's sometimes faster than reading a bullet point than finding out where on the screen it is
If and only if the steps are performed in the correct order without any fluffs. In one particularly bad example that I saw someone was showing how to use an updated feature in Photoshop. The sequence went something like
* the instructor showed the old way of doing things
* they then did 'undo' a few times to get back to the point where the new feature was different
* they started showing the new way
* they then realised they'd made a mistake earlier on - missing out a step in the new sequence
* they did undo a few times
* they did the step they'd omitted
* they then carried on from that point
I had to watch several times to work out the actual sequence of correct operations. To my mind they should have re-recorded from the beginning rather than show their disrespect for the viewers.
Re: How I spend less time on YouTube
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
This has been shown to be not true many times over. Different subjects need to be taught in different ways, but there are optimal ways to present information that works for everyone. No one is a "visual learner", there are topics that are best presented in a visual format.
Where’s this list of the so called optimal ways to present information that works for everyone?
No, it's not about the "optimal way", it's about the oft-cited the factoid "90% of people are haptic learners, 30% are visual learners, 15% are auditory learners, 25% are text-based learners". Somebody did an experiment and found out 90% of subjects remembered something later when they had to learn to do it, but only 25% remembered when they had to read it. (All numbers made up, does not matter in the context of this comment)
Of course, this completely misrepresents the experiment! After learning to do something, you are 90% likely to retain it for a certain duration, after you read about it, you are only 25% likely to retain it, so in aggregate you only retain 25% of what you read.
The idea was never to find people who are "visual learning type" or the "non-learning-by-doing type".
That's what became of this idea in education through the game of telephone that mangles experimental results on their way from developmental psychology and cognitive science into education departments, and then into future high school teachers during undergrad lectures. Even my own high school teachers in Germany talked about learning types as if there was such a thing.
Re: How I spend less time on YouTube
#56> Am I the only one who launches YouTube just to watch a single tutorial and ends up devouring dozens of fine-tuned recommendations? I'm hitting 40 next week, and seeing others asking for recommendations of videos on "programming a microcontroller" (or programming related) is something I can't understand. One day I sat and watched some of the videos they were recommending, and in most of them there were a person talk…
I’m in the same boat as you but I just don’t consume YouTube at all. Sure I’ve looked up repair things or a tutorial if it’s less than 10 minutes. I have to have something specific to watch I don’t just keep watching related videos. Watch a movie trailer I wanted to see, then peace out. Maybe it’s partially an age thing or perhaps just some people get that dopamine release easier from YouTube. I will say the exception is that I have spent time watching videos of people building things as long as it doesn’t have narration or hot takes from the people. I guess in general I can’t get behind any of the standard issue YouTuber speak and mannerisms, it’s all very similar (at least that’s how I feel with the popular videos).
Re: How I spend less time on YouTube
#57> Am I the only one who launches YouTube just to watch a single tutorial and ends up devouring dozens of fine-tuned recommendations? I'm hitting 40 next week, and seeing others asking for recommendations of videos on "programming a microcontroller" (or programming related) is something I can't understand. One day I sat and watched some of the videos they were recommending, and in most of them there were a person talk…
Have you seen Ben Eater's videos?
Wow, this guy makes me a bit sad, because I did a 4 year Elec Eng degree and the guy that taught semi conductors was so bad. Almost everyone failed the exam because they had no idea what he was talking about (lots of the other modules were good). I (re)learnt more from watching a few of these videos than I did in a semester at university.
Re: How I spend less time on YouTube
#58> Am I the only one who launches YouTube just to watch a single tutorial and ends up devouring dozens of fine-tuned recommendations? I'm hitting 40 next week, and seeing others asking for recommendations of videos on "programming a microcontroller" (or programming related) is something I can't understand. One day I sat and watched some of the videos they were recommending, and in most of them there were a person talk…
text is for learning, video is for entertainment, the problem is that people are confused about what they are doing
Re: How I spend less time on YouTube
#59I am going to be the voice of dissent here. In September my OTA antenna fell and I never put it back up. I have Netflix but I usually don't watch it.
What I spend most of my time on is YouTube and I consider that time to be quality time. I like falling asleep to Adrian's Digital Basement.
Re: How I spend less time on YouTube
#60The main problem with youtube is lack of control. I would pay youtube if it allowed me to fully control and monitor how it works so that I can fine tune it's behaviour to fit my needs.
For example I would like to:
- disable recommendations in some contexts (similar to how OP does it)
- label videos and let youtube to classify videos into these set of labels, so that I can either block of filter videos accordingly (eg. I could label certain videos as "junk" and would keep those hidden unless I really want to see such videos)
- search by video length, eg. show me only talks which takes about an hour
- say, show me something I found entertaining, but I have just half an hour, so that after the time is up, it no longer shows such stuff
- setup a "watch budget time" to spend or disable service during certain time periods
- see metrics about my watch behaviour, so that I can fine tune youtube options accordingly
I would be even ok for youtube to show me some ads based on my behaviour, if I have some control over it. Eg. disable ads with too small target group or ads I find annoying.
And while there could be some monetization options (eg. you configure your account not to show you something or don't provide service in given timerange - but you would be able to cancel that for a fee :-)) I doubt that it would make sense for them from business perspective: it would decrease the value of the advertising they are selling while it would cost a lot. So in the end I'm not sure if I would be able the real price of all this.