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How I spend less time on YouTube

pawelurbanek.com

211–220 of 220 posts

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#211
post #92
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The easiest form of media to create is unedited video. The hardest is edited video

It’s funny that unedited, poorly rehearsed “presenting style” has in a way taken on a life of its own. Speaking to a director off-camera, quick jump cuts of multiple takes, drawing attention to flubbing of lines, are all sort of techniques used in YouTube videos to show “authenticity” to the viewer (ie, I’m just a regular person making these videos). I was listening to a podcast recently and noticed they left in some…

Meanwhile radio shows were taking out individual ums and errs, even in the analog era.

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#212

How I spend less time on YouTube: I spend ~0 time on YouTube. I’m definitely not the average user, but I find video content overwhelming and usually low signal:noise. So I just don’t consume it for the most part. I’m sure I’m missing out on stuff that I’d find valuable, but the vast majority of the time I find the same content summarized in a tweet or thread with links to readable reference material where appropriate…

Love to be downvoted for… finding videos overwhelming.

More likely you’re being downvoted for the casual non-solution to a common and real problem people are wrestling with. If people were all talking about how they try to avoid over-eating, saying “oh I just don’t over-eat. That’s my solution” contributes little to the conversation.

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#214
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love to be downvoted for… finding videos overwhelming.

More likely you’re being downvoted for the casual non-solution to a common and real problem people are wrestling with. If people were all talking about how they try to avoid over-eating, saying “oh I just don’t over-eat. That’s my solution” contributes little to the conversation.

I felt that:

1. Acknowledging that some people find consuming video content challenging is always worth mentioning. It’s not the problem being discussed, but it’s a related problem with so much content being on YouTube. Your analogy would be closer as “I very seldom eat, because I don’t react well to food.” Which is obviously absurd when put that way.

2. The fact that transcripts or summaries are often available is a contribution, as it presents another potential option for those who want to access one piece of content without falling into a recommendations hole.

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#215
post #31

> 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…

This is one of the reasons Tiktok growth is exploding. Like Twitter, it forces creators to apply some editing and think about what really needs to be in their video. Contrast this to YouTube which incentivizes stretching a 15 second idea into a 10 minute waste of time.

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaks volumes that you think it takes weeks of research.

It speaks volumes that you don't. The guy has a whole team dedicated to this. He released a behind the scenes about his process on Nebula. Oh let me guess, he's making this up for clicks too? And i could reimplement Dropbox in a weekend with curl and SFTP.

You can’t watch videos on nebula without signing up - which makes you the product, just as you are on YouTube.

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#217

PSA for all, you can go into your YouTube settings and disable Search History (and a bunch of other things? It's been a while), and surprisingly the algorithm more or less respects that. It completely neuters the algorithm, it won't target you worth a damn, and YouTube becomes a lot less engaging overall. Highly recommend for everyone.

Pretty much. My life went downhill after I discovered that I had disabled search history and re-enabled it

Why not disable it again? I just followed GP’s instructions and am looking forward to my life going uphill.

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#218
post #202
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just seems so slow to me. Here's another 15 minute video of what could be a three minute blog post. Be sure like comment subscribe!

I watch most videos at triple speed or above. Takes some getting used to, but my brain got accustomed to it over time and now I can watch 3-4 times more youtube than everyone else in the same amount of time!

Even when you do that you can't beat skimming and finding exactly what you need in a text. In a video it's clunky to scrub around and hope you hit the relevant info you need.

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#219

In the article there is mention of using ublock to block elements. I didn't even know this was a thing. I zapped the recommendations block on home as suggested in the article. How do you review what you have blocked/removed and re-add it?

Go to the settings and the My Filters tab. Your latest added filter should be at the bottom.

Thanks for this, I did find the filters via that route. But thought there might be a quick shortcut for the site you are on.

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#220
post #160

I turn off "viewing history" and then only subscribe to the channels I am interested in, and ONLY visit https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions

Take it a step even further and just follow these channels via RSS and watch with mpv. Don't even point the browser to the site at all.

Thanks! I'll look into that. Is there a good way to track a "to watch" list using youtube RSS and MPV?
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