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YouTube Addiction

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Re: YouTube Addiction

#41
post #28
post #9

I've found that I only watch less Youtube over the years as their suggestions got worse for me. Now I feel like I only ever see a handful of the same suggested videos and they are all from years ago.

Watching Gophercon videos this morning, majority of my suggestions were Jordan B Peterson, Andrew Huberman and JRE. How the hell does it make that jump. I only watch software related videos at this point.

> majority of my suggestions were Jordan B Peterson

I'm interested in psychology and philosophy, so I'll watch videos on those subjects every so often. Naturally, the Algorithm™ becomes obsessed with recommending me Peterson videos soon after. I'm 98% sure the "Do not recommend" and "Not interested" buttons are just there for show, because I keep seeing those suggestions whenever I wander off into psychology and philosophy videos.

Re: YouTube Addiction

#42
post #25
post #10

This is a very dramatic framing. A much more resonable explanation is that YouTube was being used as an escape. 10K Subs is an accomplishment, a real community. The less talked about half of parasocial relationships is the one that goes the other way, where people feel validation from the likes and views they get. Generally, taking a break from an escape means you face the real issues you have been avoiding and ignor…

Sorry, but I think a post like the above should make someone like you take a time to reflect, instead of immediately prepare a defense. Regardless of what is driving your desire to watch so much YouTube, which in the end is what defines the degree of the pathology, it’s still an inordinate amount. YouTube is not background noise. Your brain is paying a bit of attention to it, getting dopamine from it, and becoming pr…

> Will you be running YouTube in the background when you’re sharing a bed with a spouse?

My wife and I both do this.

> Will you be wearing headphones with constant babbling going on, disturbing your sleep patterns?

No more than the babbling in my mind disturbs it already. If anything, a coherent message is easier to fall asleep to.

Re: YouTube Addiction

#43

Nope. Stop using the medical word addiction in contexts where it's highly inappropriate. Youtube isn't even a single thing . It's just a video hosting service. The types of videos on it are extremely wildly varying. Video addiction is not a thing. See how stupid it sounds when you say it like it is?

Nope. Stop using the medical word addiction in contexts where it's highly inappropriate. The Internet isn't even a single thing. It's just a collection of content. The types of content on it are extremely wildly varying. Internet addiction is not a thing. See how stupid it sounds when you say it like it is?

Outside of lampooning how absurd your comment sounds, I don't think it's your place to call if something is a valid addiction or not, and addictions don't have to be strictly medically defined to be considered as such. Just because there isn't some ICD-10 definition for "YouTube addiction" doesn't mean it can't exist, because addiction fundamentally just means a dependence or habitual occupation with something.

And so, is Youtube addiction as debilitating as something like alcoholism? I think most people would say absolutely not, but presumably it's distressing enough to the writer of the post that they have formed a habit around watching (a lot of) it, perceive it as a negative, and want to change it. I would colloquially consider this an addiction.

Re: YouTube Addiction

#44
post #10

This is a very dramatic framing. A much more resonable explanation is that YouTube was being used as an escape. 10K Subs is an accomplishment, a real community. The less talked about half of parasocial relationships is the one that goes the other way, where people feel validation from the likes and views they get. Generally, taking a break from an escape means you face the real issues you have been avoiding and ignor…

Hi fellow addict! https://imgur.com/a/TaaKY87 Mine is Star Trek. It’s not so much an escape as a habit, for me. I started young. When I was 13 or so, I was watching voyager while hacking on game engines. Then I never really stopped. Nowadays it’s a mix of anime (hello berserk https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD85eRe7NELF7EFIl4YMQOxFw... ) and trek. Also gothamchess. Like you, I don’t see anything wrong with it. Wis…

I think I can only do shows that I have watched a few times already. I can do that for The Office, but I have yet to see bersek, thanks for the link. I also enjoy GothamChess, and more generally video game speedrunning, playthroughs and analysis. When I am in the mood for music, I look live festival sets. I heavily favor EDM personally, Keygen Chruch has been pretty good, a "goth synthwave/metal/Baroque/Romantic, 8bit-tinged, pipe-organ-laden band". I have a hard time keeping up with these subgenres.

Here's my in flux playlist of what I call AmbianceLONG, 1hr+ videos that I shuffle through. I didn't know NasaTV is live on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvszIS0bSTf5hfuCNd3cG...

Re: YouTube Addiction

#45
post #8

I used to be addicted to youtube, and the most effective method I found to limiting my consumption was using an extension called Unhook. It removes all recommendations and the shorts and trending tabs, so the only videos I can watch are those from channels I'm subscribed to, or videos that I search for.

Some time ago, a nice fellow HN user @boriselec wrote a browser plugin for, in the end, my personal use (as barely anyone uses it), that redirects all video links to their /embed variant.

/embed links are meant to be embedded in other pages and do not show any UI clutter. As it happens, they also work perfectly well if (re-)directly opened!

Comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23148026

Extension here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-embed...

Re: YouTube Addiction

#46
Changing my phone to black and white mode helped, I was previously watching 3+hrs of yt a day as was OP.

Also making a mental note of how long you spend helps, even if you don't have the willpower to stop then and there. Over time You keep making that same note and eventually build up the fortitude to modify your behaviour / fight your addiction. Good luck to you all.

Re: YouTube Addiction

#47

I think the YouTube suggestions got worse over time. In 1-2 weeks I will launch www.EduTube.app a platform to discover hand picked educational YouTube videos for those who are interested in it

Will your platform be "making suggestions" after users watch any hand-picked content? How do you plan to monetize this?

Re: YouTube Addiction

#48
post #5

I have to be honest, whenever I get busy and do not watch any video for a couple of days, and then I get back to youtube, I am somewhat disappointed by the content. And recently the algorithm has been really insistent on having me watch certain videos. I just open the page and see a couple of videos I did not want to watch the last time around.

You can mark suggested videos as "Not interested".

Re: YouTube Addiction

#49
post #46

Changing my phone to black and white mode helped, I was previously watching 3+hrs of yt a day as was OP. Also making a mental note of how long you spend helps, even if you don't have the willpower to stop then and there. Over time You keep making that same note and eventually build up the fortitude to modify your behaviour / fight your addiction. Good luck to you all.

Where is black white mode in ios?
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