YouTube is amazing, just stay away from content that encourages you to buy stuff. The free documentary channel is amazing (check out their Apollo series) but lately once you’ve seen all the amazing education videos (think vsauce, smarter every day, David butler) it does turn into a nervous tick constantly opening the app.
YouTube addiction, one month sober
21–30 of 234 posts
Re: YouTube addiction, one month sober
#22I’m so addicted to the internet that when I block social media, I find I get quite the similar fix from work Slack. Like browsing channels I have no business being a part of and constantly checking for validation of my comments via emoji reactions. Does anyone know of ways to be a successful work-from-home knowledge worker while also locking down Slack to not be another slot machine?? Does anyone else feel conflicted…
Start meditating, improve your sleep and work out. I find this improves my willpower whenever I do it.
Re: YouTube addiction, one month sober
#23yea, this is pretty extreme, but 8-10 hours a day is a lot. I did a version of this with facebook and reddit for a while, I noticed I was wasting a lot of time on them so I uninstalled the apps off my phone and blocked the websites with the 1blocker, for facebook it was easy bec they made the desktop site so unusable I tried to use a few times and now basically never go there. reddit was harder but once the api thing…
Many people hit 5-7 hours of phone use a day just through morning, lunch, breaks, and bedtime use as part of daily rituals that add up astronomically over time
Re: YouTube addiction, one month sober
#24I haven't needed to be so drastic, but removed the YT app from my phone. There is a fair amount of good content that I find very worth consuming from YT (mainly educational videos) and would not like to miss. But, the mobile app makes a very strong effort to push you to shorts, which is the real danger. Shorts are proficiently engineered to just suck my brain into a doom scrolling comma. I tried removing shorts from…
Here's a UBO filter that hides YT shorts https://letsblock.it/filters/youtube-shorts
Re: YouTube addiction, one month sober
#25I used to watch between 45 minutes and two hours a day of YouTube when bored at work. At my last place of employment, this skyrocketed though; I was very bored that that job. In January of 2022 I decided to take a YouTube "fast", kicking YouTube for a while. I couldn't bring myself to commit to more. It was waaaaaay hard to stop. I got on Nebula as a sort of Nicorette for a while, a month or two. I can recommend Nebu…
What do you do for two hours before bed with no screen time? Read physical material? I'm not sure what I would do to wind down before bed besides reading or watching something. I do find that I need a similar amount of down time before bed after more engaging activities like going out or playing video games online. I usually try to read longer form articles or watch tv. I'm not sure what else I'd do around the house for that amount of time every night.
Re: YouTube addiction, one month sober
#26I used to watch between 45 minutes and two hours a day of YouTube when bored at work. At my last place of employment, this skyrocketed though; I was very bored that that job. In January of 2022 I decided to take a YouTube "fast", kicking YouTube for a while. I couldn't bring myself to commit to more. It was waaaaaay hard to stop. I got on Nebula as a sort of Nicorette for a while, a month or two. I can recommend Nebu…
> My Psychiatrist has told me no screens two hours before bed
I struggle with this, but it's incredible what a difference it makes when I make it happen. I'm mostly content with watching a show before bed now (which is technically a screen), but this comes from having Netflix/YouTube up, my phone out, and my laptop sitting in front of me (yeah, it's crazy one can operate like that).
More importantly, I've been strict on "no screens in bed" which has also played a key role.
Re: YouTube addiction, one month sober
#27I haven't needed to be so drastic, but removed the YT app from my phone. There is a fair amount of good content that I find very worth consuming from YT (mainly educational videos) and would not like to miss. But, the mobile app makes a very strong effort to push you to shorts, which is the real danger. Shorts are proficiently engineered to just suck my brain into a doom scrolling comma. I tried removing shorts from…
I would highly recommend Youtube Revanced, even if you already have Premium or don't care to block ads. The Vanced Manager app can selectively apply patches to the official APK, removing shorts being one of them.
I had a similar experience to yours. It's very hard to not get sucked into them. I would keep scrolling even when I am actively disliking the actual content being shoved into my face.
It was a very sober realization for me that our brains can hijacked like this using the TikTok formula.
Re: YouTube addiction, one month sober
#28I just wish YT thumbnails were selected from a random point in the video.
I think that sounds good compared to now, but if it actually happened, it would lead to a lot of unintended consequences.
Re: YouTube addiction, one month sober
#29I haven't needed to be so drastic, but removed the YT app from my phone. There is a fair amount of good content that I find very worth consuming from YT (mainly educational videos) and would not like to miss. But, the mobile app makes a very strong effort to push you to shorts, which is the real danger. Shorts are proficiently engineered to just suck my brain into a doom scrolling comma. I tried removing shorts from…
NewPipe lets you watch shorts but completely lacks the shorts-type UI, so it's not addictive. Also has no ads and lets you play things in the background or with the phone screen off.
Re: YouTube addiction, one month sober
#30For me, doing stuff like that only replaces one thing with another. If I block youtube, I'll be spending that time here. If I block HN, I'll stay on reddit. If I block reddit, I'll spend time on Skyscrapercity.
The real solution seems to be having stuff in life that actually gives you self-actualization and spend least possible time at work fucking around.