I’ve noticed YouTube specifically has become more addictive, I never used to be one to sit and scroll for long durations before but I often catch myself spending way too long on shorts now
Even people or older generations seem to be getting sucked in nowadays
I’m finding it to be the opposite. All content on YouTube and social media, including lemmy, seems to just be endless reposts of the same limited list of topics and memes.
Its become boring to the point where I’m just going back to specific interest forums websites for content.
People talk about how good algorithms are now, but they can’t figure out anything I actually want to watch nowadays
Totally agree, barely go on YouTube anymore because garbage videos are being pushed in my face, and hate browsing channels because of Shorts, and all the same sponsor segments everyone has, just boring.
YouTube Shorts doesn’t even work properly for me. At least half the videos, that are suggested to me, I’ve already seen multiple times before. Boring, as you said. I’ve found myself staying off of social media or news sites more in the last couple of weeks. News’ll make me depressive, social media bores me. Then again, more time for hobbies!
more time for hobbies
Exaaaactly
Say no to shorts on every platform.
Even porn is getting shorts. What the hell is going on Internet?!
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Do you mean to tell me that you don’t watch long-form porn, spending 6 hours in a row on one video?
Really? Where?
Tumblr, a decade ago lawl
Is getting? Tumblr was waaaaaay ahead of the curve then, a million years ago
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As someone who grew up in the 80s and 90s I disagree.
They remind me of the d nickelodeon pictures that actually cost a nickel. I think you youngins should salute your shorts. It’s fun to watch wild and crazy kids doing stupid bottle tricks. Legends of the hidden temple in some state park nearby. It’s just cool stuff and you can’t do that on television.
I might agree with you if the shorts player wasn’t ass. Everything about it works differently to the video player, and everything about it pushes you to more shorts. Even on the video player I disable autoplay and the prev/next buttons, having a player built around those was DOA for me.
I find YouTube is less attractive than a year ago. Ads are more invasive and more difficult to remove. Recommendations skew heavily to the rage-inducing, e.g., I watched one late night comedy sketch making fun of Jordan Peterson and then my feed was full of clips of him spewing his hot trash for weeks.
I gave up on reddit earlier in the year when all the API / sub blackout / forced mod removal stuff was going on.
Freemium apps seem to be pushing ads more and more, which makes me more resistant to using them.
If what I read online is true, the days of investors throwing money at anything tech related are slowing down. Which means some companies that have never had to be profitable before now must find a way to do so. Which means tightening up subscriptions and/or more ads.
I try to spread this tip everywhere i can: If you ever find that you’ve watched one of those videos that fucks up the recommendations, go to your watch history and delete the video. It really works.
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I’m feeling the opposite lately. YouTube recommendations suck. I often open the app/page for the quick dopamine rush, but few of the recommendations interests me, so I just bounce off. For me, YouTube is mostly for long form content nowadays. Something I can put in the background while cooking/doing dishes.
Instagram is turning more and more like TikTok. Sometimes it recommends me something fun (like cat videos), but often it’s just nonsense. So I bounce off quite quickly there as well.
I feel happy about it.
No, shorts are shit and I’m absolutely not sucked in. They try to emulate tik tok so I would say this format simply works for you.
I have a seething hatred for shorts. I refuse to watch anything designed like them on any platform.
That’s part of the idea, isn’t it? They mix normal content with max cringe content because that’s what keeps people watching.
Absolutely. That’s completely not for me, no way, no how.
Ah, you already said it. Exactly how I feel.
It does unfortunately. I don’t like it but it absolutely hacks my brain
Would love if there was just an option to disable shorts in the app because I still want to use original youtube
If you keep hitting not interested on the shorts, they get temporarily disabled for a while.
Temporarily being the problem there unfortunately
I’m not the kind of person to put up with doing stuff like that repeatedly
You either have to accept that you like watching shorts more than doing other things and watch them without worrying or change your habits. There’s no magical way where you just stop doing it. I will take some effort.
The change in habit unfortunately is just not opening YouTube on my phone, which is a shame because there are good videos that I feel good after watching but I can’t resist getting drawn in by shorts.
Typically I don’t get that problem on PC or on a smart TV because they push long form content more there
shorts are designed to be addictive. just don’t use them. otherwise, the platform hasn’t changed, you have
Shorts are new-ish to the platform. Like others that saw the success of TikTok (e.g., facebook with their reels, presumably instagram has something similar) they pumped out their own version to better trap people on the platform.
Same idea as ever but more addictive than before.
Shorts made it less addictive, they’re awful to watch and I invariably stop at one.
Perhaps you are experiencing a spike in your own addictive behaviour?
same with me. they’re awful and the content quality is depressing. but i think for many people shorts are the addiction
Oddly enough, there’s specific content only available through shorts that I would love to see (Scott Manley in particular does fantastic shorts), however I never see them because the shorts player invariably kills any enjoyment I may have be having at the time.
No matter what content exists on shorts, I will go out of my way to disable shorts altogether. If I could block the URL I would.
Recently? No, but maybe I’m in my own bubble. I’ve made my phone more boring intentionally. Getting rid of Reddit made me get off my phone a lot more. I really just mindlessly browse Lemmy and Mastodon now, and I run out of content on those.
I’m getting bored with my smartphone. Stuff like YouTube I never watch on my phone anyway, but imo YouTube has gotten much worse over time and I barely watch it at all now.
I honestly think that content on YouTube has gotten better and better. Not the systems of YouTube, mind you, just the stuff that people create. But maybe that’s because in the last year or so I’ve been watching and discovering a lot more educational YouTubers (think Tom Scott, Münecat, Real Engineering, etc). among the exclusively funny stuff.
If anything I’m less addicted to my smartphone now that Reddit got rid of the 3rd party apps.
I don’t think it’s really changed, maybe it’s just your perception of it. It’s just as addictiv today as it was last year as I see it.
If you find yourself suddenly grasping for more and more time escaping reality consider seeing a psychiatrist.
You could have major depression: it was one of my symptoms.
Jesus Christ lol make a comment about social media on the internet and immediately get diagnosed with depression
It’s not a diagnosis it’s encouragement to see someone about an issue you’ve expressed.
Therapists are gonna be pretty busy then because it’s a good proportion of people I know that have been sucked into this kind of content one way or another more than they’d like
There’s definitely negative psychological effects to having a skinner box in your hand at all times.
If you find yourself randomly diagnosing strangers with depression consider seeing a psychiatrist.
If you interpret “talk to a doctor” as diagnosing someone consider seeing a dictionary
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The problem is that most people aren’t aware that shorts / stories are made to be addictive.
If you keep pointing out to your friends and family how much time / battery they waste watching them they may start to take action though.
I’m well aware how much time I’m wasting, I’ve got a screen time monitor setup and have even gone so far as writing my own script that takes me to youareanidiot.org if I try to open YouTube before 10am but it still didn’t stop me for a good amount of time
I think I might’ve just about kicked it at this point but now I’m spending loads of time scrolling Lemmy and talking to strangers instead which I suppose is marginally better
I have the same problem with YouTube! Between work + school I don’t have free time until 930/10, so I unwind watching documentaries on YouTube and it’s 2-3am before I know it :(
I recently ordered an EReader and if books can’t replace that YouTube urge I might have to go the same route as you and redirect myself after midnight.
I give myself a pass for Lemmy though. It’s not sucking me in, rather I open the site specifically for news for sites that don’t offer RSS feeds. (RSS helps a lot with eliminating the news -> distraction scenario)
This just put me off YouTube, I get that they are trying to copy Tiktok’s addictiveness but I just don’t get anything out of short-form video content.