i basically waste my entire day watching youtube on my chromecast and im tired of it 😭 don’t get me wrong, i LOVE youtube and i don’t want to quit entirely, i just want to not waste my entire day watching youtube. It mostly starts in the morning when i eat breakfast where it kinda snowballs from there, or in the afternoon when i get home and basically watch the rest of the day. Also, im watching on a tv, specifically a chromecast
thanks
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Use yt-dlp to download all videos. Most RSS readers can automatically fetch YouTube channels.
Set the computer to download what you want overnight.
Upside: Recommendations will not appear.
Downside: I don’t know if you can ‘Chromecast’ videos. I just have a small computer attached to my TV (any computer will do).
Im using Blocker Apps like Digitalzen.app or Jomo on my phone to give myself time corridors in which I’m allowed to watch stuff. The rest of the day the apps block access. Also use that for video games and other streaming services
Have you tried this?:
Write a comprehensive thesis about administrative practice in the early mongolian empire and then obsessively maintain the wikipedia page on it
mongolian throat singing
But don’t watch this on your TV OP
Constructive
I’ll give you a simple thing you can do that will make a huge difference. First and last half hour of your day, spend them with no screens. Sounds minimal but it will help you lower your dopamine baseline, after that it’ll be easier to embrace tranquility with each passing day.
After that, if you can, add some friction between the thing you’re doing (maybe you can add a pincode requirement or something?) and yourself and if possible, set a defined time of day for the activity.
Lastly, just some willpower every now and then to stop or even not start.
The way I understand it, you will be able to keep enjoying it without it consuming your life, IMO this is the kind of thing we should all know to do in this day and age.
i do want to enjoy it without it sucking my life away and this sounds great thanks!!
Disable auto next video. If you can’t, just don’t turn it on.
Get ready for it to suck. Embrace the pain like a masochist.
Currently seems like you have a pretty solid routine of wasting days on YT. While it may be long term painful, it’s short term very pleasant, and it’s gonna be hard to force yourself to do anything less pleasant.
Gotta expect the suck and treat the feeling as progress.
Or substitution for other dopamine dumps, but that’s just making a new future problem
i feel like playing video games is better?
I mean if it works for you and you’re happy, that’s what matters.
If it were me, eventually video games would just be the new addiction.
Moderation and all that
i feel like video games (the ones that aren’t complete garbage brainrot, like most older games) are way better for the brain than most youtube videos lowkey
like with videos you’re often just mindlessly watching but with games you’re the one controlling everything and you actually need to use your brain
I gotta agree to an extent.
If I play a fighting game, I have to focus and react, and I can feel my blood pressure / heart rate up.
But I’ve also absolutely rotted my brain at 3am trying to max crafting just clicking that fkn rock over and over again.
I’d wildly guess that, if you don’t let the video games be brainrot, they’re also not quiiite gonna scratch the, “I wanna lay on the couch and let my mind melt,” itch, and you’ll have to face some suck
Entirely projecting, just what my experience is like
thats valid lowkirky
How do you find so much content to watch? For me, the worthwile content simply runs out after a while and the recomendation engine just starts to push the uninteresting clickbait videos.
Mine keeps suggesting videos I’ve already watched.
Depends on the content, I guess. If I browse history and archaeology videos for a while I start to get a ton of quality suggestions from much smaller and more specialised channels. This and music channels uploading vintage and forgotten records and tracks has gotten me some great finds that e.g. music streaming services would never suggest as they’re not even in their catalogues sometimes.
That said YT seems to try and soft reset my suggestions once in a while promoting clickbait videos, but a session of using “don’t recommend channel” or “i don’t like this video” from their options, and digging into my subscribed channels for the usual stuff shifts it back to normal good recommendations again.
YT seems to try and soft reset my suggestions
Ah, I tend to forget the vast majority of the world browses youtube logged in! I only get recommendations based on the last few videos watched that day.
My honest recommendation: realize that you’ve been sucked in to using youtube as an addictive coping mechanism. You say you love youtube, and I get it - there is a lot of fun stuff and a lot of useful information there. But YOU ARE WASTING YOUR LIFE. For many people, watching some youtube videos sometimes is fine - but for you, at this moment, you should strongly consider the tradeoff between continuing to watch videos and doing literally anything else in your life. Finding and spending time with a significant other, cooking healthy food and exercising, making new friends and spending time with old ones, advancing your career and making more money, creating art, exploring nature, learning about the world, becoming a valued member of your community, etc. Looking at those great big distant dreams you had during childhood and adolescence and chasing them!
I highly recommend that you do everything possible - EVERYTHING possible - to remove youtube from your life Right. Now. Seriously - take your tv off the wall, stand it up on the ground, and give it a swift kick in the screen with the toe of your boot. Or if you wanna be an environmentalist about it, list it for sale on fb marketplace and take it off the wall so you can hand it off as soon as someone comes around.
Install every app/site blocker you can on every device that you own. Pay for the premium version so you can get all the features to keep you off the platform.
Make plans for what you are going to do with the time you are no longer spending watching youtube. Hang out with friends. Sign up for a pottery class. Volunteer at the animal shelter. Clean your home up.
Your brain will fight you. It will say “but youtube is so fun, and I’m really invested in these channels right now, so I can just cut down a bit and it will be fine.” It will say “but youtube has lots of good information - what if I need to fix my car?” It will say “but youtube has a lot of cultural relevance - how will I keep up with the memes my friends are sharing without it?” Your brain is trying to protect itself from being deprived of its most consistent, low effort source of feel-good chemicals by coming up with all sorts of convincing-sounding reasons for never having to change. Don’t listen to it. For any benefit youtube might provide you with, you can get that somewhere else in the world. If you want to laugh, you can see a standup show or make jokes with your friends. If you want to learn something, you can read a book or take a class or read wikipedia or ask a friend who knows more. And the biggest one of all - if you want that feeling of feeling comfortable hearing about the small minutiae and updates of someone’s life that you’ve known for a long time, you can do that with your friends! You can do that, and have the other person actually know you exist!
And of course your brain will say “I’m not addicted, I just need to cut down a little, but I could stop anytime I want.” Yeah? Then prove it. Try to go 2 weeks without youtube. If you can’t, then you have a problem
holy cow 😭 a bit harsh but really true, and yes i would call myself “addicted” in a way
i know this is not what im supposed to do and it definetly hinders it, but i don’t want to quit youtube (also since im a creator myself) i just want to be able to basically watch how much i want and how long i want but being able to control that and not waste a couple of hours to a full day on there
it feels like training to control it rather than restricting it is better for me but i could be wrong
I find YT a valuable resource for my geeky/tech interests. My approach to avoiding time suck is:
- use RSS rather than browsing to catch new vids from creators I value
- download with yt-dlp
- pull down “talking head” vids as audio-only and add them to the podcast queue instead of video queue
- work around the house wearing headphones for most vids, looking at the screen only when something visually important is happening.
While I’m writing this yt-dlp is pulling down the day’s video queue and storing it on the media server for later consumption.
Make a decision to make better choices. Only you can make that choice.
what my brain is too smooth for this
When you start watching, set an alarm, for an hour, maybe. When the alarm goes, that’s it, turn off YouTube and go and do something else.
You are smart and powerful and can choose to control this.
ouu shii that is a good idea thanks!!!
You can even just set your tv to turn off in an hour (sleep timer), so that there’s no snoozing the alarm or ignoring it to continue to watch.
oohh thats even better!!!
Have you tried getting rid of the chromecast? Also don’t eat breakfast near the tv.
im unfortunately not getting rid of the chromecast 😔 but not eating near the tv is a good point
Overkill: get rid of your home wifi and go back to physical media. Use a mobile hotspot with limited data for everything else.
I don’t watch YouTube anymore, though I do listen to it plenty over my phone’s connection.
Edit: Bigger picture: find something you want to do more. Set a goal and make a commitment to set aside a modest amount of time every day to achieve it.
the first one: basically impossible for me 😭🙏
the edit: i really really want to start playing my games (video games btw) more but its just so much easier to start watching youtube than to take the game, take out the disc, put it in the console, start the console, and then start the game (don’t get me wrong i like that, but my brain doesn’t)
I’m frankly amazed you haven’t simply died of neglect yet if you can’t even find the gumption to put a disc in the console and press a button.
I actually think you should consider a full detox. Like move to a Greek island and work at a boat rental for a summer, living in a van or something. Learn how to just be a person again and engage with your physical reality.
yea its rough 😔
Maybe you can do some personal exploration about some thing that would be more rewarding? It just sounds like you’re in a motivational rut and your only thought is how to pleasantly pass the most amount of time with the least amount of effort?
thats not really my only thought lowkey, i am thinking of playing games often but youtube is just so much easier to start doing so sometimes when i want to play games i cant really stop watching
kinda scary stuff
Read up on “executive dysfunction”, I’ve got this too and many evenings end up watching youtube even when I wanted to play a game.
One thing helps with this with 100% success: multiplayer. When my buddies are online and ask to play something, I’ll immediately close youtube every time without issues, no matter how interesting the video is. Sometimes we don’t even play anything and just chat, but even that seems healthier than watching youtube alone.
I know it’s easier said than done (getting gaming buddies), and doesn’t usually cover breakfast time, but it might help if you tried that.