Oh, and another thing: if you’re reluctant to do something, such as reading, cleaning up, going for a walk, etc, then set a timer for 10 - 30 minutes and commit to it. A human can withstand quite a lot for 15 or 20 minutes. It’s how I was able to get through brutal HIIT cardio routines and feel good for the rest of the day. The Pomodoro technique works well for this sort of time and task management, at least for me.

You might want to read up on (or find some videos on the topic, haha) dopamine addiction. It’s not a real term, per se, but it will get you results about the problem you have.

I think that watching the videos 1) distracts you from reality and 2) gives you a little reward, either though little dopamine spikes (e.g. a funny segment, or some tidbit of knowledge), or through a false feeling of accomplishment.

Personally, I would recommend whittling down a short list of favorite YouTubers. Set aside a few afternoons per week to watch the videos, and try to pare the time back further over the course of months. Focus on real-world hobbies and interests. Leave your phone at home, go to a coffee shop, and read a book for an hour.

On the subject of reading and attention spans (which is often a core issue here), I read about a study a long time ago. They had students read from a book every night. They were to read for as long as they felt like it, and then read one more page. At the end of the study, the students reported that they were reading far more per sitting, and that their attention span improved.

There’s also a lot of recent information out there about dopamine resets, where people cut out technology and take walks while focusing on the world around them. This would probably benefit you, too.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Have you tried getting rid of the chromecast? Also don’t eat breakfast near the tv.

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.