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
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.
Big tech writes the equivalent of digital heroin.
The longer they can keep you on their platforms,
the more they can data-farm you,
the more data they have on you,
the more they can sell about you / earn on you.Detox yourself from your bad heroin addiction,
by switching to fair FOSS (Free Open Source Software) alternatives.E.g. Use Invidious, Grayjay or NewPipe instead of YouTube.
Have not used FreeTube myself.
However it appears to be reputable / decent.- It's source is open: https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube
- It's mentioned in the Invidious repo: https://github.com/iv-org/invidious#projects-using-invidious
Rule of thumb:
- Steer clear of proprietary / closed source software
- Always aim to use open source software if possible
Not really. I never got into mobile gaming, tiktok, reels, shorts, instagram, snapchat etc. so I mainly use my phone for podcasts, maps and browsing lemmy while on toilet. While on my computer I spend 95% of my time on YouTube but I feel like even that has gotten worse lately. I've been getting suggestions about videos with like 19 views constantly and no matter how many I mark as "not interested" or "don't recommend channel" they just keep coming back. Apparently because I like watching TheRunningManZ I must also like every other DayZ streamer that no one has ever heard about.
If I were going to use anything I'd probably use piped as a PWA, but the problem is none of them seem to do recommendations and I just get generic content on the front page which doesn't really interest me
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.
I've marked "not interested" on all shorts I've seen, and they were all gone in like 10 minutes.
Install Youtube ReVanced and disable shorts altogether! Doing that saved me years of lifetime haha
I'm constantly having to recheck for updates on revanced because they are constantly changing YouTube and shorts keep reappearing.
Nonroot device so I can't do it automatically, unless I've missed something.
That's weird! My phone isn't rooted either (Moto G100) and I've only manually updated Revanced once since it was released. I don't think it has ever lost my settings either. Is the option "Auto Update Patches" checked in your Revanced Manager?
The patches keep themselves up to date, and I have to hit the update buttons manually for the revanced manager itself, but the YouTube app I get told "this is a split apk" and apparently you can only mess with those on RvM if your device is rooted, according to the popup.
I just have to find the recommended app version on apkmirror and choose my patches if they haven't saved from the previous time.
It's just a little annoying to have to find the apk and do all the extra steps, but that's what I get for not rooting. Partly because the phone is still under warranty and partly because I don't trust myself to not brick it.
Even with every negative piling on at once, it's still lightyears ahead of youtube base. And it's not bad by any stretch. All the negatives I've experienced are partly my own doing.
Hmm, maybe ReVancedExtended would solve your problems? I know my RvM has no issues with custom patches even without root, but it might just be a device/os version weirdness. I've heard RvX is overall better with the non-root support, but I've never used it personally
Lately I've been more conscious of my decisions to watch trash on you tube. You watch a few traffic cam videos and pretty soon that's half your feed. So I'm finding myself thinking twice before clicking.
Shorts I mostly avoid because I feel that feature is toxic clickbait.
When I watch videos on my phone, I mostly just watch downloaded TV shows using VLC. I never use the youtube app. If I watch a youtube video, I use Firefox with uBlock origin.
I hate using a small screen, so I watch 99.9% of my videos on my laptop and desktop. I can't stand youtube shorts, so I use an addon to block them.
I tend to like watching YouTube on my phone every now and again, I don't have a problem with proper full length videos. It's the fact that I'm bombarded with so many shorts in the UI and can't get rid of them on mobile
Obviously newpipe and piped are a thing but they both are somewhat lacking compared to the official app in user experience
I just avoid shorts or reels or whatever personally. They're short and engaging making it easy to lose track of time.
But yeah you're 100% right my parents (late 50s) have started doing it a lot. I've noticed a lot of teenagers do as well.
My wife's attention span has gone to shit thanks to short form videos like that. From vine to ticktock to whatever Facebook version she uses now, I've gotten to the point where if she picks up her phone while we're talking, I'll just stop talking until she looks up. If we're whatching a new movie or show, I'll pause it until she puts the phone down.
Sometimes it takes her several minutes to realize what she's doing.
I'm so fucking tired of having to pause things to explain what we just watched because she was too busy watching some asshole drop a glass of milk onto the floor for a joke. I'm tired of having to repeat myself because she "needed stimulation" and decided the conversation we
arewere actively having isn't good enough.So now I just don't bother. If she's interested, she'll ask. If it's important, I'll tell her to put the phone down because it's important.
