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
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