[HN Gopher] YouTube Addiction
___________________________________________________________________
YouTube Addiction
Author : ingve
Score : 373 points
Date : 2023-01-14 08:35 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.jntrnr.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.jntrnr.com)
| cpsns wrote:
| I am seriously addicted to the internet in general and while it
| may not be an addiction in the physical sense, it has caused
| major issues in my life.
|
| The amount of time I spend on the Internet is insane and no
| matter how hard I try to will power through it and cut down my
| usage I always fail. If I ever figure out how to overcome it I'll
| have to write a book or something, because I've wasted years of
| my life and missed out on too many oppertunities.
|
| People will call me weak, or pathetic, or say I haven't tried
| hard enough, but as someone who did use tabacco I have found
| Internet 'addiction' a much tougher beast to deal with.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| I'm addicted to the internet the way I'm addicted to
| electricity. It powers my quality of life: I don't feel any
| shame about it.
|
| Wanting and expecting to use electricity and being reliant on
| having it available to me doesn't make me pathetic (although
| arguably it does make me weak).
| nostromo wrote:
| Good, people need to stop feeling bad about not always being
| productive.
| dathinab wrote:
| It's not about productivity.
|
| It's about going back to it even if you don't really want
| to and have better (potentially not productive fun) things
| to do.
|
| It's when you sleep time gets (regular) reduced noticable
| because you couldn't stop.
|
| It's when you make excuses to yourself why it's fine to
| watch more all the time.
|
| It's when you end up spending hours consuming media even
| through it overall doesn't make you feel better or good at
| all and you know that.
|
| *It's when it reduces you quality of live and you still do
| it without being forced to.*
| wyre wrote:
| It's not about being productive but about not having
| fulfilling activities. If the internet is fulfilling for
| you great, but there a point where the addiction takes away
| other fulfilling activities.
| edgyquant wrote:
| No they don't. It's bad to be a workaholic sure, but the
| universe is an unforgiving place and we're here only to be
| productive. This is a truth regardless of your metaphysical
| beliefs.
|
| What people need is to make sure they're not being overly
| productive at one thing while letting other things drift
| away.
| namaria wrote:
| >but the universe is an unforgiving place
|
| yes
|
| >and we're here only to be productive
|
| how did you make this jump? the universe doesn't care in
| the slightest how you spend your time or what you do.
| we're not here to anything. we're utterly insignificant
| and our life is devoid of meaning. you can choose to fill
| it with fulfillment by some definition of producing
| something. I really don't care. I just think it's sad to
| define your life in relation to some arbitrary definition
| of your externally bounded output. but by all means, if
| that's what you want...
|
| just don't say it's The Way of The Universe. That's just
| wrong.
| nostromo wrote:
| > we're here only to be productive
|
| The heat death of the universe will destroy anything you
| do with your life and will erase any possibility of it
| being recorded or remembered.
|
| So... enjoy life. All you have is the current moment.
| Productivity - especially to enrich someone else - is a
| fool's game.
|
| Be as productive as you need to to enjoy life.
|
| If you enjoy your work (I do) then do it because you
| enjoy it, not because it's productive.
| edgyquant wrote:
| This is way different though. The internet is a powerful tool
| and we need it: forums and media are not things we need. I
| doubt you're addicted to the productive spheres of the
| internet (although I am addicted to discovering new domains
| and improving my mathematical knowledge: that may be
| considered "productive.")
| aimor wrote:
| I've struggled with this, probably not to the extent you have,
| but enough that I recognize my decisions over the last two
| decades hurt myself mentally, socially, and career wise. I've
| tried to quit various things and of course eventually return to
| old habits (quitting does help though, I encourage everyone to
| at least try).
|
| The only method that really works for me is to have other
| constructive things I genuinely want to do. It's easier to
| avoid picking up the phone or getting on the computer (breaking
| the habit) if I'm thinking about X instead. That can be a
| hobby, a project, or even better a friend, relative, child. I
| don't want to sound like I'm saying, "just do this one trick."
| I know it's not easy and everyone is different.
|
| The children's book Frog and Toad Together has a story about
| willpower called "Cookies". It sums up my experience pretty
| well. If you do write a book about what works for you, consider
| making it a children's book: I've gotten more comfort and
| understanding from those than anything else.
| pmg102 wrote:
| "Just ONE MORE YouTube video, and then I will stop!"
| dathinab wrote:
| It's worse with shorts as you don't even think "just one
| more" as consuming a single short is so
| "effortless"/"short" that you might not think about them in
| singularity and instead think "just a few more".
|
| Which makes it even harder to set boundaries.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| The youtube/tictok shorts are a genius form of getting
| the human brain hooked.
|
| It's similar to how eating a piece of cake can make you
| feel guilty so instead you switch to a bag of M&Ms or
| other such small sweets thinking it's better for you as
| "I'll only have a few", and before you know it, you've
| eaten the whole bag in one go which is worse than the
| single piece of cake would have been.
|
| I've found watching long content is better to keep such
| addictions in check. When I've finished watching a 2h
| long movie, I feel also "done" and ready for bed vs the
| endless stream of streaming shows, youtube videos and
| other social media shorts can keep you hooked for days on
| end.
| kzrdude wrote:
| What about the existential dread route (sorry!). "If I don't
| quit this, then I'll never do X.. and my life amounts to
| nothing". It might be blocking a lot of life goals that will
| never come to be.
| helloplanets wrote:
| Isn't this one of those things that usually ends up having
| the opposite effect it's supposed to have? As in, people who
| scold themselves about their specific addiction are likely to
| include the self scolding as one of the rituals related to
| the addiction. The feeling bad part / existential dread can
| be as much a part of the addiction itself as the feeling good
| / placated part.
| cpsns wrote:
| > "If I don't quit this, then I'll never do X.. and my life
| amounts to nothing"
|
| I've thought this a lot and honestly? I retreat back into the
| internet so I can forget about it/put it out of mind for a
| bit longer.
| layer8 wrote:
| "I can still quit tomorrow though."
| j45 wrote:
| You aren't pathetic.
|
| Unfortunately many apps aren't that good and just resort to
| trying to be the most important app in your device.
|
| Too much ux practice has been perverted to have the user work
| for their app instead of working for the user.
|
| The really nice thing is we are not alone and rarely the first.
| The goal is to create and not consume. Write lots like this
| comment and revisit and review it. Add to it mindfully.
|
| You might like this books called Stolen Focus:
| https://www.amazon.ca/Stolen-Focus-Attention-Think-Deeply/dp...
|
| To help break the distraction cycles to finish a book, there
| are more and more resources out there for disrupting the
| novelty seeking attention dopamine loops.
|
| Some things that help:
|
| - make your phone screen black and white - turn off all
| notifications of all apps. This means alerts, notifications ,
| counters and dots. - the notification thet is on is your
| calendar. Setup notifications to remind you to check your
| device or messages at a set time. Your brain the knows you can
| enjoy it with full focus. - a tablet is handy for moving your
| consumption to. When you put it down it's put down. - The mode
| of iOS is really decent. - Use airplane mode liberally - On
| your laptop manually edit your hosts files. Put all the sites
| you refresh many times a day. Make it a bit hard to edit and
| you'll discover you won't do it much.
|
| - block Hn too on main decides. Dedicate a device to read and
| consume it and leave it there. Nothing you'll miss out on.
|
| - turn on all digital health tracking so you see your daily app
| and website usage. Rescuetime is a great little app.
|
| There is a link that I'm trying to remember which explains this
| and more very well.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I spend way more time random surfing than I probably should.
| Honestly we probably are both dealing with ADHD, depression, or
| some sort of anxiety disorder.
| cpsns wrote:
| I actually do have an (adult) ADHD diagnosis, though I've
| always been a bit sceptical of it. It seemed too easy to get
| and I really didn't think the testing criteria were very
| good.
|
| I have wanted to try medicine to see if it helps me at all,
| but I've never been able to do so. My GP was willing to
| perscribe me something, but decided my BP was too high and
| that was that.
|
| There are definitely anxiety issues at play as well, but I
| don't know to what degree.
| dmlerner wrote:
| Combine with a blood pressure medicine? Guanfacine is
| specifically an ADHD treating blood pressure medication.
| cpsns wrote:
| I'm not the GP, so I don't get to make that call. If they
| say no that's the end of the story. It's frustrating, but
| ultimatly just how it is.
|
| There's no possibility of a second opinion either because
| I'm really damn lucky to even have access to a GP, the
| waiting list for one is ~3-4 years long right now if you
| don't already have one.
| iokanuon wrote:
| That's crazy. Where do you live? In Poland I just skipped
| the insurance system to get ADHD meds and went to a
| psychiatrist specialising in ADHD privately - $70 for a
| 20 minute visit seems a bit steep but it's better than
| waiting years.
|
| Could you possibly do something similar?
| cpsns wrote:
| No, that's impossible. I live in a Canadian province
| where the provincial healthcare situation is very, very
| bad.
|
| There are no private doctors and private psychiatrists
| are not legally allowed to perscribe. ADHD medication is
| controlled so only NPs, GPs, and (I think) psychologists
| are permitted to write a script for it.
|
| Basically there are no options for me except the ones I
| have already taken, short of moving to a different
| province thousands of kilometers away.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| What was the testing criteria?
|
| My assessment took several days, totalling around 8 hours
| of time in the clinic. A lot of interviewing and cognitive
| assessments. I'm not sure if that's standard, but maybe
| that gives you something to contrast it with. I left the
| experience with a fairly hefty document describing my
| abilities/disabilities along with various recommendations
| moving forward.
|
| I also received an IQ test result which was strange to see,
| and I actually would have preferred not to see it.
| cpsns wrote:
| I had to fill out a huge document (30 pages) going over
| my childhood and adult life, issues I face(d), and all
| kinds of other little things, as well as some multiple
| choice assesments. My mother had to fill out another set
| of documents (10 pages) about me. They required any and
| all report cards I had as a kid.
|
| I had to get that all together and done before I went,
| because the clinic is a 2.5 hour drive meaning it wasn't
| practical to spend a ton of time there.
|
| The actual clinic time consisted of an interview that
| took ~2 hours and seveal tests. The only test I remember
| clearly was something called the CPT test, because I
| thought what they were asking me to do was actually
| impossible (don't press the X when it's shown).
|
| After that I had a follow up virtual call a few weeks
| later to discuss the results and they provided me with a
| document about all the testing, results, and steps going
| forward. In their own words I have "severe inattentive
| ADHD".
|
| My main issue is if you know exactly what to tell them of
| course you'll be diagnosed, it's not like a physical
| issue that you can't fake. Someone seeking a diagnoses
| just for drugs could easily have gotten it. Additionally
| it was a private clinic and I worry there was some
| incentive for them to provide the result they thought the
| client wanted.
| missingrib wrote:
| > I also received an IQ test result which was strange to
| see, and I actually would have preferred not to see it.
|
| Why is that?
| wardedVibe wrote:
| I find things like leechblock[0] useful. In general, will power
| is a poor substitute for designing your environment. It's a
| limited resource that should only be used to start developing
| habits.
|
| [0]https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock-
| ng...
| piyh wrote:
| 10 minutes of problem sites every 4 hours with immediate tab
| closing is the magic setup for me.
| ysavir wrote:
| What do you want to spend your time on other than the internet?
| I don't know what you've tried, but you've talked about what
| you don't want to do, and didn't talk about what you do want to
| do. And it's hard to remove a habit if you don't have something
| ready with which to replace it.
| mindslight wrote:
| I agree. Rather than trying to focus on not doing the thing
| you want to do in a sea of few options, one needs to develop
| new patterns.
|
| Go travel, visit some friends overnight, go camping, anything
| to get out of the house and create new (or at least
| different) experiences and a bunch of simple-but-different
| problems you need to solve. When you're done and get back
| home, you can reintegrate to the Internet, catch up, and
| hopefully not feel too guilty about it. Spend your willpower
| making sure you get back out there, rather than trying to
| police your default behavior.
|
| If that's not possible to due a lack of money, friends,
| physical ability, etc, then I'd say you are dealing with
| serious depression and professional help is not unwarranted.
| sysadm1n wrote:
| > I am seriously addicted to the internet
|
| 'Addiction' depends on circumstances. If you're lucky enough to
| be able to spend copious amounts of time online, good for you.
| I know for me, I don't have that opportunity. There's too much
| other stuff hampering my ability to get online like kids,
| marriage, chores, other hobbies, work, etc
| cpsns wrote:
| > If you're lucky enough to be able to spend copious amounts
| of time online, good for you.
|
| I am not the lucky one, you are. My life is a sick joke,
| meanwhile you by all traditional measures have it made if you
| have all that.
|
| If I didn't have my job I'd have literally nothing going for
| me. When I say this has cost me oppertunites I don't mean
| small ones, I mean even things like potential relationships.
| Everything has always come second to this issue.
| Kamq wrote:
| > by all traditional measures
|
| Is there a reason to assume the traditional measures are,
| in fact, the correct ones to be using?
| gernb wrote:
| I spend was too much time on the internet too like right now
| checking hn
|
| but for me I chalk it up to lack of other things to do. I don't
| have a lot of friends, it's hard to make new ones, covid
| doesn't help, at the moment I've got no personal projects
| except maybe trying new recipes now and then.
|
| that said, if I do find other activities I have no trouble
| doing them. I'm taking a class for example, meet the friends I
| do have when they are available, etc
|
| so I doesn't feel like an addiction in my case even though I
| fully feel I spent way too much time on the internet
| serial_dev wrote:
| > I chalk it up to lack of other things to do
|
| In my case, I don't have other things to do _because_ I 'm on
| the internet. When I manage to turn off the internet (HN,
| Youtube, podcasts, Twitter, LinkedIn, reading up on random,
| pretty useless stuff), suddenly I get pretty good ideas on
| what to do.
|
| Oh, I wanted to learn finally _that_ language. I wanted to
| clean up in the kitchen cabinet. I wanted to meet up with a
| friend. I wanted to sign up for swimming class. I wanted to
| go to a restaurant with my wife. I wanted to call my brother
| and sister. I wanted to code up an open source package...
|
| The list of fun things to do is endless, but somehow
| consuming content on the internet trumps everything if you
| are not careful (ymmw).
| theGnuMe wrote:
| Can you do a two week detox? Go skiing or camping or something
| where there is no internet. Just have a basic phone for an
| emergency. Take a friend or family member as well which is a
| good method is to have someone else around as well.
|
| There may be internet detox camps you can go to as well.
|
| Also try therapy it can help, you are not alone in your
| struggles ..
| naasking wrote:
| > and no matter how hard I try to will power through it and cut
| down my usage I always
|
| You can't make it impossible to access the internet, but you
| can make it super inconvenient.
|
| For instance, one thing that worked for me was blocking HN and
| Reddit on my router. Obviously I can get around it but the
| inconvenience to circumvent makes the habit feel like it's not
| worth the payoff. Or, it at least makes you more aware of your
| reflex, and the fact that you don't get the immediate reward
| makes it easier to break the habit loop.
| bgoated01 wrote:
| 100% this. I have Reddit blocked on my laptop, and the
| browser blocked on my phone at certain times of day. Again, I
| can absolutely get around this, but it has disrupted the
| habit for me.
| tester457 wrote:
| What extensions have you tried to limit your usage?
| cpsns wrote:
| Extensions don't work as I can disable them too easily. Even
| router level restrictions are too easy for me to bypass, it
| takes all of a few seconds.
|
| The only thing that has ever provided me mild success was
| locking my devices in my gun cabinet after a certian time of
| day. It was easy to get them out, but it took long enough
| that I could at least reconsider.
|
| I was only able to matinain that a week or two before falling
| into old habbits. Inevitabily I'll have a particularly bad
| day at work and any progress will go out the window as I look
| for comfort/a distraction.
| registeredcorn wrote:
| Perhaps this might work for you:
|
| When I was playing World of Warcraft too much, I decided
| that each time I saw a loading screen, I would do a small
| amount of pushups or sit ups. Nothing crazy. 5 or 10 or
| whatever. Less if I was tired, more if I was bored. It was
| a _tiny_ physical barrier that made me think more
| cautiously about what it was that I was doing, and kind of
| "broke the loop" of the mindless activity I was doing.
|
| Perhaps you could institute something similar. Each time
| you open a new tab, you do some sort of physical
| distraction that gets you out of your chair. If pushups and
| sit ups aren't your thing, it could be something as simple
| as "Get up from the computer and walk around the room for
| 20 seconds". If there are stairs in your house, you could
| walk up and down them once. If you don't have stairs, maybe
| you could put some resistance bands by a door in your
| house. You walk to that door, grab the bands, and do some
| resistance training for 5 to 10 seconds.
|
| The thing that really helped it sink in for me was that it
| was something that was _physically removing me from the
| computer_. Moving away from the computer and then coming
| back helped to me see just how much time I was spending
| there. The soreness in my arms and core also helped
| reinforce how much energy was being devoted to the
| activity, too. It became a reminder that, "Yes, I have
| loaded into a lot of different zones today. What have I
| accomplished? In the game, I suppose I made a few gold or
| whatever, but for me the person outside of the game, what
| am I actually accomplishing? The point of the game is to
| have fun - am I still having fun? I started doing this
| workout stuff because I felt guilty about what I'm doing.
| Is that sense of guilt fun?"
| theteapot wrote:
| Try planning your time down to the 1/2 hour for the day. If
| you allocate YT in there then fine. If you don't also fine.
| But you know exactly how much you've budgeted and what your
| sacrificing if you break your plan.
| all2 wrote:
| You have to actually want to quit, though. Increasing the
| friction for access is a gimmick at best. Right now you're
| in the self deception phase; you know it's bad and that you
| should quit, and intellectually you want to quit, but your
| lizard brain doesn't agree.
|
| Look at how folks who successfully quit porn do it.
|
| > a week or two before falling into old habits
|
| You need to replace old habits with new habits.
|
| Also, as a random aside, get your hormones checked. An
| imbalance of sex hormones can make things like
| concentration exceedingly difficult.
|
| > any progress
|
| You've fallen victim of the "fuck it"s. You assume if you
| fail you might as well not try. A habit is that behavior we
| return to, and this goes for things we don't habitually do,
| too. Just because you fuck up doesn't mean you should quit.
| That nagging voice in your head, the one that says "why
| even bother, you'll just screw up again" is a liar.
|
| You must get up. You must try again. If you listen to that
| voice you won't even try. Don't believe the inner labeling
| of "I'm just a failure", if you believe that you'll be
| right.
|
| > comfort / a distraction
|
| And there it is. You are dependant on the internet for a
| dopamine dump.
| dudul wrote:
| What do you do on the internet?
|
| The best way to not do X is to do Y instead. Find another
| activity that you enjoy and spend your time there instead.
| grecy wrote:
| I know I tend towards it as well, so I've done a few things
| over the years.
|
| Like a recovering alcoholic, you need to just stop going into
| bars - the temptation is too strong.
|
| 1. Don't have a phone with data. It's just too convenient to
| scroll for 3 hours lying in bed.
|
| 2. Don't have wifi at home, at all.
|
| Less internet in your life means you'll spend less time on the
| internet.
| bobmichael wrote:
| You can't willpower through it if it's a defense mechanism
| employed by your brain to hide underlying pain. Maybe it's time
| to try something new. Check out Gabor Mate:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=74DDEDmHDvw
| ajb wrote:
| I read the transcript. TLDR is there is no actionable
| information there other than "you could benefit from therapy"
| [deleted]
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| If you're intent on getting off the internet, Gabor has
| several books worth reading.
|
| One trouble with his writing and speaking on the subject
| isn't that I think he's wrong or does a bad job at all, but
| like anything in psychology, you aren't going to read it and
| "get there", so to speak. What Gabor describes is often years
| of critical reflection away from fully making sense. I guess
| from my perspective I don't get the sense that he's aware of
| that; he speaks with ease, confidence, and a tone that
| suggests this can all be so easy.
|
| Take for example the simple notion that your anxieties are a
| feedback loop, deeply entrenched through decades after being
| initiated in your childhood. This isn't far fetched, but for
| many of us, the idea we had hard times in childhood that
| could cause real trauma is far fetched. It doesn't seem to
| make sense, and you might almost feel silly or guilty for
| entertaining the thought. Your parents loved you, right? You
| had food and clothes, a cool bed shaped like a fire truck,
| etc.
|
| It takes a long time to navigate those things and uncover
| what might have gone wrong (if in fact something ever did),
| and to assess that with family in a way that's constructive
| and as factual as possible (if that's even an options). The
| very nature of these things causes us to pretend it never
| happened, and for adults, the reason it was never addressed
| could be because they didn't notice it or recognize its
| significance. This gives everyone the sense that everything
| was "fine".
|
| Of course there are more acutely traumatic experiences in
| childhood, and that's easy to point out yet still can be so
| difficult to recognize as a harmful, frightening,
| overwhelming thing. You build up these defences, excuses,
| explanations, etc. Nah, there's no way you had childhood
| trauma.
|
| Maybe this is incredibly obvious to most people. It wasn't
| for me, and I found myself putting down his books and
| thinking... Well shit, if it's that simple, what's wrong with
| me? Why can't I get past X or Y if I'm endowed with this
| knowledge? I don't expect miracles, and I didn't, but I
| suppose his writing brought me very close to the problem yet
| left me feeling so far from the solution. It's almost like
| you're looking at the peak of a mountain straight ahead of
| you, yet the only way to the top is to back track an enormous
| distance, navigate around the base from far away, doubt
| yourself the entire way, and climb the mountain from an
| approach on the opposite side you're currently on.
|
| To his credit, he acknowledges his own lack of progress and
| deficiencies, and how it's always an ongoing project. Of
| course it is. I suppose I have the sense that he
| underestimate how hard it is to get the the point where you
| can leverage the paradigm he's offering, even though it seems
| a stone's throw from solutions.
|
| Regardless, I highly recommend his books. I'd just add the
| caveat that if it resonates with you, don't expect to make
| meaningful progress on any new ideas for a while. And that's
| okay. These things always take time - especially if you've
| been living with it for decades.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Which books of his would you recommend one start with?
| [deleted]
| starbugs wrote:
| While I believe that's good advice, I find it hard to ignore
| the irony here.
| altCtx wrote:
| Passive consumption and active skill building are different
| emotional contexts.
|
| Adam Smith wrote of it hundreds of years ago; extreme
| division of labor will make humans as dumb as the lowest
| creature.
|
| To reduce screen time during covid I ditched my TV, bought
| a guitar. Not saying everyone should pick up music; I
| already knew how to play saxophone and piano; it was
| evolving my current state. The point is I cut passive
| consumption to infrequent mentorship via YT tutorials,
| rather than endless staring, to focus on mechanical skill
| building.
|
| Our society needs to let go of career memes, which IMO are
| coupled to historical memes like "A man named Farmer is a
| farmer for life" which forces us to relinquish our dynamism
| in deference to memes of greater good. But I should
| qualify; I grew up in farm land, building barns, fixing big
| machines (programming machines all night), cutting wood in
| January, managing livestock, was routine in my teens.
| Diverse hands on experience was baked in early (only in my
| 40s now). Someone without that will have a harder time.
|
| The only evidence human agency must serve aristocratic
| vision is being told as much from birth.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| " A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan
| an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a
| building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall,
| set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders,
| cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new
| problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty
| meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is
| for insects."
|
| -Robert A. Heinlein
| bobmichael wrote:
| Don't ignore it. Laugh about it! It wasn't lost on me
| writing the comment either. Isn't it great that the very
| thing that brings us pain can also be the vehicle for our
| healing?
| donutpepperoni wrote:
| I agree here. I think the key for me was to redefine the
| relationship and not break it off cold turkey. I find it
| interesting that the OP mentioned a push notification is
| what brought them back into the addiction.
|
| I also think it's important to remember some of these
| sites have been designed with the explicit intention of
| being addictive. Didn't some of the biggest sites hire
| behavioral psychologists to help design products that get
| people hooked?[1] I'm not surprised to hear that folks
| are feeling this way and I think it's an entirely valid
| and legitimate feeling to be addicted to Youtube and the
| Internet.
|
| The internet has been life changing for me and I can
| easily say I have been addicted to it before. As an
| autistic person who has a lot of sensory issues, the
| computer has provided a super safe and easy way to
| explore the world. But it's been easy to get too attached
| and not want to do anything that I need to IRL.
|
| In early December I disabled all notifications on my
| phone and set a schedule to check my phone twice a day.
| I've found that I've been way happier as a result and not
| getting stuck in internet holes. I see push notifications
| as a net negative on my mental health and I think I'll
| keep them off long term.
|
| May we all find a healthy balance that works for us.
|
| 1. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/22668729-hooked
| dgb23 wrote:
| > Don't ignore it. Laugh about it!
|
| This looks like a really powerful mantra. And it's just a
| bit short of a witty Oscar Wilde quote.
|
| When I read it, I knew exactly how you meant it, even
| though we don't really know each other. It feels so
| light, wise and powerful.
| shenbomo wrote:
| The irony of it all is that the "help" to beat this addiction
| is another youtube link...
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| It's not very ironic to send that to someone that is
| claiming "internet addiction" rather than "youtube
| addiction".
|
| Hell, they can burn it to an audio CD if they want.
| dathinab wrote:
| > I am seriously addicted to the internet in general and while
| it may not be an addiction in the physical sense, it has caused
| major issues in my life.
|
| Interestingly it still can have physical effects. I have seen a
| case of an person who got addicted to web novels (like every
| day another short chapter; hit their quirky humor; not porn;
| clinically depressed). And that person showed effects of
| withdrawal in their interaction with that media in certain
| situations. Sure the effects where comparable harmless but
| still there anyway.
|
| People (probably not you) are often prone to think that
| addictions to non-classical "drugs" which don't crate a
| physical/body dependence is mostly harmless not taking it
| serious at all, but it is not. In case of the person above
| there where cases where they where unable to function like a
| normal human sometimes for one or two days because their
| addiction had fully consumed them. (Through last time I have
| seen them they where doing better wrt. to this aspect.)
| Ironically that person had been aware that they where prone to
| addiction due to there mental health state and staid far away
| drugs, including smoking, porn and a strict ban on alcohol
| outside of social gatherings and even there close to never. And
| then the internet screwed them over.
| citruscomputing wrote:
| Ah, this is a description of me as well. No drinking, just my
| web serials for hours and hours every day. Some of them feel
| like TV, I can feel my brain atrophy as I just glide over and
| through the words -- it can barely be called reading, at
| times. One of my eyes got blurry and painful recently. I was
| unable to stop reading, even though staring at screens caused
| me great pain. Maybe that was the cause in the first place.
|
| It's a peaceful ocean, an escape. It's enjoyable, it's
| numbing. It's starting to affect my work.
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| "Number go up" is weirdly powerful, psychologically, whether it's
| the number in your brokerage account, or the number of karma
| points you have on Hacker News. Well, there's a number that
| people in Alcoholics Anonymous keep track of: The amount of time
| since your last drink. "Number go up." So how about keeping track
| of the time since you last watched a YouTube video?
| YoutubeAdct56 wrote:
| Hi, I have this problem. I started using YouTube soon after it
| launched, in mid-2006. I still use the account that I created at
| that time.
|
| I am subscribed to over 900 channels, and as I scroll through
| them I can remember fondly watching each one of them. Some of
| them haven't produced content for many years.
|
| According to the watch statistics in the YouTube app, in the last
| 7 days I have watched for over 43 hours. I would say this is a
| typical weekly watch time for me, with some weeks going up to 70
| hours, if there is time off of work.
|
| I have a full time software engineering job (at a fairly high
| level), and I don't think that many of my coworkers would guess
| that I have this problem.
|
| Most of these hours are spent actively watching the content,
| although I do cook, clean, and work out while watching YouTube as
| well.
|
| I really want to reduce or elimiate the time I spend on YouTube.
| I have tried most of the tricks mentioned here: changing my phone
| to black-and-white mode, using alternative apps with no
| recommendations, deleting the apps, setting the time limit
| setting on my devices. Somehow, I always find myself in a habit
| of "getting around my own system", to the point that it's almost
| laughable how I've built up muscle memory for it.
|
| I seriously feel as though I have a problem. Spending 40-70 hours
| a week on something that you don't want to be doing is pretty
| severe. It is certainly affecting my health and other aspects of
| my life.
|
| A true local, in person, twelve step program for this type of
| thing is something that I have been seeking for years.
| nullc wrote:
| I'm surprised that anyone is addicted to youtube, -- I can hardly
| ever find anything remotely interesting to watch on it. I've even
| missed recent USCSB videos because it's so pointless to even
| check whats on there.
| jacooper wrote:
| One thing I can certainly recommend is using the subscription
| page instead of the home page.
|
| The algorithm is certainly the cause of the addiction, and
| minimizing it certainly will help.
|
| I personally use Libretube, which just fetches a list of your
| subscriptions stored locally or on the piped instance you use,
| and it will save you time by blocking ads and sponsorship
| segments(it auto skips, the extension is called sponsor block on
| the desktop)
|
| Libretube and newpipe are android only, if you're on iOS you may
| use this https://github.com/yattee/yattee
|
| Or a PWA of piped/invidious
| mtbcreate wrote:
| I experienced the same thing during middle/high school. In three
| years I watched a fourth of a year of YouTube on my main account.
| I broke it by asking my dad to block youtube on the dns level and
| disable it using screen time on my iPhone (I still had to stop
| myself from using TOR and free VPNs). Ever since I have spent my
| free moments on HN or working on personal projects - I have
| learned _so_ much. I also have friends now.
| Decabytes wrote:
| I am addicted to mindlessly scrolling YouTube as well. What has
| worked well for me to break this are these habits
|
| 1. I use iPhone focuses to set times during the workday where
| time wasting apps are hidden
|
| 2. I have blocked YouTube.com so I can't see recommended videos
| and instead get redirected to
| https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions. That way if I do
| watch YouTube it's only who I'm subscribed to and feels more
| intentional.
|
| 3. I use the momentum extension so that new tabs don't show me my
| most frequently accessed websites (usually time wasters)
|
| 4. I use leech block for Firefox (stayfocusd for chrome) which
| limits the time I can spend on sites in my addiction category
| (where YouTube resides)
|
| 5. I generally try to be more conscious when I'm on YouTube. I
| stop and ask myself questions like "can I be working on something
| else?" "Is this actually helping me right now?", "is there
| something more important I can be working on?"
|
| Lastly as with any reduction you need to fill that time with
| other things. If you cut out 3 hours of YouTube a day then don't
| expect to spend those 3 hours doing something more productive.
| You'd be better off if you took those three hours and did 1 hour
| of reading (nothing super productive, non fiction, thrillers,
| drama, etc), one hour with going for a walk or chores or
| something easy, and one hour of actually working on a project or
| goal. The break down can change, but the most important thing is
| not expecting to be hyper productive during all the extra time
| you have. You still have to balance it out if you want it to be
| sustainable.
| mikewarot wrote:
| I use YouTube as a juke box, or background noise quite a bit.
| However, thanks to Long Covid, I really have a LOT of time on my
| hands that I can't otherwise use actually outdoors doing things,
| nor do I have the budget that I'd otherwise have from a job to be
| able to buy stuff and work.....
|
| Ok... maybe I do have an addiction ;-) ;-(
| nier wrote:
| I'm very ill equipped to get addicted to anything that shows ads.
| charles_f wrote:
| I'm assuming that spending that much time on it, they may be
| shelling out premium or using revance
| ryandrake wrote:
| People are (and should be) questioning the use of the word
| addiction. One of the components of addiction is: is it causing a
| harmful, unwanted effect on one's life? OP laid out his:
|
| > I've been struggling with my mental health during the
| summertime, a time I traditionally have fewer problems. I wasn't
| recharging like I should. I was waking up tired, napping during
| the day, and generally not feeling at all prepared when the day
| started.
|
| Yet, some people do activities excessively, even compulsively,
| but they're not addicted because it's not causing them any harm.
| My elderly parents have the TV on 16 hours a day, basically from
| the time they wake up to the time they go to bed. It's CNN and
| cooking shows and blah blah blah just to have a head on a screen
| talking in the background. It irritates me, but they're not
| addicts. Same with my daughter and YouTube. Streamers talking
| about nothing for hours, but her grades are great, her social
| life is fine, she's healthy and growing properly, so I can't
| really object. Some people just like to have blah blah blah as
| background noise all day, and I've come to just accept that it's
| not for me.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| If you are using a word by its most common definition then
| sure. Addiction has more casual definitions in the dictionary.
|
| Language evolves and the word addiction has evolved. It's used
| casually all the time like this blog post although there's no
| formal diagnosis.
|
| Your examples bring up a good point. Many parents have the TV
| on all day in the background because they were raised with it.
| Many kids today will likely have streamers on all day as they
| grow up because they were raised with it.
|
| It doesn't matter if they are good citizens or doing well in
| life, you can argue the perspective that it could be "harmful"
| if using the most common definition that many common mediums
| (radio, TV, internet, live streaming, etc) removes the sense of
| reality from people and promotes them to engage in
| consumerism/capitalism. That can be pretty harmful over the
| course of one's life although it's non-obvious.
|
| See also:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Arguments_for_the_Elimina...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone
| tommica wrote:
| Then the question that has to be answered is what unwanted and
| harmful effect consists of.
| erikerikson wrote:
| And are they relative to individual values and preferences?
| _gabe_ wrote:
| > People are (and should be) questioning the use of the word
| addiction. One of the components of addiction is: is it causing
| a harmful, unwanted effect on one's life?
|
| Meriam Webster's second definition doesn't mention causing
| harm:
|
| > a strong inclination to do, use, or indulge in something
| repeatedly
|
| So, according to the way people typically use the word
| "addiction" and the literal dictionary definition of the word,
| it doesn't need to cause harm to be considered an addiction. I
| can readily admit that I'm addicted to coding. I feel a
| compulsion to code for ridiculous amounts of time, and that has
| caused a lot of good in my life. But, like with everything in
| life, there needs to be balance.
|
| [0]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/addiction
| knaik94 wrote:
| People typically also say things like watching youtube gives
| them dopamine hits and they will get rid of their addiction
| with a dopamine fast. The problem with using the word
| addiction is that there are two possible outcomes. Either the
| word becomes weak and stops having the seriousness it should,
| similar to how OCD now can mean liking organation or people
| associate the action with all of the negative connotations of
| addiction. The second happens more often, as observed in this
| thread, and people start shaming you, and casting and
| projecting their moral judgement on you based on an
| inconsequential fact.
|
| Fundamentally it prepetuates the older generation mentality
| that screen use is the causes depression, dismissing the
| underlying struggle people face. If someone comes out and
| says they are depressed, someone will respond, "oh, you're
| watching too much youtube, you'll stop being depressed once
| you stop." It happens with every shift in the most popular
| mainstream technology.
| rafaelero wrote:
| Terrible definition. Is sex an addiction then?
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| That is indeed something that people debate about.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| Me too.
|
| I noticed this one night when I spent something like 2 hrs
| scrolling youtube on my TV adding "gotta watch" stuff to watch
| later list. My eye lids were heavy. I wasn't even watching the
| videos, just adding them to later.
|
| I was addicted to the find of a video that promised to make my
| life better. Though the obvious fact that 1) probably not and 2)
| even if so I'd have to watch it, not just queue it for later. It
| really hit me i had a problem when youtube failed to add to watch
| later. apparently 5k videos is the limit for that list. (And they
| dont give you any rapid way to clean it up either, lol).
|
| Books is my answer. Yes we can waste time with books, but the
| stimulation package is just so below the threshold that I'm not
| worried about. It's like yes you can get fat eating just
| fresh/roasted vegetables. But I dare ya to try.
| TexanFeller wrote:
| I'm the type to become addicted and I had a big problem with
| spending vastly too much time on YT. A few months ago I cleared
| my search and watch history and subscriptions to start fresh. Now
| I only allow myself to watch videos about math, science, or
| playing instruments I'm interested in learning to play. If I ever
| see a politically leaning recommendation I tell YT to never show
| it to me again. If I slip up and watch something off my diet I
| immediately clean it from my search and watch history. It's
| improved my life a lot removing the toxic content and replacing
| it with slowly understanding pieces of modern physics from
| listening to Leonard Susskind.
| pythonguython wrote:
| I likely have some degree of YouTube addiction as well. While I
| hope your tactic is working well for you, I believe this way of
| thinking can be a deceiving. Almost all the YouTube content I
| consume is related to science, engineering, math or chess (I've
| watched many of Susskinds's lectures too). I used to
| rationalize my excessive use by telling myself that the content
| I watched was useful. In reality, my time would be FAR better
| reading a book, doing a project, socializing, doing chores, or
| really anything other than just being a YouTube zombie.
| goostavos wrote:
| >can be a deceiving
|
| I think that's a great way of describing it. Watching
| "educational" content feels better or more productive than
| watching a Let's Play, but it's all basically empty
| entertainment -- the medium and the algorithm sort've
| necessitate it. Which is definitely not to say there's not
| awesome resources on youtube for actually learning things,
| but, for the most part, I'm not watching things that actually
| take mental effort. I'm more often just letting trash wash
| over me while also convincing myself that it's OK because
| "I'm learning" (even though whatever trivial factoid being
| discussed is immediately ejected from my brain when the next
| video starts)
|
| I've realized that the internet has a numbing effect on me.
| It all washes over me until I feel absolutely nothing and I'm
| just mindlessly consuming. My ISP was recently down for a
| day, and it actually made life (at least temporarily) more
| interesting. Rather than just sitting in front of a screen
| and having content pumped into my veins, my SO and I had to
| leave the house to seek out things to do.
|
| Then the internet came back and now we're both back on the
| drip.
| TexanFeller wrote:
| I'm not(err no longer) fooling myself that I'm learning like
| I would be by methodically working through a textbook, but
| it's fun, an improvement to what I was doing before, the most
| I can consistently muster when I'm zapped after work, not
| harmful like the toxically engaging political/social content,
| and inspires me with interesting topics to read further about
| later. I've accumulated a pile of books on subjects I've
| listened to talks about and hope to transition to those
| someday soon when I can manage to get out of the funk I've
| been in and have more mental energy. I'm already working on
| the lighter books, but haven't had made it to textbooks yet.
| gunshai wrote:
| I wish there was a way to transpose someone else's "YouTube
| diet" so to speak. this probably exists through tag matching
| ect. but it would be nice.
| [deleted]
| PebblesRox wrote:
| Hah, sounds similar to a fecal transplant to restore the gut
| biome.
| omgmajk wrote:
| I am sort of also addicted to YouTube, I don't watch as much as
| this person every day but on days that I'm off I easily do.
| Almost all educational content (science, programming, new tech),
| tech news or essays of various kinds.
| blueblimp wrote:
| > I'm sure some folks are thinking "what if you just limit
| yourself to 30 minutes a day?"
|
| An alternative to this that I've found more effective is to
| prescribe which modes of interaction are allowed.
|
| For example, in this case, the author JT has a YouTube channel,
| so he could say that he's allowed to post to the channel,
| interact with the comments, etc. But then also say that he's not
| allowed to go to the frontpage and browse recommended videos (or
| whatever habit it is that he finds leads to problematic overuse).
|
| I've used an approach like this when I find internet overuse
| detracting from the things I want to do. For example, I'll say
| I'm not allowed to just aimlessly browse my reddit homepage, but
| I am allowed to read a reddit thread if I came from Google search
| looking for specific information. That way I can still get the
| benefits without losing too much time.
| yinyang_in wrote:
| Similar for me, found solution by removing distractions.
|
| 1. Cleaned Home Screen on YouTube with adblocker with only search
| bar.
|
| 2. Somehow YouTube still has RSS feeds for channels. So for
| channels like oversimplified have RSS feeds like other feed. 3.
| Also no youtube app just using it in mobile browser.
|
| I think I'm most distracted one, but using this all is resolved
| for me.
| eloff wrote:
| I've been warily watching this grow in my own life. At first it
| was just some podcasts in the background while working. Then it
| became all kinds of videos. Then it became while taking breaks,
| preparing food, eating food, using the bathroom, etc. It consumed
| all my quiet time. I managed to break the habit as a side effect
| of upending my whole life and digital nomading around for a year
| and a half (side note, that was a very positive experience, and
| actually helped, rather than hurt my career.) Now I feel it
| coming back, and worse thanks to YouTube shorts. I'm going to
| uninstall the app after writing this.
| superkuh wrote:
| Nope. Stop using the medical word addiction in contexts where
| it's highly inappropriate. Youtube isn't even a single _thing_.
| It 's just a video hosting service. The types of videos on it are
| extremely wildly varying.
|
| Video addiction is not a thing. See how stupid it sounds when you
| say it like it is?
| charles_f wrote:
| > Stop using the medical word addiction in contexts where it's
| highly inappropriate. Youtube isn't even a single thing
|
| You're playing with semantics in a context where
|
| 1) everyone understands what the author is saying when talking
| about addiction, making it appropriate to convey what they mean
|
| 2) the word pre-dates DSM, the fact that DSM defines that in a
| medical sense doesn't change the definition from the
| dictionary, which fits very much with what the author is
| describing (1). That's very much you getting angry at sound
| engineers because they are not engineers per the sense of
| professional colleges, whereas that's how their profession is
| called.
|
| 3) Give time to all the troubles created by digital products to
| be studied, understood, and make their way into that guide.
| Psychology and mental afflictions are still a very evolving
| field of medicine. DSM is changing to reflect that, a notable
| change between IV and V was regrouping AS into ADS because the
| symptoms and the underlying cause are similar. The is the case
| for what everyone calls digital addiction. I suspect there will
| be some forms of that formally coming up.
|
| 4) the dependency mechanisms work in the same way, people
| suffering from it have the same withdrawal symptoms. There's
| some valid criticism for the DSM not to categorize it as
| addiction (2)(3).
|
| > Video addiction is not a thing. See how stupid it sounds when
| you say it like it is?
|
| 5) the author's struggle to disconnect is real, the impact on
| their life is real, their pain is real. I am not sure what
| authorizes you to discard their pain, and to qualify this as
| stupid. Show a little empathy.
|
| 1: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/addiction 2:
| https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/addiction-in-society...
| 3: https://unitedbrainassociation.org/brain-
| resources/digital-a...
| superkuh wrote:
| 1: And that's the problem: people believing they know what
| addiction is and applying it to pretty much anything they or
| others like to do. It's like how people who are a little
| finicky would say, "Yeah, that's my ADHD." but it's not. The
| other groups advocating for useless loose definitions of
| "addiction" are typically scam groups that run paid seminars
| for things like "porn addiction". About as legit as anti-
| homosexual camps.
|
| 2: This is a legit argument. In the past people may have used
| the word addiction to cover many things. But it is no longer
| the year 1900.
|
| 3: I guess we better wait till your prediction additions to
| the DSM6 happen then. I think it more likely that gambling
| disorder will be removed than additional behavioral
| "addiction" disorders put in. I'm not sure what the folding
| of aspergers into autism spectrum disorders has to do with
| this?
|
| 4: Claiming that there are psysiological withdrawl symptoms
| from watching youtube is absurd. There are not. Show me the
| journal article supporting such an outlandish claim.
| Dependency also has a meaning in this context and merely
| missing something psychologically isn't it. Psychological
| dependence is not physiological dependence and neither are
| addiction. Just like how no one is addicted to
| benzodiazapines: they become physiologically dependent and
| experience widthdrawl but addiction requires more.
|
| 5: Personal anecdotes and emotional appeals are not valid
| arguments. I'm sorry the person is having psych troubles but
| "youtube" is not the cause.
| charles_f wrote:
| papers:
|
| - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35682491/
|
| - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28542470/
|
| - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352799801_Social
| _me...
|
| Note that the DIS also categorizes gaming disorders under
| addictive behaviors, I encourage you to read the definition
| for "other disorders resulting from addictive behaviours",
| that the author's description matches.
|
| https://icd.who.int/browse11/l-m/en#/http%3a%2f%2fid.who.in
| t...
| superkuh wrote:
| I do appreciate you linking to articles but these
| articles are pretty terrible.
|
| re #1: The WHO adding internet addiction reflects the
| amount of sway China's political processes have over WHO
| declarations more than anything else. Their internal
| political narrative is that this is a problem and the WHO
| is being used to support that. The repetition of the
| falsified blue light hypothesis re: sleep is also
| informative re: the quality of citation #1. As for
| "changes in glutamatergic and gabaergic" signalling... if
| that doesn't happen when it means you're brain dead.
| Glutamate or GABA expressing neurons literally make up
| ~3/4 of the neuronal cells in the brain. And both are
| regulated extraceullary by glial cells too. You cannot do
| anything without changing this. If they'd done fMRI or
| PET or something and could shown long term abberant
| changes in the glutamergic signalling in the shell of the
| nucelus accumbens then maybe it'd be saying something.
| But they don't and I'm getting ahead of myself.
|
| Citation #2 shows that when people are doing something
| relaxing and then they stop doing it they aren't as
| relaxed. That's hardly surprising. The arguments seem to
| be pop-sci level characterizations of the brain where any
| change is seen as significant or having a valance, good
| or bad.
|
| And then they go and cite obviously false out-dated
| concepts like the idea of dopaminergic cells being
| neccessary or sufficient for expressions of
| pleasure/reward,
|
| > Dopamine plays a critical role in this circuitry, for
| the subjective pleasure associated with positive rewards,
| and the motivation or drive-related reinforcements
| associated with eating, drinking, or drugs [73,74]
|
| >The initially pleasant, so-called rewarding effects of
| the drug are relayed by the release of dopamine in the
| nucleus accumbens (NA) by the synaptic endings from the
| neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the
| mesocorticolimbic circuitry [79,80].
|
| It's actually glutamergic cells in the shell of the
| nucleus accumbens that are necessary and sufficient (but
| not all encompassing) for pleasure expression in mammals.
| Dopaminergic neurons can be blocked off with antagonists
| and the expression is still complete. The modern
| understanding is that mesolimbic dopaminergic populations
| encode for wanting and reward prediction. Glutamergic
| cells encode for reward/pleasure. I'd hope that someone
| writing a policy paper like this would cite up to date
| knowledge but it is excusable and a side point.
|
| The real problem with #2 is that it doesn't actually talk
| about withdrawl symptoms in "digital addicts". It talks
| about widthdrawl symptoms and neurochemistry known in
| actual drug addicts and then just implicitly applies that
| all these statements must apply to the behavior "digital
| addiction" too. They don't show data about "digital
| addiction" withdrawl.
|
| The third article is behind a cloudflare wall and I
| cannot access it.
| hxugufjfjf wrote:
| edit
| charles_f wrote:
| Per why AS/ASD, the logic was that AS is in the mild
| section of the syndrom. You can probably draw a parallel to
| digital addiction, which everyone can agree is a much less
| severe form of addiction than substance addiction.
| yladiz wrote:
| Nope. Stop using the medical word addiction in contexts where
| it's highly inappropriate. The Internet isn't even a single
| thing. It's just a collection of content. The types of content
| on it are extremely wildly varying. Internet addiction is not a
| thing. See how stupid it sounds when you say it like it is?
|
| Outside of lampooning how absurd your comment sounds, I don't
| think it's your place to call if something is a valid addiction
| or not, and addictions don't have to be strictly medically
| defined to be considered as such. Just because there isn't some
| ICD-10 definition for "YouTube addiction" doesn't mean it can't
| exist, because addiction fundamentally just means a dependence
| or habitual occupation with something.
|
| And so, is Youtube addiction as debilitating as something like
| alcoholism? I think most people would say absolutely not, but
| presumably it's distressing enough to the writer of the post
| that they have formed a habit around watching (a lot of) it,
| perceive it as a negative, and want to change it. I would
| colloquially consider this an addiction.
| superkuh wrote:
| Absolutely. There is also no such thing as internet
| addiction. When you compare drug based addictions to things
| people enjoy the difference is clear. The drugs create
| increased incentive salience even without enjoyment. This is
| very different from say, watching a video where you actually
| have to enjoy it intrinsically many times before it alters
| incentive salience.
|
| There's a reason the DSM5 and ICD-10 don't have any of the
| "internet addiction" "video game addiction" "porn addiction"
| or other cult concepts that scammers use to defraud people of
| their money. They aren't actually addiction.
| yladiz wrote:
| Please define addiction for me. My point was not to say
| that all addictions are equal (they are not), and they act
| differently, but I think it's too simplistic to flippantly
| state that Internet addiction is not a thing.
| superkuh wrote:
| Addiction is when the motivation for a stimuli is
| divorced from reward from the stimuli and the animal
| keeps exposing itself to the stimuli regardless. But
| socially in humans this is acceptable until the addiction
| begins to have detrimental effects on the person being
| able to care for themselves. In almost all cases the
| simuli capable of doing this are drugs that bypass actual
| perception and internally/chemically tweak the balance
| for motivation.
|
| There's not even a thing called "Gambling Addiction".
| Only, "Gambling disorder" and it's the only behavioral
| "addiction" recognized by the DSM-5.
| spion wrote:
| Why is this specific behavioral addiction recognized by
| the DSM-5?
| [deleted]
| hxugufjfjf wrote:
| edit
| Egidius wrote:
| Human are addiction machines
| jadia wrote:
| [dead]
| sebastianvoelkl wrote:
| I think the YouTube suggestions got worse over time. In 1-2 weeks
| I will launch www.EduTube.app a platform to discover hand picked
| educational YouTube videos for those who are interested in it
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| Will your platform be "making suggestions" after users watch
| any hand-picked content? How do you plan to monetize this?
| sebastianvoelkl wrote:
| Not making any suggestions. A couple of categories are free
| to watch and for a 20$ one time payment You can have access
| to everything
| huy77 wrote:
| This is exactly what I found myself to be just last night.
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| This is going to sound sad but I'm _aiming_ to hopefully have a
| YouTube addiction. I had a severe reddit addiction for many years
| which wasted the best years of my life, that I recently replaced
| with a TikTok addiction (reddit banned me anyway). Now I 'm
| trying to step up and wean myself onto longer form video content
| instead. That's how deep I've gotten myself into this... self-
| induced ADHD spiral. I can barely even play videogames for more
| than 20 minutes at a time anymore.
| clintfred wrote:
| It's not sad. You have identified a problem in your life!
| That's awesome. No one has a life with no problems, so you're
| like the rest of us humans. Now you can decide how you are
| going to change your behavior. You might consider talking to a
| friend or maybe a counselor to help you identify changes and
| unhelpful thinking patterns.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| I like that this author called out YouTube as a specific type of
| addiction. It seems their main way of combatting the consuming
| side of their addiction is by creating.
|
| I spent the last year writing a book about technology addiction.
| Through that process, it has helped me find better ways to fill
| my days and moderate how much time I spend on devices. There's
| also a good book called "Stolen Focus" that outlines a number of
| these challenges of quitting.
|
| The main way I found to combat addiction was to change the
| consumer mindset to one of creation. Create something everyday no
| matter how shitty it is. Share it with the world when you're
| ready. While in that process of creating, find ways to block the
| outside world from invading your creativity so you can stay
| focused.
| cmehdy wrote:
| I tend to agree with you a lot, and find the process entirely
| terrifying. I've grown up with a history of being shut down and
| bullied when attempting to create (by teachers, peers, or
| mistakenly by family), and have as a result become an permanent
| observer to nearly everything. Only in the workplace have I
| turned things around because I could invoke the necessity to
| bypass everything else in order to make something tangible, but
| the private sphere is an endless battle to simply "feel"
| allowed and able to make something, and for it to be bad. As a
| result I also have a lot of respect for people who just do that
| constantly and got into the habit of it, and I think this is
| something we should encourage in others.
| juujian wrote:
| I have to be honest, whenever I get busy and do not watch any
| video for a couple of days, and then I get back to youtube, I am
| somewhat disappointed by the content. And recently the algorithm
| has been really insistent on having me watch certain videos. I
| just open the page and see a couple of videos I did not want to
| watch the last time around.
| omgmajk wrote:
| I also think the algorithm has become worse. It recommends that
| I watch a lot of stuff that I don't want to see and buries
| channels that I subscribe to and watch every video of.
| juujian wrote:
| Same experience. First it was just showing recommendations
| first and burying subscriptions. But those recommendations
| seemed decent. Now it is just a bunch of stuff I have no
| interest in. And recently I got a new device that I did not
| want to sign into youtube with, and it tried to sell me
| Jordan Peterson after just a couple dozen videos. F'ed up.
| layer8 wrote:
| You can mark suggested videos as "Not interested".
| ChildOfChaos wrote:
| Ugh.
|
| I have such a problem with this and the internet in general, I
| spend hours refreshing, trying to find something that might be
| useful in my life. I guess some of it comes out of a desire for
| self improvement, I watch videos, read articles etc, hoping to
| find an interesting idea, product, service, book, app etc that
| will improve my life, but in general there is just so much
| filler, however it's not like I haven't found semi
| cool/intreasting things, so there is enough there that really
| makes me feel like I will miss out if I cut too much of it off.
| password4321 wrote:
| See also (two weeks ago):
|
| _Tech execs who raise their kids tech-free or limit their screen
| time (2020)_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34186349
|
| Including a recommendation of "Indistractable" by Nir Eyal.
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PG2W6DC
| broahmed wrote:
| Read Cal Newport's _Digital Minimalism_. If you're like me,
| you'll substitute one digital addiction for another when trying
| to give up something; his book is helping me to break that cycle.
| Products like YouTube and most social media are finely tuned
| billion dollar machines aimed at capturing and holding your
| attention; our fleshy brains require more than a simple detox to
| break that grip.
| atonse wrote:
| That's been my experience. I stopped using Facebook and
| twitter, and hacker news doesn't keep me occupied for hours. So
| YouTube has taken over all that desire for content.
|
| I don't think it even matters that most of the stuff I watch is
| educational, fascinating, and helping me learn new things. It
| affects my sleep and is still a bit of a passive time suck
| (like I could just be experimenting with wok cooking in the
| hours spent watching dozens of videos of others learning how to
| cook with a wok). So will check out these various extensions
| that remove recommendations, etc.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| I think YouTube cured my addiction to YouTube. It seems like
| every video recommended to me now has the same _YouTube thumbnail
| face_ thumbnail. I hate it, and it makes me feel like I've
| already seen everything on YouTube, so there's no point visiting.
| nullc wrote:
| I block any account that uses those sex-face thumbnails as soon
| as I see one. Makes the youtube front page less squicky.
| nikhilsimha wrote:
| One invaluable hack I found is to use ad block to block the
| recommendation section of landing page.
|
| That way I don't habit jump into a YouTube marathon but still
| search for specific topics when I need to.
|
| I do that with hacker news too.
| lairv wrote:
| I don't know why the author spends half of the article justifying
| how can youtube addiction be a thing, it seems to me that social
| media addiction is now an established thing, which a large
| proportion of people are subject to
|
| If you own an Android phone there is a "Digital well being"
| settings which allows you to block applications after a certain
| amount of time spent every day, it also work for time spent on
| certain website on chrome, and it contains other features (focus
| mode, black and white mode) which I've found really useful. There
| are equivalent browser extension for desktop
|
| Though blocking websites/apps is not a magical solution, in the
| past I've found myself just disabling the blockers when I really
| wanted to watch something, I think it only works combined with
| discipline
| theshrike79 wrote:
| I've set myself Screen Time on iOS for this exact reason.
|
| Yes, it takes discipline to stop, but it's still a good thing
| that the OS notifies "You've spent a hour on social media
| already".
| lairv wrote:
| Great to know that iOS has the same kind of thing, I was
| honestly surprised when I discovered it on android, it seems
| to go against the "engagement maximization" trend and all, I
| guess it shows that it's a serious enough topic
| jna_sh wrote:
| They tell you why they spend so long justifying it as a thing,
| because people around them said it wasn't a thing.
| epalm wrote:
| Something that really helped me with YouTube was installing the
| Unhook browser extension https://unhook.app/ Unhook can remove
| all 'suggested' videos. The home page will just be blank, and
| when watching a video, there will be no other video links on the
| page. This means I can still use YouTube, but I have to search
| for what I'm looking for. This alone has completely solved the
| endless video merry-go-round sessions.
| rob81777 wrote:
| Here's how you can stop the youtube algorithm:
|
| step 1) install libredirect (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
| US/firefox/addon/libredirect/?...)
|
| step 2) on invidious go to settings and uncheck show related
| videos, set default homepage and feed menu to "search"
|
| on your phone you can install newpipe
| (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/) and do the
| same.
| smlavine wrote:
| As suzumer also commented, the extension Unhook has also been
| very helpful to me in curbing the amount of time I spend watching
| YouTube. I have it set to block the front page suggestions,
| sidebar suggestions, after video cards, etc. Everything except a
| particular video I'm searching for. And of course I always view
| youtube logged out.
|
| The first thing I did to try to curb my...addiction to YouTube
| was to consume the videos instead through RSS feeds. I wrote a
| script omnavi (https://sr.ht/~smlavine/omnavi) to help out with
| that. I would never watch videos on YouTube itself; I would click
| links that I got through RSS to channels I was subscribed to, and
| view the videos locally with mpv + youtube-dl.
|
| Honestly it's sad to look back at how many hours of my day I
| wasted watching YouTube videos. They're the sort of sort-of
| educational videos that make me feel like I'm spending my time
| valuably, but at the end of an all-night session, I really
| wouldn't have been able to tell you any of what I had watched for
| the past six hours.
| vibrolax wrote:
| I occasionally watch "let's play" videos as a harm reduced
| alternative to actually playing games. A half hour spent watching
| someone play a game/sim totally relieves my FOMO. It also
| dissipates my urge to build a gaming PC. As a maker and musician,
| there's tons of inspiring and informative content on YT. I feel
| that I'm quite net positive on my use of YT to enrich my life.
| piyh wrote:
| Watching twitch increased my game playing and urges to play
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| That's surely the design intention.
|
| However... I have a little cousin in my family, and all she
| does it watch twitch. I've asked before "Don't want to play
| the games you're watching?" and she looks at me like I asked
| to solve fusion.
|
| So, there is a hand shake meme of people who play because of
| twitch and people who just want to watch twitch... Good for
| twitch. Bad for humans.
| aequitas wrote:
| If you want to make that even more efficient and entertaining
| you can also watch speedruns, AGDQ 2023 is on right now:
| https://www.youtube.com/@gamesdonequick/videos
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Speedruns are bad at getting the normal feeling of a game
| across, _and_ encourage watching multiple versions and
| attempts, _and_ throwing a hundred speedruns together
| encourages a lot more watching than a trickle of half hour
| playthroughs as particularly interesting new games come out.
|
| I think this suggestion does the opposite of help.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > a harm reduced alternative to actually playing games.
|
| There's probably some merit to this statement, but I sorta
| laugh at the difference in harm between 'watching' and
| 'playing'. Maybe the most candid thing for us to do is
| acknowledge that the "harm" we're talking about is a lack of
| gratification.
| theptip wrote:
| I think the idea is 30 mins watching scratches the itch, 30
| mins playing and you are going to play for hours more.
|
| (At least, this is how it is for me, can't speak for the GP.)
| nightski wrote:
| Yeah it's all down to the individual. I used to play all
| the time when younger but now I play in pretty short bursts
| and it works fine. I just avoid any games as a service type
| games.
|
| The PS5 is really nice at this because you don't even have
| to exit the game. Just send it into rest mode and when you
| come back your game is still running ready to pick up where
| you left off.
|
| For me it's a lot more satisfying than watching a YouTube
| video, but YMMV.
| [deleted]
| smoldesu wrote:
| Sure. Impulse control plays a major part in both though,
| which is mostly why I find it funny. My ex-boyfriend had
| ADHD and swore off video games for the same reason, but
| he'd end up watching YouTube for hours if I left him
| unchecked. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but I feel
| like the difference between both addictions is smaller than
| it seems.
| namaria wrote:
| I'd argue passive consumption of content is worse then
| playing video games. I have no horses in this race, I
| admittedly spend way too much time streaming content. But
| at least with games you're doing something. Actively
| using your brain. There are studies showing games can
| improve dexterity and problem solving abilities. I doubt
| watching stuff does the same.
| moffkalast wrote:
| One of these doesn't empty your wallet in the process. As a
| recent example, Stray costs $30 for 4 hours and no replay
| value, you bet your ass I watched that on youtube. It's even
| 2-3x worse in the console domain, especially for any AAA
| title.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| I was heavily addicted to Diablo 2, playing nonstop for
| months on end. I watch let's play videos and can skip through
| the grind while getting the endorphin hit. I've played the
| re-master for maybe 16-24 hours total in 12 months. For me
| it's less about the cost of the game and more about the
| potential amount of time I may sink into it.
| booyah_achieved wrote:
| > harm reduced alternative to actually playing games.
|
| I don't quite see your logic here. How is it "harm-reduced"?
| Playing a game can be quite enriching and stimulating, whereas
| watching a video you're just sitting completely idle. To me, it
| sounds like you're just irrationally worried about playing a
| game for some reason.
| dtech wrote:
| It read it as 30 minutes of LP allows him not to spend hours
| on gaming, which he does not want.
| racl101 wrote:
| I definitely am addicted to YouTube.
|
| I watch it more than Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime combined.
| I just like documentaries.
| cm2187 wrote:
| To cure your youtube addiction, just disable your adblocker.
| Works very well.
| clnq wrote:
| Yes, I have shaken my YouTube addiction this way. It naturally
| makes YouTube less appealing. It also lengthens the habit-
| forming action->random outcome cycle by 20 or more seconds with
| pre-roll ads. Enabling ads on YouTube is the opposite of
| autoplay in terms of addiction.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Is it just me or is Google quietly in serious distress?
|
| Ads have been getting a LOT worse very quickly. Almost every ad
| I saw in a day when my UBlock wasn't working was advertising an
| actual fraud. Whether crypto or recession get rich quick or
| "aluminum is giving you cancer."
|
| Advertising frequency is cranked way up. On mobile 5 second
| unskippables are 6-7 now. I'll do a search and my ENTIRE screen
| is advertising until I scroll down and find results.
| cpsns wrote:
| Same nonsense on Facebook. It's all payday loans, crypto
| scams, and magic mushrooms.
|
| People say it's based on your history, but I don't buy that
| as none of what it shows me is even slightly relevant. It
| just seems like they don't have enough relevant ads to show,
| so they throw shit at the wall.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Interesting. It's the same on my end. I'm not interested in
| any of the stuff I see and I have no idea why an algorithm
| would think so. Crypto is relentless. Payday loans are
| around, but not as prevalent. I get a lot of ads for weird
| novelty toys too. I'm not sure I've ever clicked one, let
| alone looked them up.
|
| I've wondered if it's because I'm into 3d printing and many
| other people who are into are interested in action
| figures/minis/what have you. Possible connection?
|
| In any case ads do seem to be getting less relevant and
| skeezy themes are developing.
|
| The worst one I've been seeing a lot of is "single
| Ukrainian women". One went as far as showing a quick and
| easy process of selection and "purchase". I have no idea
| how that would be targeted at me, but it see a lot of them.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Maybe there's a "HN User" stamp on your ad profile?
|
| Jokes aside, if you do your data request from FB you should
| see your advertising selectors come back. Before I deleted
| my account, FB thought I was a 17 year old girl interested
| in boy bands and makeup.
| zupa-hu wrote:
| That's not as shocking as you'd think. While FB may not
| know you well, we don't either. :)
| metasaval wrote:
| nobody pays for premium so ads get worse.
| fleddr wrote:
| For me it was especially shocking because I've experienced no
| transition, straight from 0 to 100 instead.
|
| I've always exclusively interacted with Youtube from my PC,
| with uBlock enabled. I don't see ads and because I haven't
| for such a long time, I've normalized that state.
|
| Until I got a new TV, with a fancy TV OS. My mother-in-law
| was visiting and I was trying to play some clips of her
| favorite music via the TV app. I was absolutely shocked.
| Every 2 minutes or so, 2 brief ads in succession.
|
| It makes viewing anything with joy impossible. You can't get
| into the moment as its constantly stopped in its tracks.
| Absolute hellish ad regime.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| We used to let the kids watch YouTube videos. But now it's
| "daaaaad Ad..." every two minutes. YouTube is now banned on
| the TV.
|
| And while we're on this topic: Google's rockstar elite
| engineers and designers removed the ability to force a
| resolution for YouTube + Chromecast. But it also wrongly
| auto detects my gigabit internet as being too weak so it's
| literally impossible to get anything above 480p on my
| basement TV. (Twitch and others stream in HD without issue)
| halkony wrote:
| On this topic, what do people recommend for mobile
| adblocking? I've been using AdAway which redirects ads to
| your phone's loopback in non-root mode.
| kzrdude wrote:
| So far so good on Android: Firefox with ublock origin.
| LorenDB wrote:
| Blokada 4
| Waterluvian wrote:
| On iOS I use AdGuard and Hush. These don't affect ads in
| apps though.
|
| There might be more involved solutions that work better but
| I'm not interested in accumulating stuff I have to
| maintain.
| everdrive wrote:
| It seems like all ad (and tracking) supported companies know how
| to do is optimize for engagement, which effectively means
| becoming addictive. This business model is too easy and too
| profitable to ever go away, so all we can do is learn to
| recognize it, and learn how to it responsibly. Like other
| addictions, sometimes this means restricting, and sometimes this
| means wholly abstaining.
|
| On the topic of Youtube addiction specifically, "letsblock.it"
| has some Youtube-specific filters which can be placed in uBlock
| Origin and help cut down on Youtube's addictiveness:
|
| Hide Youtube shorts: https://letsblock.it/filters/youtube-shorts
|
| Hide Youtube recommendations:
| https://letsblock.it/filters/youtube-recommendations
|
| Hide Youtube videos you've already watched:
| https://letsblock.it/filters/youtube-watched
| jjj123 wrote:
| > so all we can do is learn to recognize it, and learn how to
| it responsibly
|
| Or we can regulate it.
| clnq wrote:
| If there were only a way to slow down the internet connection
| to 1mbps or so, a lot of that instant-gratification habit-
| forming engagement psychology wouldn't be very effective
| anymore.
|
| Even before YouTube, people could have spent 9 hours a day
| watching rented VHS and DVDs. It just took too much effort to
| form a habit based on instant gratification with that. So not
| many people did. And people were much more selective of what
| they consumed, too, which is an added benefit for mental
| health.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Your second paragraph is a rose-colored view of history.
| People simply watched television. No need to rent when you
| had hundreds of cable channels to endlessly scroll through.
| It wasn't as curated as streaming but then it also helped
| to avoid the decision fatigue of streaming (and makes me
| wonder if Netflix and co. could reintroduce "channels" to
| funnel user selection and reduce analysis paralysis.)
| atonse wrote:
| I prefer this method.
|
| Even something as simple as the regulation requiring the site
| to make it EASY to turn those things off (But give the choice
| to consumers via big, easy to see toggles in the right
| places). Rather than having them put in browser extensions.
| OwlsParlay wrote:
| AS someone who watches a lot of YouTube, like the Let's Play
| content mentioned, I recognise and sympathise with the OP. But I
| think the problem isn't necessarily YouTube - thats just the drug
| of choice. It could be Twitch, it could be podcasts, or
| television, or any other form of entertainment offering a
| parasocial relationship. One that fill the gaping lonely hole in
| so many people's lives.
| toyg wrote:
| Yeah but television doesn't give you the choice that YT
| provides. If it's 2am and all available tv programs are shit,
| you go to bed. With YT, there is always a decent video a search
| away.
|
| (This obviously changed with streaming sites - but that's tv
| turning into YT rather than traditional broadcasting)
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| That's true for online media in general, it's not specific to
| YouTube
| kjuulh wrote:
| I am also quite addicted to youtube, however, for now I use it a
| tool for relaxation, even if it sometimes is somewhat excessive.
| I watch YouTube as a replacement for flow tv. And I know that the
| moment I remove the YouTube app on my tv, I will find something
| else to do, right now it is a convenience and routine thing to
| do.
|
| Also I get quite good benefits from it, I love watching
| conference talks, woodworking etc, on it. And in general it has
| helped with my overall understanding of the world, which is why I
| haven't removed it yet.
| aswanson wrote:
| Same. I also use it to fall asleep to. PBS Frontiline and Fall
| of Civilizations channel episodes keep me educated and catching
| zzzzz's most nights.
| camdenreslink wrote:
| Frontline has such terrifying content! I couldn't imagine
| falling asleep to that. My choice would be David Attenborough
| narrated documentaries.
| aswanson wrote:
| Listen to the Putin files with Kori Schake or Julia Ioffe
| or Masha Gessen. Put the volume low. They all have
| mom/bedtime story voices.
| yumswiss wrote:
| Approach has helped: - RSS Feed. Check only once a week - NextDNS
| block distracting sites during the week
| anteloper wrote:
| Been there - still am. self-control (https://selfcontrolapp.com/)
| is the nuclear tool in my anti-scrolling arsenal. If you figure
| out how to get around it please do not tell me - it's the best
| thing I've found for completely shutting myself out of youtube
| (and chess websites - bullet chess is a similar drug for me).
|
| Disclosure - I'm full time working on software that arms people
| with better tools for fighting compulsive digital habits
| (https://getclearspace.com/) We have a chrome extension and an
| iPhone app and they're powerful for retraining compulsive habits
| - but can't honestly recommend them for full blow addiction
| (yet).
|
| Interestingly, in watching my own behavior, the most effective
| force for keeping me from wasting my life is knowing that people
| can see my screen (at the office for example). I'm starting to
| think that replicating this remotely might be a way to keep my
| phone usage in check. If I could opt-in to sharing my phone
| screentime with a pre-set list of friends that might change how I
| behave - particularly if they were notified if I ever deleted the
| app that was doing that sharing. I'll be all-in building some
| version of that for the next few months if you want to be on the
| beta list for some accountability experiments.
| https://screentimeaccountability.com/
| namaria wrote:
| I think it's incredibly misguided and crass to plug websites
| and apps in a discussion about people sharing struggles with
| addiction to websites and apps.
| robbrown451 wrote:
| The websites and apps mentioned aren't the sort that people
| would be addicted to anyway. (this should be blindingly
| obvious) In fact their very purpose is addressing the problem
| of web site addiction. Are you suggesting that people might
| be spending hours and hours on the "screentimeaccountability"
| web site, as part of their addiction?
|
| Anyway, we're on a web site right now. Isn't any comment on
| this thread similarly "misguided" (including your own), since
| that is one more bit of content for the addicted person to
| consume?
| anteloper wrote:
| I don't think I plugged anything. I shared the best thing
| I've found to partially solve this problem in my own life
| (open source software I have no relationship to), shared that
| my full time job is working on this problem (because it's the
| largest obstacle in my life, not because I am trying to
| grift) and what I've built so far, with the explicit note
| that I would not recommend as a single magic bullet for
| addiction, because it happens to be a really hard problem.
| And then shared what I am trying next - to address this
| problem in my own life and ideally as many others as I can.
| namaria wrote:
| You're very good at rationalizing. I don't think it's a
| grift. You don't need to get money out of this for this to
| be a plug. Personal satisfaction, pride, whatever. I think
| it's misguided to offer apps and websites to people
| complaining about addiction to apps and websites. At the
| very least shows lack of empathy and a fundamental
| misunderstanding about the nature of the problem being
| discussed.
|
| Do what you want with the information that a perfect
| stranger saw what you did here and was irked.
| dathinab wrote:
| I'm not sure YouTube addiction is the right term.
|
| It's more like a media addiction.
|
| YouTube is one offender here.
|
| But "short" media is way more addictive(1 _) weather it 's
| TickTock or YouTube shorts. (1_: Easier flow to the next video,
| shorter attention loops, more randomness between hit and
| disappointment, etc.)
|
| I don't know how scientific funded the "way more" part is, but
| from speaking with people and personal experience I would _guess_
| the potential for addictive behaviour for short form video is not
| just slightly (a few %) but hugely larger (like 200%-1000%).
| Through the long-term binding potential might also be shorter,
| but then that doesn't mean it's not a problem as you likely would
| just bounce between short form video and other media in your
| addictive behaviour (e.g. longer form video).
| tuduka wrote:
| Hi JT, please reach out to me if you'd like to try the Tuduka
| Method, free of charge: https://tuduka.com
|
| I'm announcing it a bit too early (I just started it a few weeks
| ago) but the method works.
| deepzn wrote:
| I use YouTube for technical videos, and to gain other knowledge.
| And find the best signal to noise there than anywhere else on the
| internet. Occasionally, I give in to watch sports clips, movie
| trailers etc which is a decent short distraction. But do try to
| limit it, so the algo doesn't keep recommending those.
|
| Recently, Youtube is pushing it's "Shorts"(Short-form video) in
| it's own section that you cannot remove, which is as addicting as
| you think it is, aside from that, the signal-to-noise is really
| favorable for me.
|
| Compared to Twitter, Instagram, I find a lot more value on
| Youtube. The others I already used blocking extensions to stop me
| from visiting it. As sad and extreme as that is, it's worked out
| rather nicely for me. I occasionally need to check something, and
| circumvent it by going incognito, but mostly the blocking is
| helping me to redirect myself, and build better restraints, and
| habits.
| malinoal wrote:
| you can use "distraction free YouTube"[0] to block the shorts
| pushing and recommendations in general. It's been really
| helpful for me to not fall into endless YouTube spirals.
|
| [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/df-youtube/
| libraryatnight wrote:
| I've been dabbling in making my own game on the evenings and
| weekends and youtube from that perspective is everything i
| wanted the internet to be. People sharing interesting knowledge
| and teaching each other things. It tries to ruin it with shorts
| and other low effort, usually 'creator' content, but if you're
| adamant about only seeing what you came for it's a wonderful
| tool.
| LegitShady wrote:
| Youtube is so bad at suggesting videos for me that it mystifies
| me how people could be addicted to it.
|
| "Oh you watched one video about [x] by creator [y]. Here are 100
| more videos by creatory [y]. Here are 100 more videos about [x]"
|
| ...uh I watched a recipe for cheesecake. I don't need 100 more
| cheesecake videos, or even 100 more recipes by that youtuber.
| manimino wrote:
| I have this problem with recommendation engines generally.
| Spotify, Netflix, Steam, etc. They are very bad at making
| novel, interesting recommendations.
|
| They will also blindly recommend popular things, which is
| irritating. Steam is an exception here - it has a slider bar
| that allows exclusion of popular content in favor of niche /
| indie stuff.
| LegitShady wrote:
| oh you watched one video about MMA? Here's 10 million things
| about MMA. Oh you watched a video about the war in ukraine?
| Here's another 10 million videos about the war in ukraine.
|
| When I first studied recommendation algorithms I remember the
| classic "people who buy hamburgers and hamburger buns also
| buy ketchup and mustard" sort of things. On youtube its more
| like people who watch a video about anything are doomed to be
| recommended further videos about that thing forever, and
| adjacent 'also watched' related topics aren't really a thing.
| boredemployee wrote:
| I wonder if all the addiction related to internet (porn, gaming,
| surfing, you name it) has anything to do with our daily routine
| (aka work) that is so boring that we want an immediate and
| constant distraction
| maksimur wrote:
| This is a problem (arguably more so) for unemployed people as
| well.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Yeah it's been killing me lately. My sleep schedule is
| incredibly erratic too because I don't have anything to do
| tomorrow, so why not stay up till 4am watching YouTube.
|
| Unfortunately I have some confounding factors rn that make it
| all the wise.
| the_only_law wrote:
| I mean if I had something interesting or fun to do that was
| remotely as accessible as YouTube I'd probably be more
| interested in that.
|
| Unfortunately "interesting" stuff tends to be really
| inaccessible and COVID did a great job of killing off "fun"
| stuff, at least around me.
|
| At the same time I get really complacent really fast if I'm in
| the same place for more than a few years and I think it's about
| time for a "soft" reset again.
| schizo89 wrote:
| I quit YouTube around a month ago because it tried to shape my
| political views.
| aliswe wrote:
| I suggest to all of you todisable and clear your YT viewing
| history, search history, and be mindful of what you like/add to
| lists like "watch later".
|
| Then you will get significantly less addictive content
| suggestions.
| suzumer wrote:
| I used to be addicted to youtube, and the most effective method I
| found to limiting my consumption was using an extension called
| Unhook. It removes all recommendations and the shorts and
| trending tabs, so the only videos I can watch are those from
| channels I'm subscribed to, or videos that I search for.
| procinct wrote:
| I really wish there were options like this for mobile (iPhone
| specifically). Most of my YouTube browsing is done on mobile or
| chromecasted.
|
| I go through phases of deleting the app, which works really
| well, but then I'm not able to chromecast for the odd time I
| want to watch the occasional video with my partner.
|
| I'd also still like to be aware of when videos from certain
| creators come out, so deleting the app just cuts that off
| entirely.
|
| I would absolutely love to have an option for a YouTube app
| that only has a sub box and no recommendations.
| wyre wrote:
| I've been using Invidious/yewtu.be instead of YouTube so I'm
| not falling into a recommendation hole. I manually search for
| the creator I want to watch and decide if their video is
| worth watching.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| I also make sure my new tab screen doesn't have sites like
| YouTube, Twitch, etc. I don't use any social media sites so
| they won't appear there, but if you do you should also keep
| them off of your new tab screen.
| breadchris wrote:
| i can't believe how effective this has been for me. I've
| noticed that instead of being continually "interested" in
| youtube and going down the rabbit hole constantly, i actually
| get bored of youtube pretty quickly once i have watched all the
| content my subscriptions have put out. i still spend way too
| much time on my phone, but i guess i need to have the phone
| equivalent
| danuker wrote:
| In NewPipe, you can customize the main page and disable
| recommendations (from "Content").
|
| But of course Google won't let it on the Play Store. Here it
| is:
|
| https://newpipe.net/
| theteapot wrote:
| > I actually get bored of youtube pretty quickly once i have
| watched all the content my subscriptions have put out.
|
| An addict in denial. Sad.
| jug wrote:
| Unhook is great even if you're not addicted! I used it to clean
| all the fluff to a minimal YouTube and suddenly it felt all
| like before Google had bought it! :) But now I think I
| understand why the extension is named Unhook?
| phazy wrote:
| This, so much!
|
| I solved this problem on mobile with two approaches: 1. Use a
| content blocker (e.g. 1Blocker on iOS) to block CSS elements 2.
| Use an Invidious instance which has disabled the
| recommendations
| ltrojanowski wrote:
| It's one of the browser add-ons I recommend the most. Together
| with an add-blocker it makes youtube into a very useful tool,
| instead of being a time sink. Additionally it makes it much
| harder to fall into an unhealthy echo chamber.
| Phemist wrote:
| Some time ago, a nice fellow HN user @boriselec wrote a browser
| plugin for, in the end, my personal use (as barely anyone uses
| it), that redirects all video links to their /embed variant.
|
| /embed links are meant to be embedded in other pages and do not
| show any UI clutter. As it happens, they also work perfectly
| well if (re-)directly opened!
|
| Comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23148026
|
| Extension here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
| US/firefox/addon/youtube-embed...
| mythhouse wrote:
| > This add-on is not actively monitored for security by
| Mozilla. Make sure you trust it before installing.
| Phemist wrote:
| Yeah.. but luckily the add-on is simple enough that a
| source-code inspection is feasible (which I did). There's
| nothing weird going on in the add-on, but please do your
| own due diligence :)
| Octabrain wrote:
| After reading your comment, I went straight to install the
| extension. Thank you so much!
| mackrevinack wrote:
| you can hide lots of things with ublock origin as well. these
| are the filters im using to hide the sidebar and shorts:
|
| ! youtube suggested videos sidebar www.youtube.com##ytd-item-
| section-renderer.ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-
| renderer.style-scope
|
| ! youtube shorts on homepage www.youtube.com##.ytd-rich-
| section-renderer.style-scope > .ytd-rich-shelf-renderer.style-
| scope
| pamelafox wrote:
| This is my Youtube Unhooked extension:
| https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/youtube-unhooked/f...
|
| Not sure if thats the one you use, but it sounds like it. I
| need to port it to the Edge store, as I now use Edge instead of
| Chrome.
| pamelafox wrote:
| Ah, looks like there's another one called simply Unhook:
|
| https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unhook-remove-
| yout...
| suzumer wrote:
| Yeah, that's the one i use, although i use firefox.
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| I struggle with wasting large swathes of time on YouTube. I think
| I would call it an addiction, although I'm sure not everyone
| would agree. The harmful effects I see are that I don't feel I
| enjoy the content after a certain point, but I find myself unable
| to stop and do something else. I also often find YouTube content
| is not restful. Hard to pin down exactly why, but it feels too
| fast paced or too stimulating. I feel the same way about most
| recent shows as well.
|
| Every year during lent my friend and I do a media fast, where we
| abstain from YouTube, Reddit, HN, and other escape sites. It is a
| supremely rewarding experience, but I always go back.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Worked for me: 1) get rid of data plan. 2) wifi router blocks
| devices at 11pm. I get angry for a minute then relax.
| Importantly, I can't connect to box to modify schedule until the
| next morning. Next morning I don't care and time to work.
|
| This worked where "screen time" did not, since it lets you type a
| pin to bypass.
|
| Combined with night/red shift I sleep well again. P.s. read books
| and you'll want to read more often.
| izzydata wrote:
| I've found that I only watch less Youtube over the years as their
| suggestions got worse for me. Now I feel like I only ever see a
| handful of the same suggested videos and they are all from years
| ago.
| 65 wrote:
| Yeah. YouTube's algorithm does a really great job of stopping
| me from watching too much YouTube. For me it's a lot of videos
| I've either already seen, am not interested but continually get
| recommended, or are just short, low quality videos.
|
| I would like to be able to watch more YouTube videos, but their
| recommendations are so bad at this point that I have to find
| other things to do.
| RSHEPP wrote:
| Watching Gophercon videos this morning, majority of my
| suggestions were Jordan B Peterson, Andrew Huberman and JRE.
| How the hell does it make that jump. I only watch software
| related videos at this point.
| gatonegro wrote:
| > _majority of my suggestions were Jordan B Peterson_
|
| I'm interested in psychology and philosophy, so I'll watch
| videos on those subjects every so often. Naturally, the
| Algorithm(tm) becomes _obsessed_ with recommending me
| Peterson videos soon after. I 'm 98% sure the "Do not
| recommend" and "Not interested" buttons are just there for
| show, because I keep seeing those suggestions whenever I
| wander off into psychology and philosophy videos.
| halkony wrote:
| Peterson's direct and indirect presence on social media is
| so varied it must be hard to get rid of him.
| pfoof wrote:
| I was addicted to meme websites, YouTube, online games, news
| websites and I have replaced it with HN. Now I'm addicted to HN
| and it seems just as bad.
| moffkalast wrote:
| The fact is, real life is boring as fuck.
| https://xkcd.com/1348/
|
| People will find ways to fill their time, the internet is just
| the best place for just about everything right now. As long as
| one mixes in some variety, education, and productiveness I
| don't really see the problem.
| c7b wrote:
| The intro feels like it's also from around 2011, the time OP
| described first noticing having a problem. In 2023, I think few
| people will doubt that you can get addiction-like problems with
| social media. It's actually become such a common trope,
| especially post-lockdowns, that I've read some arguments trying
| to rein in the debate a bit (not everything that releases
| dopamine will get you hooked, it basically just means that it's
| pleasant). Psychiatrically, I think the only behavioral addiction
| recognized in DSM-5 is still gambling. But that may change of
| course, and I think many of us have noticed that social media use
| can get troublesome.
|
| To the OP or anyone experiencing similar issues, one strategy
| that has some evidence behind it is pre-commitment: make a
| conscious decision to limit or stop your use of whatever is
| causing you troubles, and take concrete steps to lock yourself
| into that commitment. In the case of websites, that could mean
| using browser extensions that block access to a certain site or
| block them after a specified use time (if the latter exists, not
| sure). For smartphone apps, I think modern OS include some tools
| with similar intentions, but you could also just uninstall them.
| Of course, you could circumnavigate the block, but often that one
| extra step can be enough to remind you of why you made the
| commitment and help you stick to it.
| okdood64 wrote:
| By OP's standard I'm what you would consider a YouTube addict.
| I can spend hours just watching it in a single day. And I do
| this regularly. It doesn't warp my view of the real world, or
| disconnect me from my work/social circle/ability to keep myself
| healthy. 90% of what I watch is educational anyways.
|
| What I disagree with overall is that notion that doing
| something a lot & compulsively is an addiction. If you're doing
| something that knowingly causes you or other around you harm
| and then doing it anyways because you can't help yourself, only
| then is it really an addiction.
|
| I can think of tons of other harmless interests/hobbies that
| people spend hours of their day on, in lieu of doing other
| activities, but no one considers those addictions.
| c7b wrote:
| Not sure who downvoted you, not me, but if you're interested
| in the debate of what counts as addiction this might be a
| good starting point: https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-
| families/internet-gaming
|
| In general, yes, keeping doing something despite it having
| negative consequences is generally required in most
| definitions of addiction.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I fall asleep to YouTube -- not watching, I just put on a boring
| documentary with a monotone narrator, just loud enough that I can
| hear the voice. I don't even really discern the words. And it
| distracts my brain from whatever else I'd be thinking about and I
| fall asleep more easily. Not sure why this is, I guess it's like
| having someone read a bedtime story to a kid.
|
| I have a premium account so there are no ads.
| tokumei wrote:
| Falling asleep with ASMR videos is really amazing. So cozy~
| forinti wrote:
| I had some trouble sleeping during lockdown and found out
| philosophy videos got me sleeping very well. Especially the
| ones about Kant.
|
| Still managed to learn a bit though.
| aswanson wrote:
| Philosophy and Fall of Civilizations are great channels to
| learn/sleep to.
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| Pro tip: uBlock origin - no ads for no cost :)
| mertd wrote:
| Pro tip: instead of paying, discretely sneak out of
| restaurants. Dinner for no cost :)
| namaria wrote:
| Lol no. Don't equate avoiding ads online with stealing.
| criley2 wrote:
| Pro pro tip: Creating content on the internet is not free and
| if a creator says you can watch their video in exchange for
| watching ads OR paying for premium, if you care about those
| creators you'll honor that request.
| namaria wrote:
| And that's a great model. Ask for support, enough people
| offer it. Don't add paywall, the extra exposure will
| attract more people and statistically more payments. The
| whole ad driven model only works for the 'growth at all
| costs', VC financed platforms. To buy into their narrative
| whole sale is just naive. It's arguably quite detrimental
| because it incentivizes a race to the bottom with dark
| patterns fostering addiction (the very subject of this
| whole discussion). There are entire networks of content
| producers making millions by creating purposefully stupid
| and misleading videos on TikTok and YouTube, infuriating
| people driving engagement.
| [deleted]
| Shoue wrote:
| Depending on what type of video you're watching (pay depend
| on variables), your one view is probably worth a whopping
| $0.01. At that point you might be better off asking nicely
| for Patreon subs, considering about 0.5-2% of your
| followers convert to Patreon subs (and tiers usually start
| at or above $2), instead of annoying your viewers with
| horrible ads. Even creator-made shoutouts to products are
| more pleasant than the jarring built-in YouTube adverts,
| and that's before you consider that they're immediately
| skippable. And when you consider all the awful things
| advertisers are forcing YouTube to do in order to make the
| platform better for themselves and worse for users, it gets
| even more spicy.
| metasaval wrote:
| Ignore the dissenters, I agree. people will pay $15 for
| Netflix and use it once a month but won't pay $11 for
| YouTube that they use every day. the insistence that
| YouTube should be a service that just houses all of our
| videos for free in perpetuaty never made sense to me.
| delecti wrote:
| Agreed. Youtube Premium has got to be the most efficient
| subscription I have, by far. Also, I like that it
| provides more support to the creators I follow than ads
| would, because I appreciate the effort they put into the
| videos I enjoy.
| moffkalast wrote:
| There are billions of absolutely fantastic videos that took
| exactly zero in production cost, nobody's forcing anyone to
| invest more than that.
|
| If people want to base their main income on making free
| online videos than that's their problem. Some will then try
| to disingenuously guilt trip people on patreon and similar,
| and there are those who go get themselves some sponsors
| like a proper advertising business does. Do these creators
| classify themselves as a non-profit org? Because that's who
| runs on donations.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Big assumption that ad provider is acting ethically; almost
| never the case.
| [deleted]
| sh4rks wrote:
| I hope all YouTube creators go out of business. That way -
| no more YouTube addiction.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| That deal is mostly forced by google, not the will of the
| creator.
| procinct wrote:
| This doesn't really help you with mobile and chrome cast
| moffkalast wrote:
| On mobile there's still unmaintained Vanced until Youtube
| breaks it by changing the API, and also Blokada 5 and a few
| others for general app/web ad blocking.
| jacooper wrote:
| Or switch to libretube or newpipe
| jacooper wrote:
| If you are on android, use Libretube or newpipe
|
| There is this on iOS haven't tried it though
|
| https://github.com/yattee/yattee
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| It does work in Firefox for Android (my go-to), and you fan
| also cast using it
| tnamef wrote:
| I found YouTube exciting around maybe 2015, when content was
| novel and less commercialized.
|
| Now most content is repetitive, streamlined for ads and with
| sensationalist ugly thumbnails. Basically like the Internet at
| large, which has turned into a gigantic tabloid.
| cl3misch wrote:
| > It's scary to think about having a hole and not being able to
| fill it with that comfortable "zoning out" feeling.
|
| That is exactly my experience. I've also rather recently came to
| the revelation that this behavior and dependence on "zoning out"
| is addiction. It doesn't matter that the object of addiction is a
| website with silly popular videos. The pattern of behavior _is_
| addiction.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I gave up alcohol as part of an experiment. Prior to that my
| routine on Fri and Sat night was usually to have a few drinks
| and zone out and watch youtube or a movie.
|
| For me, one of the unexpected hard things was that zoning out
| to watch youtube or a movie was no longer entertaining! I could
| do it for an hour or so and that was it.
|
| Now I read, work on projects or otherwise am more "engaged". I
| still enjoy youtube but my ability to be entertained by it has
| dwindled dramatically.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Would it make sense to say that the pattern of behaviour
| (zoning out) is coping rather than addiction, and that
| addiction is what manifests when we lose control over coping
| strategies?
|
| They seem like different things to me. Coping strategies are
| normal and can be healthy. Harmful strategies we depend on
| without much agency are more so what I'd classify as addiction
| within this lens.
| oramit wrote:
| While the author compares his problem to Alcohol addiction I was
| struck by the sentence: "It's gotten to the point where I don't
| really enjoy the video as much as the numb hypnotic state from
| consuming that much content."
|
| This to me matches up most with gambling addiction. There is a
| great book on the subject that I recommend to the Author called
| "Addiction by Design" by Natasha Schull. The main thrust of her
| argument is that machine gambling addicts don't care about
| winning at all but have found gambling machines (slots, video
| poker mostly) as a reliable way to activate that "flow" state
| where the rest of the world falls away. It's mostly a study of
| the problem, very sobering, and there are some good resources at
| the end for getting help.
|
| I think we're all addicted to this "flow" state. When it happens
| during programming it's the best feeling ever. Hours go by, no
| technical hurdle is too big, I can make more progress in 4 hours
| than 4 days of regular work, and everything just makes sense. I
| come out of it always wishing I could activate that feeling on
| command, but it never works reliably for productive things. Only
| vices, unfortunately.
| mancerayder wrote:
| >This to me matches up most with gambling addiction. There is a
| great book on the subject that I recommend to the Author called
| "Addiction by Design" by Natasha Schull. The main thrust of her
| argument is that machine gambling addicts don't care about
| winning at all but have found gambling machines (slots, video
| poker mostly) as a reliable way to activate that "flow" state
| where the rest of the world falls away.
|
| Maybe to escape anxiety?
| oramit wrote:
| Anxiety is certainly part of it but I think it's simpler than
| that. We can't be "on" all the time. We need hobbies,
| distractions, and escape just as much as we need productive
| work. As the author notes though, this escape can become all
| consuming and ultimately hurt the person.
| wincy wrote:
| Interesting, I get this flow state where the world falls away
| when I have a good programming task for work and I can
| accomplish a Herculean amount of work in a day. At the end of
| the day it feels like it was in a blink of an eye and I feel
| super good about myself.
|
| I got into a great flow state earlier this week the day after
| seeing my relative in hospice care. I didn't have to think
| about the pain of that for a day and it was pretty great.
| knaik94 wrote:
| This is a very dramatic framing. A much more resonable
| explanation is that YouTube was being used as an escape. 10K Subs
| is an accomplishment, a real community. The less talked about
| half of parasocial relationships is the one that goes the other
| way, where people feel validation from the likes and views they
| get. Generally, taking a break from an escape means you face the
| real issues you have been avoiding and ignoring using YouTube. At
| the same time, I think it's great the author is reflecting and
| take actionable steps to working on themselves. Stepping away or
| slowing down is a tough decision once you reach the size this
| author has.
|
| I have higher weekly hours, in the Youtube app on your phone, you
| can see weekly view stats. On wednesday my stats say 15 hours. I
| have ADHD and I leave YouTube running in the background while I
| work and when I sleep. I know for a fact that 5+ hour on
| wednesday was "10 Hours of Hotel AC White Noise (High power
| setting)". 80% of the time it's on in the background, either
| figuratively or literally white noise.
|
| Taking a break is always beneficial, but I think this might be a
| situation where an escape becomes unhealthy and makes the
| situation worse but isn't the underlying cause. I strongly
| dislike the trend of using the word addiction to describe a bad
| or unhealthy habit. Unless watching YouTube held you back from
| performing other life function or you feel physical or mental
| withdrawal symptoms, I'd hestitate from using that word. Not just
| a craving, but also some sort of anxiety from being away or
| cancelling plans with friends or being late to work. People are
| fulltime Youtubers, being a creator can be everything from a
| hobby to a profession.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQdhL-XuKLY&t=17668s
| ColonelBlimp wrote:
| >I have ADHD and I leave YouTube running in the background
| while I work and when I sleep. I know for a fact that 5+ hour
| on wednesday was "10 Hours of Hotel AC White Noise (High power
| setting)". 80% of the time it's on in the background, either
| figuratively or literally white noise.
|
| That's how radio was used for generations.
| knaik94 wrote:
| Funny you mention that, one of my favorite YouTube channels
| is, Nemo's Dreamscapes and right now I'm listening to "LIVE
| Oldies playing in another room, it's a great night (Open
| window, crickets ambience)" [1] It's a non stop livestream
| similar to the LoFi Girl music channel.
|
| 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JJi-NhExzs
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Hi fellow addict! https://imgur.com/a/TaaKY87
|
| Mine is Star Trek.
|
| It's not so much an escape as a habit, for me. I started young.
| When I was 13 or so, I was watching voyager while hacking on
| game engines. Then I never really stopped.
|
| Nowadays it's a mix of anime (hello berserk https://youtube.com
| /playlist?list=PLD85eRe7NELF7EFIl4YMQOxFw...) and trek. Also
| gothamchess.
|
| Like you, I don't see anything wrong with it. Wish I was
| addicted to books instead, but as far as addictions go, I'd
| rather it be this than smoking.
| knaik94 wrote:
| I think I can only do shows that I have watched a few times
| already. I can do that for The Office, but I have yet to see
| bersek, thanks for the link. I also enjoy GothamChess, and
| more generally video game speedrunning, playthroughs and
| analysis. When I am in the mood for music, I look live
| festival sets. I heavily favor EDM personally, Keygen Chruch
| has been pretty good, a "goth
| synthwave/metal/Baroque/Romantic, 8bit-tinged, pipe-organ-
| laden band". I have a hard time keeping up with these
| subgenres.
|
| Here's my in flux playlist of what I call AmbianceLONG, 1hr+
| videos that I shuffle through. I didn't know NasaTV is live
| on YouTube.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvszIS0bSTf5hfuCNd3cG.
| ..
| sfled wrote:
| I'll usually leave one of those 8- or 10-hour "soft waves on an
| island beach" clips playing in the BG. Nice alternative if the
| view out the window is snow, lol.
|
| If I want a little emo-boost for ADHD I'll just watch a few
| clips on Jessica's channel: https://www.youtube.com/@HowtoADHD
|
| Otherwise (for me) YT is a resource for guides on taking apart
| old laptops and other how-tos, along with the occasional movie
| on the kitchen tablet, while prepping a meal or washing up.
| ITB wrote:
| Sorry, but I think a post like the above should make someone
| like you take a time to reflect, instead of immediately prepare
| a defense. Regardless of what is driving your desire to watch
| so much YouTube, which in the end is what defines the degree of
| the pathology, it's still an inordinate amount. YouTube is not
| background noise. Your brain is paying a bit of attention to
| it, getting dopamine from it, and becoming progressively less
| able to reach a state of peace without stimulation. Will you be
| running YouTube in the background when you're sharing a bed
| with a spouse? Will you be wearing headphones with constant
| babbling going on, disturbing your sleep patterns? These are
| real issues my friend.
| knaik94 wrote:
| My reflection is that it doesn't interefere with my work at
| all, and my significant other and I often fall asleep
| listening to podcasts or video essays. I do wear headphones
| and I am far for the only one that sleeps with headphones in.
| Here's a link to a product that is a headband that has
| speakers built in with a 4.5 rating and 13,000+ reviews. [1]
| This seems silly and I would not recommend it, and suggest
| regular headphones instead, IEM preferably.
|
| I am not sure if you grasp the difference in active and
| passive watching. I would suggest you do more research into
| how neurotransmitters function, that is not how dopamine
| works. Additionally I mentioned I have ADHD, "People with
| ADHD have at least one defective gene, the DRD2 gene that
| makes it difficult for neurons to respond to dopamine" [2] If
| anything dopamine is not doing what it needs to in my brain.
| I appreciate your concern, but it's misplaced. In my previous
| post I linked to a 10 hour video of the noise of an AC
| running in a motel room.
|
| For students with ADHD in school, as part of a 504 plan they
| have the option to listen to music in class because it has
| been shown effective in improving focus.
|
| 1. https://www.amazon.com/MUSICOZY-Headphones-Bluetooth-
| Headban...
|
| 2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2626918/#:~:t
| ex....
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| This is some crazy shit. Only you can decide if a behavior
| is addictive. People can suggest it but it's only an
| opinion. They dont live your experience. Having said that,
| your watch patterns are shocking to me.
| knaik94 wrote:
| Disordered behavior and addiction is dependent on the
| specific action having a meaningfully detrimental impact
| on one's life. Addiction is not a subjective thing, this
| is why I don't like when people use that word the way the
| author did. It's a clinically defined thing.
|
| I appreciate that it lets me live my life with less
| struggles. I am far from an outlier in any way. I would
| recommend looking up average watch time statistic across
| various social media platforms as well as Netflix,
| Amazon, etc. As well as viwer stats of seasons sports
| like College Football, Formula 1, FIFA.
|
| "According to Insider Intelligence projections, while
| overall time spent with media per day will decline
| slightly from 13 hours, 13 minutes in 2021 to 13 hours, 7
| minutes in 2022, time spent with digital media--video,
| smartphones, CTV, subscription OTT, and digital audio--
| will maintain steady gains and continue claiming even
| more time going forward."
|
| https://www.insiderintelligence.com/insights/us-time-
| spent-w...
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| It's possible for an entire society can be misled into
| thinking something is normal or healthy when it's not.
| Doctors in the 1940s and 1950s smoked and were in
| advertisements for Camel cigarettes. It was normal and
| ubiquitous. Was it healthy?
|
| There are other examples of this. Is too much video
| watching another instance? That's for you to decide. At
| least consider it a possibility and then move on.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Just wanted to say, I appreciate your measured responses
| throughout the thread. It's sometimes a bit hard to be
| normal but with everyone calling you abnormal (or in this
| case, crazy) and it's always nice to see someone who
| truly doesn't care.
|
| Radio is a great analogy for this. Compared to entire
| families coming come and sitting down in front of the
| national TV, I'd take social media any day.
| TillE wrote:
| > that is not how dopamine works
|
| People these days love talking about nonsense like
| "dopamine hits", it's textbook pseudoscience.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| > Will you be running YouTube in the background when you're
| sharing a bed with a spouse?
|
| My wife and I both do this.
|
| > Will you be wearing headphones with constant babbling going
| on, disturbing your sleep patterns?
|
| No more than the babbling in my mind disturbs it already. If
| anything, a coherent message is easier to fall asleep to.
| ttul wrote:
| YouTube is addictive, as is much of what the internet has to
| offer. It's hard to fight the algorithm, which is always finding
| new things it knows will pump the dopamine cycle.
|
| If the internet has you so addicted that it's wrecking your life,
| it's time to see an addictions specialist. I don't think there's
| any easy trick, just as there is no easy way to quit smoking or
| drinking. The causes of addiction are various and it doesn't make
| sense to try to figure this out yourself, just as much as you
| wouldn't be well advised to fix your own cancer.
| extasia wrote:
| Changing my phone to black and white mode helped, I was
| previously watching 3+hrs of yt a day as was OP.
|
| Also making a mental note of how long you spend helps, even if
| you don't have the willpower to stop then and there. Over time
| You keep making that same note and eventually build up the
| fortitude to modify your behaviour / fight your addiction. Good
| luck to you all.
| SunlightEdge wrote:
| For addictions I've wanted to get rid of I have: 1. Keep a
| spreadsheet of the hours I have spent on the activity, or 2.
| Kept a running log of how many days I have not done the
| activity - goal is usually 28 days
| greenpeas wrote:
| It seems like you've worked out a system. How many
| addictions/unwanted behaviors did you manage to eradicate
| this way?
| SunlightEdge wrote:
| It helped me get off social media, and computer game
| addiction and a news site I didn't want to follow. I've
| used it successfully for alcohol too (but I was never a
| huge drinker). I also used it to try and promote good
| behaviours too
| greenpeas wrote:
| Does the desired behavior continue after the initial 28
| day period? One problem I encountered when I tried to
| change my behavior using similar methods is that I don't
| know how strict I should be with myself. For example if I
| don't want to quit playing games entirely, and I'd like
| to enjoy the occasional game, I might set some soft
| limits, but that opens the door for a relapse in the
| future.
|
| Or do you find that even temporary abstinence is
| worthwhile, even if the bad behavior comes back after
| some time?
| greenpeas wrote:
| I did the same thing, I put my phone in Grayscale mode. It
| seems to help. It's incredible how much more enticing the
| colored versions of the thumbnails for shorts and videos are.
| The Grayscale also works as a reminder that I need to pay
| attention to my Youtube consumption.
|
| However I imagine that I'll have to find a way to temporarily
| disable Grayscale for taking pictures and some other tasks.
|
| Regarding the shorts, I really wish there were a setting to
| disable them altogether. They are pure evil.
| guate_l33 wrote:
| [flagged]
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Where is black white mode in ios?
| daggersandscars wrote:
| Settings -> Accessibility -> Display & Text Size -> Color
| Filters. Turn Color Filters on and select the Greyscale
| filter.
| gorgabal wrote:
| It's in the accessibility settings. Accessibility > viewing
| and text size > color filters
|
| I have my phone on Dutch so I loosely translated those. Hope
| it is helpful.
| atonse wrote:
| You can also set it so that triple tapping on the sleep
| button brings up the accessibility menu so you can turn black
| and white mode on/off quickly if needed
| lettergram wrote:
| I've seen this happen to A LOT of people, particularly with
| TikTok. What's worse is the algorithms are effectively there to
| (a) keep you watching and (b) manipulate you (in some cases -
| i.e. increase addictive tenancies, change mood (see facebook
| studies on this), etc)
|
| That said, I have seen this cycle both spiral (as in this case)
| and be broken before. I've also helped a cousin who had this
| issue.
|
| IMO and this is going to sound harsh, but bare with me -- the
| problem isn't YouTube, TikTok, etc the issue is you. If you have
| this "addiction" it's because you're enabled. For instance, I
| cannot just decide to watch 8 hrs of youtube videos a day, I have
| to wake up & let the dog out, feed the family, go to work, take
| the kids to sports classes, spend time with my wife, etc. At the
| end of the day, I have maybe an hour I could listen to something
| as I'm doing some maintenance on the house before bed. I'm happy,
| busy and have purpose. If you have responsibilities you'll be
| happier -- period. Yes, sometimes it'll suck, it is work after
| all (I had to clean up my dogs diarrhea the other day -- blah);
| but the process is rewarding. You can see what you've
| accomplished, people will care about you and you'll be happier.
|
| Few thoughts on how this can be broken (and how I've seen it
| done)
|
| 1. Uninstall all your social media apps
|
| 2. Get an extension on your browser to block social media
|
| 3. In an extreme case, change your password to non-sense you
| don't know and to an email you create on the fly and don't know.
|
| 4. Get a pet
|
| 5. Make a list of objectives (small to large); make a plan to
| execute. You can fail, over and over again, but if you work
| towards them you'll eventually get there.
|
| 6. Go outside for a 30-60 min walk every day and force yourself
| to leave your phone. Cold or hot, doesn't matter. Remember, your
| ancestors lived outside 24/7, even 100 years ago, there was no
| AC.
|
| 7. Join communities -- could just be people at the gym, a church
| / w.e., archery club, it doesn't matter, just get social
| connections
|
| 8. Clean your house and room at least once a week and make your
| bed every day. Discipline is key and once you have a clean house
| for a while, you'll want to keep it clean.
|
| 9. Go to the gym every day if you can. Pick the closest one and
| just go every day for an hour. Use the machines as they're less
| likely to hurt you and you don't need any training. Build up to
| free weights (or if you know how to use them, go for it).
|
| 10. Eat healthy -- meat, veg, fruit.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| TikTok is amazing. You can rip it from my cold dead iPad. :)
|
| My pet Pip! https://imgur.com/a/vAFOZHd
|
| Also, HN is just as much social media as any other. How often
| do you glance at your karma the moment the site loads?
|
| (Didn't downvote though.)
| vehemenz wrote:
| "Social media" is a neologism in the context of internet
| forums. Most of the standard features aren't present. There
| are no followers, no private messages, no notifications, no
| phone app. Compared to Reddit or IRC, there are no individual
| forums/chatrooms that powerful users moderate. If HN is
| social media, then so is letter writing.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| I saw your reply via notification. There's a nice one
| called HN Replies.
|
| There are followers. They're just not a number.
|
| Powerful users moderate the comments.
|
| All of this is mostly invisible, but it's there.
| vehemenz wrote:
| Cool. That's all optional, is it not? I was talking about
| HN, not optional third-party addons.
|
| You're right about "powerful users", but notice that my
| point was in the context of individual sub-forums
|
| (in the context of a downvote, this is a classic
| strawman)
| [deleted]
| lettergram wrote:
| I never comment for the karma, nor do I really look at the
| karma. You can look at my history lol I think it'll highlight
| my sentiment about karma.
|
| I'm also not saying this stuff is explicitly bad. I'm simply
| pointing out I know multiple people with this issue described
| (hrs and hrs on social media), and provided a path how I've
| seen people successfully overcome it.
|
| Regarding Tiktok, it definitely is interesting in a few ways,
| but it's not an overly difficult algorithm. It's data
| collection and format. I think it's mostly the UX/UI focus
| that makes it different from any of the other apps. Imo it's
| less information dense to end users and more addiction
| focused. My favorite tid-bit is that they know when you're
| about to drop off usage so they'll send you highly ranked
| content in a notification. Basically, this results in doom
| scrolling right before sleep.
| JimtheCoder wrote:
| So basically, get a life? I agree.
| clnq wrote:
| I successfully reduced time wasted on YouTube by making the
| website much less appealing. I unsubscribed from everything,
| emptied all of my playlists, unliked every video I liked, deleted
| my comments, and disabled my YouTube history. I also turned off
| ad blocking for YouTube.
|
| Now the algorithm isn't targeting me enough to serve attention-
| grabbing content. And the time it takes to get gratification with
| pre-video ads has broken up my habit of clicking through videos.
|
| It's interesting to note that YouTube is still surprisingly good
| at suggesting relevant content to me, even on the home page. But
| much, much worse now than how it used to be.
|
| If there was some way to slow down the internet speed back to
| around 1mbps, I think that it would cure a lot of internet
| addiction without much effort from the addicted. The habit-
| forming craving -> action -> random reward/outcome loop has to
| happen quickly for the habit to be formed. If it becomes craving
| -> action ->1 0-20 second delay -> random outcome, I think the
| brain soon decides it's going to take too much effort and time
| (maybe hours) to get the favorable outcome, and other things are
| better for a dopamine boost - like exercise (10 minutes of work
| and then the dopamine rush is guaranteed).
|
| The same thing worked for me with food - I ended my snacking
| habit by not keeping unhealthy food in the house. It is just too
| much effort to go to a convenience store (10 minutes) for a
| little 10-second dopamine boost.
|
| The brain is good at this algebra. An outcome's correctly or
| incorrectly estimated value needs to be higher than the effort to
| get that outcome. Otherwise, the effort becomes unappealing.
| drdaeman wrote:
| > I unsubscribed from everything, emptied all of my playlists
|
| This is probably enough. I've never subscribed to anything
| except for a friend who doesn't post anything, some random dude
| who hacked an old LG TV (he doesn't post anything either) and a
| couple of channels. I've just checked and all the
| recommendations I see are completely useless; I'm indifferent
| at best or sometimes even repulsed. Even though I can see how
| they were picked (Google search history).
|
| > It's interesting to note that YouTube is still surprisingly
| good at suggesting relevant content to me
|
| This is what really baffles me. I don't know what is wrong with
| me, but I don't remember ever seeing a relevant and useful
| recommendation from a machine (except when the search domain
| was already constrained to something very niche).
|
| Here's what I see if I open YouTube's home page:
|
| - "Razer Blade 16 and Razer Blade 18 - they finally did it".
| Yes, I bought a Razer laptop. Of course I've searched for a
| bunch of things related to their hardware, so Google must've
| caught it. I don't intend to buy a new one anytime soon. It's a
| prime example of a "meatbag bought a sofa, must love sofas,
| show them all the sofas"-style recommendation.
|
| - "The most mysterious band in the world. Enigma." (title
| translated into English by me). So, long story short, based on
| my wife's recommendation I watched a channel with two radio DJs
| telling some interesting trivia about music. Like about how
| some popular songs are actually a covers of some obscure ones,
| or how The Prodigy songs were made (where are all the samples
| are from), etc. Fun stuff, but I don't watch every single video
| from them. Enigma is a miss for me, sorry. Good try,
| recommender system - given that this channel is one of a few
| I've actually cared to subscribe to, hah.
|
| - Some podcast with a name and face that doesn't ring any bells
| to me.
|
| - "Things I Wish I Knew Earlier In Horizon Forbidden West".
| Played, finished and uninstalled long time ago, doubt the
| replay value. And I've already checked the wikis when I was
| done playing. So, nope, not watching this.
|
| - "Unusual Feature in UltraLoq Smart Lock" by
| LockPickingLawyer. I think I've watched a couple of LPL's
| videos when I was randomly wondering about some lock mechanism
| - so I wanted some quick visual explanation how it works. I
| sure don't need to see any videos to learn how some IoT is a
| mess.
|
| - "1 Min Synth Review // TB-303 #shorts". Must be because I've
| watched that channel about music I've mentioned, since they
| sometime invite various music experts. I can't carry a tune in
| a bucket, so this is meaningless for me.
|
| - "Lord of the Rings from Sauron's perspective". So, some time
| ago me and my wife decided to re-watch Peter Jackson's trilogy.
| And I've searched for The Battle of Helm's Deep because it felt
| weird and I wanted some expert opinion from Reddit's renown
| medievalists (lol). I don't think I'd care to watch a fanfic.
|
| - "UE5 - How to create a Radial Weapon Menu - Tutorial Part 6".
| Never in my life I've ever coded for Unreal Engine. And last
| time I've did something with 3D game engines was two decades
| ago, when I was a school kid and played with a DIY Quake 1 map
| renderer, learning BSP (as well as other space partitioning
| algorithms) and some OpenGL.
|
| - "10X Your Excel Skills with ChatGPT". So 3 months ago this
| meatbag needed to figure out how to make a certain one-off
| chart to visualize some data (and Excel is as good as
| anything). And this meatbag was not impervious to recent
| ChatGPT hype. Automated recommendation engines work in a
| mysterious ways! Obviously, I'd pass.
|
| And so on and so on. I know I'm sometimes a pretty grumpy
| person, I've had some assholes for role models during my
| student years, and while I'm not that angsty kid anymore,
| sometimes something still gets through. And I went to YouTube
| with an expectation that I won't likely see anything
| interesting, so there's a bias. But then I've also honestly
| tried to find something worth watching. It's a good afternoon,
| I'm done with my dose of HN and I was certainly open to
| watching something entertaining.
|
| It's not just YouTube for me. Spotify, Kindle, various
| streaming platforms, Amazon product recommendations and so on -
| all bad, to the extend I really believe that either I'm a weird
| outlier or all this "big data" that's supposed to predict my
| every sneeze is just one big lie from the naked kings of the
| industry. The thing that prevents me from thinking I'm just a
| negative person is that I've got a plenty of human-curated
| recommendations (even non-personal, but just some online posts)
| that I've genuinely enjoyed.
|
| And I think I know how to waste my time responsibly (aka not
| screwing up other obligations too much), so I'd even pay for a
| good recommendation system that'd bring me something I'd be
| always interested in, on demand, to fill an hour or two when I
| want it.
|
| So I wonder - how YouTube looks to someone who says the
| recommendations are good?
| anthomtb wrote:
| > I got into self-help and meditation
|
| I know it can be expensive but consider a real live therapist
| alongside self help resources. Talking out your problems to an
| actual human, who is trained to listen, can provide the quantum
| leap needed for resolving a whole host of personal problems.
|
| Personally, Apples screen time limits and Downtime features have
| been a god send for my overwatch issues on Instagram. I have most
| non-work apps blocked from 7:00AM to 6:00PM and a 15 minute per
| day limit on Instagram. Since doing that, I feel much more
| engaged and efficient at work and have also managed to knock out
| some technical reading on the Kindle app (one of the few apps
| that I allow myself to use at any time).
| tayo42 wrote:
| How do you you find a good one?
| anthomtb wrote:
| Trial and error. I wish I knew a way to find a _good_
| therapist without that process. But I do not. And unlike
| dentists, doctors, counter installers, pet sitters, window
| cleaners and most other services, folks will not fall over
| themselves to give you a therapist recommendation (maybe that
| is a peculiarity of my circle of acquaintances).
|
| To find _a_ therapist, Psychology Today worked well enough.
| To me, having one is better than having none.
| braindead_in wrote:
| YouTube videos will soon be generated by an AI which will know
| exactly what your interests are and it will keep you hooked in
| such a way that you will live in an alternate reality made up of
| a images bein projected to your eyes by a video monitor and will
| completely lose yourself. And one day someone will offer you a
| choice between a blue and red pill. Choose the red one and a new
| rabbit hole will start. Back to square one.
| aizyuval wrote:
| Addiction is a black and white kind of thing, and it's hard to
| comprehend it. But once you do, you are on the right path.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| "The opposite of addiction is connection." --Gabor Mate
| aviavi wrote:
| Thanks for talking about this.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| I got a huge hack for making YouTube less addictive: use the
| uBlock Origin extension, and block the thumbnails! Now when I
| search for videos, I don't see any thumbnails and I have to read
| the text titles. I also don't get distracted by the end-of-video
| thumbnails either.
| dudul wrote:
| I watch a lot of YouTube, mostly Let's Plays, but it's just in
| the background while I do other stuff. Sometimes I work,
| sometimes I game (either the same game or another one).
|
| It's kind of listening to music I guess. I dont retain a lot of
| the content. No clue if it's harmful or not, but I wouldn't call
| it an addiction because I dont miss it.
| layer8 wrote:
| > wordless videos of food being prepared in the morning in
| Japanese restaurants
|
| Oh my god I need to watch this. Any recommendations?
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| You might like
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL20OXrIf7YRjOJr54uci7...
| It's not so much interesting for the recipes being prepared but
| rather for its composition and filmography. I find watching
| them rather soothing.
| pushedx wrote:
| "Japanese food craftsman", "DancingBacons", "I Will Always
| Travel for Food", "Japanese Noodles Udon Soba Osaka Nara"
|
| In that order.
|
| Yes, these are all channel names.
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