Youtube

2024-11-07

I love youtube. It is probably my biggest activity. Like if you tracked everything I did that's not sleeping or eating then Youtube would be at the top. And I don't think that's super bad or a sign of the downfall of civilization. But I've changed how I consume Youtube recently and I want to share why. I've watch a lot of videos about how you brain is a dopamine addicted addicted who only needs to use one more app, program, mediation technique, or some other snake oil thingamabob. The reality of it is that the only way I will stop watching youtube is that I stop going on the internet, cuz like what else is there? Yeah I read some lobste.rs posts or checking my emails, but that's not entertainment. I watch youtube the same way I use to watch tv. The relative ease and conveniency of youtube is much different than tv, but it basically the same. I do get a lot out of my youtube watching, and I've learned that I will never get rid of it, but I have found ways to use youtube a healthy way. Now I should mention that I have a nebula subscription and I like to browse that sometimes, but the platform is not trying for you to stay for hours on end, and as of right now the creator size is relatively small.
First let's talk about not youtube. I have an instagram and reddit account, I don't have the app on my phone. I have tried and succeeded in removing them from my daily habits. To anyone who also wants to get rid of those habits I would recommend deleting the app, and installing not a app blocker but an app redirector. Redirect where? to youtube! I still have a tick of typing 're' when I open firefox because it used to like to reddit but now is kind of a horribly inefficient way to get to youtube(in fact I just added a youtube bookmark with 're' as a bookmark shortcut which you can do in firefox). I have tried with website blockers but they just don't work, this way your still occupied, and are less likely to use reddit or another program that is worse than youtube. Now about youtube, I like enhancer for youtube as you can change the speed from 0.1 to >2 speed up for youtube videos which is just really nice. You might be expecting this but I use 'UnTrap for youtube'. Which lets you customize the ui. The most important setting you must change is removing thumbnails. It has helped not be sucked into a doom scroll. The second most important setting is removing recommendations, and redirecting from the home page to your subscriptions. I grew up when youtube subscriptions got less and less important in favor of the the algorithm^tm, however I've started building up a large subscription list, because when you don't have recommendations the only way to watch videos is to subscribe to people crazy right?. There's also other stuff you can adjust with Untrap, like youtube shorts but I won't get to deep into my config options. I think having no thumbnails and also curating a good list of channels make youtube a more health platform not only for me but also for other channels.