I’ve noticed YouTube specifically has become more addictive, I never used to be one to sit and scroll for long durations before but I often catch myself spending way too long on shorts now
Even people or older generations seem to be getting sucked in nowadays
I find YouTube is less attractive than a year ago. Ads are more invasive and more difficult to remove. Recommendations skew heavily to the rage-inducing, e.g., I watched one late night comedy sketch making fun of Jordan Peterson and then my feed was full of clips of him spewing his hot trash for weeks.
I gave up on reddit earlier in the year when all the API / sub blackout / forced mod removal stuff was going on.
Freemium apps seem to be pushing ads more and more, which makes me more resistant to using them.
If what I read online is true, the days of investors throwing money at anything tech related are slowing down. Which means some companies that have never had to be profitable before now must find a way to do so. Which means tightening up subscriptions and/or more ads.
I try to spread this tip everywhere i can: If you ever find that you’ve watched one of those videos that fucks up the recommendations, go to your watch history and delete the video. It really works.
I disabled and cleared my history, now I don’t get any recommendations except the ones related to the video I’m currently watching 👍
Its the oversaturated colours, not the short form content. The latter has no alternative, and short form content is sometimes much better than 10 minute filler and sponsorship ridden videos.
Put your phone on grayscale, doable on both Android and iOS from settings or some system toggle. Short form content is not the convincing answer everyone thinks it is. It has existed since 2000s with US-based Vine (Tiktok is a Vine clone), then Snapchat Shorts, then Instagram Reels, then Tiktok, and now YouTube Shorts.
Another protip is to find some kind of app or filter to desaturate your screen, if you cannot do grayscale in long term. Desaturate by 50% and see the magic for yourself.
AMOLED transition on phones did not happen for the dark (crushed) blacks and power saving, that is pure marketing drivel practically.
Giving the gray-scale thing a try, I think the thing that sets modern short form content apart is how fast, snappy and easy to scroll it is though
Rarely have more than half a second of downtime between shorts, I think that is the issue recently
The short form content is doing something else, it is not directly the short length that is to blame. It is the information overload and the methods and information used to incite some form of emotion from you, and to solicit engagement. That is the endgame you have to win against.
Information overload can also happen with 10 minute videos. You have to stay away from overloading the brain constantly, and give it proper breaks, and even disengage from visually stimulating content to keep a stable, spike-less dopamine feed to your brain.
For me it’s certainly the short form content, as I’ve found myself getting hooked on it on PC to the point I have to snap out of it and instantly close the tab once I realise what’s happening. This isn’t happening with my normal subscription feed, because it’s not a never ending stream of content.
I need you to try desaturation trick once, and for atleast a couple days or week. You will notice the difference instantly.
Okay, I’ve turned it on and this was the first short to appear.
I’m gonna be honest, it’s not making a difference for me personally. If anything I think I’m staring at it more now because I feel like I can see more details in the videos.
Its more about not the immediate effect, but you will develop an observation within a couple days or a week atmost, if the effects are not immediately observable to you. Just turn it off while using camera (obvious reasons), and try at your own liberty.
