Hello all!
I am new to the pub.
I am really enjoying the small net and the Gemini protocol. I have been trying to ax the larger, more distracting websites from my life.
I have already eliminated usage of social media (except Discord and HN, unfortunately). The one website that seems to be the hardest to kick is YouTube. I do need it for work stuff sometimes, but otherwise it is just a complete black hole.
Any advice on keeping my YouTube viewing to a bare minimum?
I have a plugin that redirects the main page to my subscriptions, and my subscriptions are pretty finely curated to only be what I actively want to engage in. Has significantly reduced the amount of time I spend asking the algorithm to entertain me.
https://github.com/lawrencehook/remove-youtube-suggestions
Hmm... I'm having a similar problem. What I've tried is clearing my Watch later list, saving everything on playlists, looking for the audio version of some podcasts I like, and downloading the videos to my phone, so I don't have to open the App (YouTube Vanced for Android)
The feature from YouTube that steals more of my attention is the Home Screen, since it recommends you videos to waste time. Some other way is using
https://joinpeertube.orgto avoid that tracking of preferences.
And finally, I use on my laptop a plugin for Chrome based browsers called DF Tube (Distraction Free), to hide comments, recommended videos and similar distractions, ha =)
Recently I became aware of how much time I was spending on YT and this is something that made a huge difference for me, I turned of all history and all recommendations and everything that I could turn off (don’t remember all the details)
After that I cleaned up all of my subscriptions so I was subscribed to only what I wanted and enabled notifications on all my subs.
What that did is that I no longer see any new videos at youtube, the main page NEVER changes except when there are new videos from my subs. So, I’d start browsing YouTube and actually get bored of it!!
Nowadays I only check it every other day and watch 3-5 videos of the people I follow, and after that there’s nothing else to watch, and I love it that way!!
Anyways, hope this helps!
Thanks! I like the idea of tweaking YouTube to make it less appealing while still trying to maintain some of its value.