You Can Now Limit How Many YouTube Shorts You Watch in a Day
If you’ve ever had to drink an extra cup of coffee the next day to compensate for a scrolling spiral while watching TikTok videos or YouTube shorts, we have something in common. To keep us from scrolling again and again (and again) into the wee hours of the morning, YouTube is adding a system to limit the number of short films a user watches in a day, but it’s a little less strict than what exists on other apps.
Still, it’s better than nothing. Once you get the update, you’ll be able to set your limit under Settings, although YouTube hasn’t specified the specific steps yet. I assume it will be under the General tab (I don’t have that feature yet), but I’ve reached out to YouTube for clarification and will update as soon as I hear back. The new limit settings are rolling out today to iOS and Android; it’s similar to a system that already exists on TikTok and Instagram, although TikTok is the only platform of the three that allows people to also set limits.
As for how the new limits work, YouTube says they’re based on time spent scrolling, rather than a specific amount of short films viewed. Once you’ve reached the limit you’ve set for yourself, you’ll see a notification telling you that scrolling is paused for the rest of the day, but if you’re feeling cheeky, you can dismiss it to continue. Meanwhile, TikTok requires you to at least enter a password to skip your time limit, while Instagram requires you to go into your settings.
In this way, it’s a bit like the existing “Take a Break” feature, which will send you a reminder to quit YouTube at custom intervals. I guess the hope is that the shame is enough to stop you from following your dark impulses? I’ll be honest, if the Nintendo Wii’s “Take a Break” reminders weren’t enough for me back then, I’m not sure it will work for me now.
For the youngest, however, there is another way. Google also says it plans to add this feature to Parental Controls in the future, which will allow parents to set a shorts limit for their children and make it non-revocable, so that once scrolling is broken for the day, a child cannot override it.
Personally, I think maybe Google should have started with parental controls. I don’t understand why a delay is necessary for us to get a Shorts limit prompt that can’t be ignored, but I guess I don’t work in application development. Some kind of second step to skip the prompt, like on TikTok, could have also been helpful.
Either way, the Shorts time limit could prove to be a useful arsenal in your self-control toolbox, if you’re the type of person to take these types of notifications seriously. Now if only the site could do something about these three hour video essays that I keep reading.
