It’s frequent for individuals to open a brief video, considering they’ll simply watch the one — then understand they’re nonetheless on the app an hour later. YouTube is including a brand new timer function to assist customers handle this habits, a transfer that displays each rising public stress on tech platforms and the corporate’s curiosity in fostering long-term engagement moderately than risking person burnout.
Customers can set a each day time restrict for Shorts viewing by way of the app’s settings. As soon as they attain their restrict, they see a pop-up notifying them that scrolling on the Shorts feeds is paused — although the pop-up is dismissible.
Earlier this yr, after Android Authority noticed the function in growth in one of many Android APKs (app recordsdata), YouTube confirmed it was exploring the time-limit function for Shorts consumption.
YouTube notes that the restrict is at the moment not built-in with parental controls, that means mother and father or guardians can’t simply set a particular restrict on how a lot their children scroll the Shorts feed. Nonetheless, the corporate says parental controls are coming subsequent yr, when youngsters gained’t be capable to dismiss their prompts.
Up to now, YouTube has rolled out digital well-being options, together with “take a break” and “bedtime” reminders to curb customers’ doomscrolling habits.
With “Take a Break,” for instance, customers can set a reminder to look each 15, 30, 60, 90 or 180 minutes, at which level the video will pause. Customers can then select to dismiss the reminder and hold watching, or shut the app.
Equally, with its bedtime reminder function, customers set a particular time window (begin and finish time) once they wish to be reminded to cease watching and go to mattress. When that bedtime arrives, YouTube exhibits a notification reminding them to cease watching.
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Whereas options like these assist exhibit company duty, their non-obligatory nature means they could not truly scale back engagement, permitting YouTube to handle issues about addictive design whereas sustaining its core enterprise mannequin.
Proper now, in response to a latest Bloomberg Law report, practically 2,000 lawsuits are pending within the U.S. in opposition to social media corporations, with households, faculty districts, and state attorneys normal alleging that platforms have deliberately designed addictive options that hurt youngsters’s psychological well being.
