Has anyone else noticed smartphones have got significantly more addictive recently

I block shorts on youtube, I don't care for short form content. Give me those hour long analysis type videos. Without shorts youtube still does a rather poor job at recommending new stuff.

That being said, shorts are being more addictive by nature since the barrier of entry to watch 'one more' is so low. If you engage with them on any app, you will waste more time on your phone.

I'm finding it to be the opposite. All content on YouTube and social media, including lemmy, seems to just be endless reposts of the same limited list of topics and memes.

Its become boring to the point where I'm just going back to specific interest forums websites for content.

Say no to shorts on every platform.

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’m feeling the opposite lately. YouTube recommendations suck. I often open the app/page for the quick dopamine rush, but few of the recommendations interests me, so I just bounce off. For me, YouTube is mostly for long form content nowadays. Something I can put in the background while cooking/doing dishes.

Instagram is turning more and more like TikTok. Sometimes it recommends me something fun (like cat videos), but often it’s just nonsense. So I bounce off quite quickly there as well.

I feel happy about it.

No, shorts are shit and I'm absolutely not sucked in. They try to emulate tik tok so I would say this format simply works for you.

shorts are designed to be addictive. just don't use them. otherwise, the platform hasn't changed, you have

Recently? No, but maybe I'm in my own bubble. I've made my phone more boring intentionally. Getting rid of Reddit made me get off my phone a lot more. I really just mindlessly browse Lemmy and Mastodon now, and I run out of content on those.

Shorts made it less addictive, they're awful to watch and I invariably stop at one.

Perhaps you are experiencing a spike in your own addictive behaviour?

I'm getting bored with my smartphone. Stuff like YouTube I never watch on my phone anyway, but imo YouTube has gotten much worse over time and I barely watch it at all now.

I feel the exact opposite about you tube. I feel like there is nothing interesting to watch any more unless one of my follows post a new video

If anything I'm less addicted to my smartphone now that Reddit got rid of the 3rd party apps.

Their algorithm is specifically designed to keep you entertained. Kind of a curse or a gift depending on who you ask. Think the worst cases are children tbh it was insane my first time seeing a tablet kid out in the wild. Faced glued to the screen being walked by their mom

I don't think it's really changed, maybe it's just your perception of it. It's just as addictiv today as it was last year as I see it.

It's the opposite for me. I never consume shorts/tiktoks because they simply don't interest me. Most of the things I watch are very in-depth (Flaw Peacock's video essays are between 5-7 hours a piece).

Since I almost exclusively go for this long form content, I feel I have a lot more "say" in what I consume online.

If you can stay at this side of the fence concerning short form content you'll be golden.

No? The opposite of anything, I consume media much more on my TV, PC and via my ereader recently.

My smartphone has mostly been relegated to a communications device the recent 3-6 months as I've lost the will to try to go through media on a needlessly tiny screen. Luckily though, I don't have a commute any more. But when I did, I read books on the ereader during the train travel instead of being on the phone.

Everyone realised how well tiktok worked and scrambled to copy the format.

Big tech writes the equivalent of digital heroin.

The longer they can keep you on their platforms,
the more they can data-farm you,
the more data they have on you,
the more they can sell about you / earn on you.

Detox yourself from your bad heroin addiction,
by switching to fair FOSS (Free Open Source Software) alternatives.

E.g. Use Invidious, Grayjay or NewPipe instead of YouTube.

If you find yourself suddenly grasping for more and more time escaping reality consider seeing a psychiatrist.

You could have major depression: it was one of my symptoms.

The problem is that most people aren't aware that shorts / stories are made to be addictive.

If you keep pointing out to your friends and family how much time / battery they waste watching them they may start to take action though.

I've noticed the recommendations suck now. It that's their attempt at sucking me in?

Idk I am pretty addicted, but it's like Netflix where I spend more time selecting than watching nowadays.

Kinda looking forward to Google making me fight for ad free YouTube. There is a 0% chance I will continue to use YouTube if there are any ads in my way. Even a stationary suggestion in my feed? Nope, fuck that. As soon as revanced is toast I'll leave YouTube like I did reddit.

But the recommendations are God awful now.

This just put me off YouTube, I get that they are trying to copy Tiktok's addictiveness but I just don't get anything out of short-form video content.

Not really. I never got into mobile gaming, tiktok, reels, shorts, instagram, snapchat etc. so I mainly use my phone for podcasts, maps and browsing lemmy while on toilet. While on my computer I spend 95% of my time on YouTube but I feel like even that has gotten worse lately. I've been getting suggestions about videos with like 19 views constantly and no matter how many I mark as "not interested" or "don't recommend channel" they just keep coming back. Apparently because I like watching TheRunningManZ I must also like every other DayZ streamer that no one has ever heard about.

Use revanced and remove shorts

YouTube just annoys me lately because the search function is so shitty. I go looking for videos of drag queens and they try and get me to watch Madonna videos.

...and less effective, and more proprietary, and more homogenous.

Strangely, the opposite for me. Recently (and I mean a couple months ago), I've been noticing that YouTube's recommendation algorithm changed in some way. It's now recommending me things that I'm not particularly interested in, or things that I would click away from more readily. I used to like educational channels (SciShow, PBS Spacetime, Deep Look, PBS Eons, etc.) and I'm noticing that these videos are almost never recommended to me anymore. I have to go to their channel to even see that they posted a video.

It's been the opposite, I feel like I have to put in huge amounts of effort just to find something interesting. Most of the YouTubers I follow barely post anything anymore.

I've never found anything about those short video platforms appealing, yes there's some creative people making great content on them but everything else is pretty much garbage.

My phone gets maybe an hour of use on a regular day and most of that is searching for music to listen to on Tidal.

Not really.

Just stay away from garbage content like TikTok and shorts. But you can't blame your shitty media consumption on the smartphone.

Lately I've been more conscious of my decisions to watch trash on you tube. You watch a few traffic cam videos and pretty soon that's half your feed. So I'm finding myself thinking twice before clicking.

Shorts I mostly avoid because I feel that feature is toxic clickbait.

Shorts (tiktoks, reels) are designed to do just that, hook you in and keep you scrolling.
It's like a constant rolling cliffhanger.

Has its good sides - not everything can or should be a long format video. However, I think the scale is tipped too much towards shorts recently. There is not enough time in shorts to formulate a proper statement, so they need to stretch over multiple parts.

My biggest dislike is the separation of context - shorts and longs are completely separate in Youtube even by the same creator, and the most popular platform TikTok, doesn't even support longer videos.

No, not at all. And there are more tools than ever to monitor, track, and notify high usage.

PEBKAC or whatever the modern equivalent is these days.

It seems to also be a switching task issue in our minds. These changes of states takes more effort than playing the next video does or just keeping on what we are doing. It's so much easier for us to keep playing the digital dopamine slot machine that, TikTok, instagram reels, Facebook and YouTube short videos provide.

From a business sense they want to keep your attention, from a biology sense we are safe and don't see a need to move with the random rewards another quick video offers.

It's amazing how well they have refined getting and keeping our attention. We also get rewarded with dopamine from the anticipation of the next story or short video. It gets we don't even really need the next video, just the anticipation is enough to reward us with more dopamine.

I've read doing a simple reverse mental countdown of 5-4-3-2-1 blast off helps us switch gears from another part of the brain. It can also help us get out of bed or off the couch.

I just avoid shorts or reels or whatever personally. They're short and engaging making it easy to lose track of time.

But yeah you're 100% right my parents (late 50s) have started doing it a lot. I've noticed a lot of teenagers do as well.

I've marked "not interested" on all shorts I've seen, and they were all gone in like 10 minutes.

This reminds me of "Gum's Gotten Mintier Lately. Have You Noticed?"

Can't say I agree with your example, but I agree in general with the idea. Shorts suck.

I don't watch shorts, for this reason. I tried them when they first started and noticed I was just scrolling video after video, so I stopped watching them. I don't have addiction issues, though.

Hey, if it's fun/interesting/informative it seems fine to me. If you're turning into a drooling maga zombie watching rage bait then that's on you.

I spend way too much time on Lemmy and YouTube, but I'm not mindlessly scrolling. I'm hunting for specific content.

100% agree. Same experience here with YouTube and YouTube shorts. I waste far too much time there.

My dad, a boomer, has been watching videos, reading news and listicles, and playing games on his phone more and more lately. 10 years ago, he was still using a flip phone, and just a few years ago (and tbh even still today) needs help using/navigating his phone and there internet.

But yeah, I’ve noticed him getting sucked into it - he probably uses his phone more than I use mine, since I’m on my computer more than my phone (unless we count my phone playing my music in the car and while at work, but that’s not exactly the phone use we’re talking about, so I wouldn’t include that rn).

Similarly, my grandparents, also boomers, are doing more on their phones all the time. For boomers specifically, it could have a little to do with retiring during this age of technology and finally having the time to explore something that seems more difficult for them to grasp.

TLDR: big word dump to echo the sentiment and show that I’m experiencing the same things as you.

Install Youtube ReVanced and disable shorts altogether! Doing that saved me years of lifetime haha

I've found I've used my phone a lot less, but it might be because I prefer either longer, more essay structured videos, or a good half hour unscripted comedy bit (podcast, video game, whatever). I don't even bother with a lot of stuff under 10 minutes unless it's something like an animation or a skit where that time would be unreasonable. Still though, they're from channels I know, and aren't ones I'm randomly being served. I've gotten more into TV recently because if it, and I read manga when I have a little bit of downtime.

Still though, the way popular web video has gone, it's funny remembering YouTube nuking short videos a decade back when they changed the revenue structure. They already had the videos being made on their platform and actively discouraged them.

When I watch videos on my phone, I mostly just watch downloaded TV shows using VLC. I never use the youtube app. If I watch a youtube video, I use Firefox with uBlock origin.

I hate using a small screen, so I watch 99.9% of my videos on my laptop and desktop. I can't stand youtube shorts, so I use an addon to block them.

I had never used Instagram reels until recently but also found it pretty damned addictive once I did try them. The ease of access and variety of content is pretty compelling. Of course, it's information junk food. Very little of intellectual value comes with it, and it's quite mentally passive, so it's a good idea to limit how much time you spend on it.

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.

Maybe Instagram. I don’t really like videos but I like environment, art etc pictures

I am using

• Mull + adblock
• greyjay
• jerboah
• several Discuss webapps
• internet searching
• antennapod for podcasts

This is already enough to get me addicted and its not even typical social media

Yeah as much as I hate shorts or reels in theory it's so easy to get sucked in to scrolling for hours. I had to delete instsgram and install an extension that blocks shorts because of it

I hadn’t noticed but I think you’re right

I’m

I’ve had the opposite issue. I’m so turned off by the tracking and every app containing the equivalent of a signed agreement to scan your blood and DNA. No thanks. I’ll stick to boring old Linux where my computer does predictable things, except for when I go rooting around in .bashrc 😅

I don't watch shorts, but the algorithm became absolute trash for me recently.

Even people?