The success is undeniable… perhaps too much so. YouTube estimates that its shorts, its vertical format launched in France in July 2021 to compete with Tiktok, generate 200 billion daily views.
A popular format among users, who sometimes have trouble stopping endless scrolling. And YouTube understood it well. As reported by The Verge, the platform has added a new feature to help users, only on mobile devices, manage the time they spend on Shorts.
“The shorts are on pause”
Users can now set a maximum daily screen time. When the set screen limit is reached, they receive a notification specifying that the shorts are on break for the day. However, this notification can be disabled. Therefore, it is up to the Internet user to be responsible and show a little willpower.
The option can be accessed directly in your account settings. The feature is rolling out today. YouTube plans to expand the system so that parents can use it to manage their children’s screen time. This time, time limit notifications cannot be ignored.
This is not the only option that YouTube offers to protect the digital well-being of Internet users. The platform launched “bedtime.” With this feature, users set a specific time window in which they want to be reminded to stop watching a video and go to bed.
YouTube is not the only platform that has implemented a system of this type. Since 2022, Tiktok allows its users, mobile and web, to define a maximum screen time for a session. The goal: encourage people to disconnect. An option… disabled by default. Since 2021, Instagram also offers a “reminder” option to mute the app. It’s hard when you’re fighting for our attention, to let us go so easily…
Source: BFM TV
