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Has anyone else noticed smartphones have got significantly more addictive recently

I’ve noticed YouTube specifically has become more addictive, I never used to be one to sit and scroll for long durations before but I often catch myself spending way too long on shorts now

Even people or older generations seem to be getting sucked in nowadays

xia ,

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

LemmyKnowsBest ,

Which, IMO, makes the smartphones less appealing and less addictive.

I speculate perhaps the-powers-that-be are making our smartphone experience incrementally shittier so we become less addicted to them, So as not to interfere with our work ethic being capitalist slaves.

“Git off yer damn phones and git back to work!!”

FireWire400 ,
@FireWire400@lemmy.world avatar

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.

JokeDeity ,

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

MigratingtoLemmy ,

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

Thisfox ,

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?

nutsack ,

same with me. they’re awful and the content quality is depressing. but i think for many people shorts are the addiction

Tlaloc_Temporal ,

Oddly enough, there’s specific content only available through shorts that I would love to see (Scott Manley in particular does fantastic shorts), however I never see them because the shorts player invariably kills any enjoyment I may have be having at the time.

No matter what content exists on shorts, I will go out of my way to disable shorts altogether. If I could block the URL I would.

stealth_cookies ,

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

nephs ,

I’ve marked “not interested” on all shorts I’ve seen, and they were all gone in like 10 minutes.

Noedel ,

Use revanced and remove shorts

WindowsEnjoyer ,

Grayjay users have other recommendation.

flashgnash OP ,

If I were going to use anything I’d probably use piped as a PWA, but the problem is none of them seem to do recommendations and I just get generic content on the front page which doesn’t really interest me

PotatoKat ,

Revanced gives recommendations lol

rob299 ,

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.

trackindakraken ,

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.

Pantherina ,

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

BonesOfTheMoon ,

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.

shiveyarbles ,

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.

flashgnash OP ,

It’s entertaining but it’s a massive waste of time that puts my brain into a state I don’t like.

I’ll happily waste hours on videogames, watching long form content, tinkering with my laptop etc because I at least feel like I’ve come away with something at the end of that whereas shorts the moment I stop I feel like I’ve just completely wasted 15 minutes of my life

shiveyarbles ,

deleted_by_author

    •
    flashgnash OP ,

    I think there’s an extension which rewrites all the clickbaitey video titles to make them descriptive instead if that’s of any interest

    mojo ,

    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.

    bitwolf ,

    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.

    flashgnash OP ,

    I’m well aware how much time I’m wasting, I’ve got a screen time monitor setup and have even gone so far as writing my own script that takes me to youareanidiot.org if I try to open YouTube before 10am but it still didn’t stop me for a good amount of time

    I think I might’ve just about kicked it at this point but now I’m spending loads of time scrolling Lemmy and talking to strangers instead which I suppose is marginally better

    bitwolf ,

    I have the same problem with YouTube! Between work + school I don’t have free time until 930/10, so I unwind watching documentaries on YouTube and it’s 2-3am before I know it :(

    I recently ordered an EReader and if books can’t replace that YouTube urge I might have to go the same route as you and redirect myself after midnight.

    I give myself a pass for Lemmy though. It’s not sucking me in, rather I open the site specifically for news for sites that don’t offer RSS feeds. (RSS helps a lot with eliminating the news -> distraction scenario)

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