Speaker 1: YouTube's new tools to help you keep tabs on how
Speaker 1: much you watch.
Speaker 2: What's going on. I'm rich Demiro. This is Rich on tech.
Speaker 1: YouTube is introducing some new ways to help you stay
Speaker 1: on a good digital diet. This is part of a
Speaker 1: bigger trend we're seeing around digital wellness from big companies
Speaker 1: including Google, Facebook, Apple, and more. Now YouTube's new tools
Speaker 1: are in the mobile app. To get to them, just
Speaker 1: open the app and then tap your profile picture. Usually
Speaker 1: it's in the upper right hand corner. Then look for
Speaker 1: the new section labeled time watched.
Speaker 2: Once you open this up, you can immediately see your
Speaker 2: viewing stats. You can see how much time you spent
Speaker 2: watching today, yesterday, the past week, or your daily average.
Speaker 1: This can be a handyway for parents to check in
Speaker 1: on their kids to see how much YouTube they're really
Speaker 1: watching on a daily basis, But as a regular person,
Speaker 1: you can also just see for yourself.
Speaker 2: Am I watching too much YouTube?
Speaker 1: That I watch more or less than I thought over
Speaker 1: the past couple of weeks. Down below this information are
Speaker 1: some tools to help you manage your YouTube time, including
Speaker 1: an option to remind you to take a break. You
Speaker 1: can set this frequency as you like, whether it's every
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes every hour, or really whatever you want. Once
Speaker 1: you hit this time limit, you're gonna get a friendly
Speaker 1: screen telling you to take a break. And yes, you
Speaker 1: might be thinking yourself, Hey, rich this was already in
Speaker 1: my app before.
Speaker 2: Yes, you're right.
Speaker 1: This is a relatively new feature, but it has been
Speaker 1: in the app for a little bit of time. But
Speaker 1: now it's all under this new section labeled time watched.
Speaker 1: Underneath the option to remind you to take a break
Speaker 1: is a toggle to turn auto play off. AutoPlay is
Speaker 1: one of the ways that YouTube gets us to watch
Speaker 1: and watch and watch, So if you have this problem
Speaker 1: where you keep watching you're spending too much mindless time
Speaker 1: on the site, it's probably a good idea to turn
Speaker 1: this off. And if you have kids that are watching YouTube,
Speaker 1: like I talked about in a couple of episodes ago,
Speaker 1: it's a good idea to turn off auto play because
Speaker 1: you never know if that next video is going to
Speaker 1: be appropriate for them. After this, the next two toggles
Speaker 1: are very useful. The first is called Scheduled Digest. This
Speaker 1: bundles all of your new subscription, video alerts and other
Speaker 1: YouTube notifications to one giant notification at a specific time
Speaker 1: now I definitely see the pros and cons of this one.
Speaker 1: As a creator, you don't really want people turning this
Speaker 1: on because they're not going to be immediately notified when
Speaker 1: your next video drops. Plus, if your video notification is
Speaker 1: bundled in with a bunch of other people's video notifications,
Speaker 1: there's a.
Speaker 2: Good chance that your video won't be watched.
Speaker 1: Now, on the flip side, you do get to pick
Speaker 1: the delivery time for your digest notification, so that means
Speaker 1: you can choose a time when you know you're sitting
Speaker 1: around or you know you're gonna have some free time
Speaker 1: each day to catch up on your video subscription. So
Speaker 1: for me personally, I get these little notifications from some
Speaker 1: of the creators. I've turned on that bell for throughout
Speaker 1: the day and I'm at work, I'm busy, and guess what,
Speaker 1: I just swipe them away. Now, if I knew it,
Speaker 1: let's say three PM, when I was sitting in front
Speaker 1: of my TV, I was able to watch some of
Speaker 1: these things and had some time, then perhaps I would
Speaker 1: be more app to watching these videos. So it's definitely
Speaker 1: a pro and con to that one. You can turn
Speaker 1: it on if you find it useful. The final setting
Speaker 1: is sort of a do not disturb, but just for YouTube.
Speaker 1: You can silence notification during a timeframe that you specify.
Speaker 2: So if you don't want YouTube.
Speaker 1: Nagging you while you're at work, you can set those
Speaker 1: as your silent hours. Now, keep in mind this feature
Speaker 1: might overlap with your standard do not disturb setting, so
Speaker 1: keep that in mind when you're setting it up.
Speaker 2: But realistically it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: It's just for the app. You can set it as
Speaker 1: you like. So why the big emphasis on digital wellness
Speaker 1: right now? Well, it just seems like we're spending a
Speaker 1: lot of time on our phones and if we let
Speaker 1: every single app notify us every single time they want
Speaker 1: our attention, we'll think about it. We won't have any
Speaker 1: time in our days for anything else. And already we
Speaker 1: notice this happening. Controls like this are letting us take
Speaker 1: back the digital rains. And on that note, I've been
Speaker 1: testing Google's new digital well Being feature in Android nine PI,
Speaker 1: and it's really interesting because there's a lot of aspects
Speaker 1: of this that I like. Because these phones are new,
Speaker 1: all these notifications are new, we're still figuring out how
Speaker 1: to deal with them in our everyday lives. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: the do not Disturb feature in Pie literally takes away
Speaker 1: any notifications on my screen while I'm sleeping.
Speaker 2: Or if I'm out at night and I have it
Speaker 2: turned on.
Speaker 1: And the neat thing about these notifications is when they're
Speaker 1: out of sight, they're out of mind. You're not even
Speaker 1: thinking to check them if you don't see them on
Speaker 1: your screen personally. I've also set thirty minute timers on
Speaker 1: all of my social media apps, so I get thirty
Speaker 1: minutes to use Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter each day, and
Speaker 1: you can set that number to whatever you want. I
Speaker 1: just pick thirty. It was kind of arbitrary just to
Speaker 1: see what it was, and I've been hitting my limit
Speaker 1: mostly in the early evening, maybe five six o'clock, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of liberating because that's the time I spend
Speaker 1: out my kids. And once that happens, the app, like
Speaker 1: my Twitter icon, is literally grade out and I cannot
Speaker 1: use it. I can't open it, I can't see any
Speaker 1: notifications from it until the next day. And sure I
Speaker 1: can probably override the time out somehow by going into
Speaker 1: the settings, but so far I haven't. I haven't even
Speaker 1: felt the need to. You just sort of forget about
Speaker 1: checking the app again. Until the morning when it's not
Speaker 1: great out anymore, and you can use it again. So
Speaker 1: I think that this is actually serving its purpose. The
Speaker 1: other side effect is that I don't want to waste
Speaker 1: time in these apps because I know that every minute
Speaker 1: spent inside of them is precious and I might need
Speaker 1: that time later on in the day to share something
Speaker 1: or to comment on something, or do whatever inside Facebook,
Speaker 1: Twitter or Instagram. Now for me, this is a little
Speaker 1: bit complicated because part of my job relies on social media,
Speaker 1: so I'm still figuring out.
Speaker 2: That and how to navigate that properly.
Speaker 1: But the bottom line is, Look, we're all spending wasted
Speaker 1: time inside these apps, so I'm sure we can all
Speaker 1: trim it just a little bit. Apple's also going to
Speaker 1: introduce a similar feature in the next version of their
Speaker 1: operating system iOS twelve.
Speaker 2: Which is going to launch in a few weeks.
Speaker 1: And although all these limits seem counterintuitive to the businesses
Speaker 1: that these tech companies have built, which are basically based
Speaker 1: on grabbing our attention, in the end, they're seeing this
Speaker 1: self regulation as a good first step.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: If you want links to more information on these YouTube
Speaker 1: controls or digital wellbeing in general.
Speaker 2: Go to my website.
Speaker 1: It's Rich on tech dot TV, or check the show notes.
Speaker 2: I'm Rich Damiro. I'll talk to you real soon.