YouTube to help users manage their addictive video watching behavior
At the recently concluded Google I/O 2018 annual developer conference in California, the company rolled out a series of new features on YouTube that will help people control their usage of the video streaming app. These features are opt-in and allow users to set limits on their YouTube watching patterns. They come as part of Google's Digital Wellbeing initiative.
Set reminders to get off YouTube
There is now a "Take a Break" feature available under YouTube's Settings option, which allows users to set reminders to get off the app. The reminder will pause any ongoing video, and you can choose to either dismiss it or adhere to it. They can be set to appear every 15, 30, 60, 90, or 180 minutes. The setting is turned off by default.
Limit YouTube's ability to send notifications
Another feature allows users to disable notification sounds for a specified time period each day. If you don't specify a time, notifications will by default be disabled from 10pm to 8am. An alternate option under this feature is to get a scheduled digest of notifications once per day which combines all daily push notifications into a single notification. This is also off by default.
An overview of binge behavior for better viewing habits
YouTube will soon roll out a feature called "time watched profile" which will display your daily average time spent watching videos. Appearing in the Account menu, it will detail your watch time of the current day, the day before, and the entire past week. The feature will go live in the "coming months," Google said.
