If you’ve ever had to drink an extra cup of coffee the next day to make up for a scrolling spiral watching TikTok videos or YouTube Shorts, we have something in common. As a safeguard to keep us from scrolling on and on (and on) into the wee hours of the morning, YouTube’s adding a system to limit the amount of Shorts a user watches in a day—but it’s a little less strict than what exists on other apps.
Still, it’s better than nothing. Once you have the update, you’ll be able to set your limit under Settings, although YouTube hasn’t specified the specific steps yet. I assume it’ll be under the General tab (I don’t have the feature yet), but I’ve reached out to YouTube for clarification and will update once I hear back. The new limit settings are rolling out to iOS and Android today; it’s similar to a system that already exists on TikTok and Instagram, although TikTok is the only platform of the three to allow web users to set limits as well.
As for how the new limits will work, YouTube says it’s based on time spent scrolling, rather than a specific amount of Shorts watched. Once you hit the limit you’ve set for yourself, you’ll see a notification telling you that scrolling is paused for the rest of the day, although if you’re feeling cheeky, you can dismiss it to keep going. Meanwhile, TikTok at least makes you enter a passcode to dismiss your time limit, while Instagram requires you to hop into your settings.
In that way, it’s a bit similar to the existing “Take a Break” feature, which will send you a reminder to hop off YouTube in custom intervals. I guess the hope is that shame is enough to stop you from following your dark urges? I’ll be honest, if the Nintendo Wii’s “Take a Break” reminders weren’t enough for me back in the day, I’m not sure these will work on me now.
For younger scrollers, though, there is another way. Google also says it’s planning to add the feature to parental controls in the future, which will allow parents to set a Shorts limit for their kids and make it non-dismissable, so that once scrolling is paused for the day, a kid won’t be able to override it.
Personally, I think Google maybe should have started with parental controls. It’s unclear to me why a delay is necessary for us to get a Shorts limit prompt that isn’t dismissable, but I suppose I don’t work in app development. Some sort of second step to dismissing the prompt, like on TikTok, might also have been handy.
At any rate, though, the Shorts time limit could prove to be a useful arsenal in your self-control toolbox, if you’re the type of person to take those kinds of notifications seriously. Now if only the site could do something about those three-hour video essays I keep binging.
