YouTube is bringing a new feature to stop you endlessly scrolling through Shorts: here's how it works

We’ve all been there: you open a small, insignificant Short on YouTube and suddenly you’ve lost an hour scrolling through videos on topics you probably don’t even want to see. To curb this behavior, YouTube has introduced a new time-shifting feature that allows users to manage the time they spend watching Shorts. As the name suggests, the Timer feature allows users to set a daily time limit for how long they can browse Shorts on the mobile version of the YouTube app. ​Once the time limit is reached, users will see a dismissable message that browsing the Shorts stream is paused for the day. However, the feature isn’t yet tied to parental controls on the YouTube app, meaning parents can’t yet set a time limit on how many short videos their kids can watch. YouTube says it plans to expand the feature to parental controls later this year. When this happens, parents will be able to set a limit on Shorts videos from their account, and the incentive kids will see after the limit is reached won’t be discounted. YouTube will add parental controls to the timer feature in the future Research has shown that this behavior can have serious mental health consequences, including distraction, reduced learning ability and increased feelings of anxiety. It’s also said to rewire the brain’s reward system to make it crave the next big headline, leading to reduced impulse control and heightened anxiety. ​YouTube Features to Reduce Doomscrolling: ​YouTube has also implemented similar features in the past to remind users to take a break from scrolling videos on the platform. For example, the “Take a Break” feature reminds users every 15, 30, 60 or 90 minutes (depending on the duration set by users) to take a break. They can then choose to dismiss the reminder and continue watching more videos or close the app and take a break. Similarly, the bedtime reminder feature allows users to set a bedtime after which YouTube will remind them to stop watching videos and go to sleep. Similar to the Take a Break feature, users will have the final control over whether they actually want to stop watching videos or go back to streaming content.