How To Break Your YouTube Addiction

YouTube Addiction Is Real So We Should Talk About It

I have a confession to make.

I’m a YouTube Addict.

Here’s how it happened.

This started when I was in high school when I got my first iPhone. I remember eagerly coming home, plonking myself on the couch with a snack, grabbing my phone, and opening up the YouTube app. I would scroll through my subscription box looking for any video that caught my attention. Needless to say, most of the videos intrigued me. I would start watching the first video and from there, this addictive cycle would begin.

I would binge-watch around 3–5 hours of YouTube videos daily about fashion, food, comedy skits, tutorials, and art videos. However, this would eventually spiral into the most random of viral internet songs, videos, and memes. This went on for weeks.

Eventually, watching YouTube would fill up any free time that I had.

When I was feeling bored, anxious, sad, or just having teenage mood swings, my impulse reaction would be to reach for my phone and click on YouTube. To me, YouTube was an escape. It was mind-numbing entertainment. When I was watching videos, my mind would go blank and I didn’t have to think about real-life problems. Instead, I could simply tune myself out to my responsibilities and ignore them until my parents would remind me about it.

I couldn’t click off. It was like a drug — instantly gratifying and extremely addictive.

This habit would repeat itself throughout high school up until university.

It wasn’t until I realized that I was entertaining myself to death that I knew I had a problem.

“Social media is addictive precisely because it gives us something that the real world lacks: it gives us immediacy, direction, a sense of clarity and value as an individual.” — David Amerland

Unfortunately, many people are in the same situation that I have been in. Especially Millennials and Generation Z who have grown up with technology in their hands.

Here are some statistics about the platform.

• YouTube is the second most popular social media platform with 79% of users have a YouTube account.
• YouTube has 2 billion users worldwide. This is more than Instagram and WhatsApp.
• People watch 1 billion hours of video on YouTube daily. That’s an average of 8.4 minutes per user.
• People upload 500 hours of video on YouTube per minute.

It’s quite clear that YouTube has grown exponentially since its humble origins in 2005. Today, millions of people watch and upload YouTube videos onto the platform which has created an over-saturation of video content.

In other words, there are too many videos and not enough time to watch them.

What makes YouTube different from other social media?

What YouTube offers to its audience is vastly different from other social media platforms which have contributed to its success.

Content Monetisation

Creators on the platform have the opportunity to earn income from their content through Ad-sense, sponsorship, or brand deals that fall under influencer marketing (given they meet the monetization criteria). This enables many creators to make a full time living on YouTube. In turn, the platform provides accessibility to a diverse audience which promotes user engagement. The more engagement and watch time the creator’s content has, the more compensation they receive.

Online Community

“Birds of a feather flock together” — Plato

YouTube has allowed many like-minded content creators and viewers to gather together over shared interests. It’s not uncommon to see other ‘YouTubers’ doing collaborations with each other. Naturally, this has created many sub-communities within the platform with many content creators having dedicated fans that purchase their merchandise. This creates para-social relationships as the viewer’s feel personally involved in the YouTuber’s life.

Allows Underrepresented and Diverse Opinion

Unlike Facebook which is a cluster of third party content, creative filmmakers are the driving force behind YouTube's uniqueness. On the platform, viewers are exposed to different nationalities, ethnicity, religions, sexuality, and niche groups that create videos about their specific topic. Hence, giving them a range of differing perspectives and skills which further allows creators to express underrepresented talent.

Subscriber Rewards

Content creators on the platform are given rewards when they hit certain subscriber milestones.

• Silver Play Button: 100,000 subscribers
• Gold Play Button: 1 million subscribers
• Diamond Play Button: 10 million subscribers

This inherently creates a game-like platform where creators receive recognition and reward for their efforts which further encourages them to keep producing content.

How is YouTube Addictive

It’s evident that our dependence on social media and the internet have drastically increased. Its estimated 210 million users worldwide may have a social media addiction.

A social media addiction is characterized as an uncontrollable urge to go on social media and spend a lot of time and effort to it, that it impairs other areas of your life. It can lead to mood enhancement, salience, and tolerance when using social media as well as withdrawal and relapse symptoms when social media access is limited.

This can be attributed to the dopamine inducing environment of social media platforms because they cause the addictive patterns of gambling or using recreational drugs through the constant stream of likes, followers and comments. This is known as the attention economy; where the attention span of online users is a limited commodity in the changing digital environment.

“Attention is a resource — a person has only so much of it” — Matthew Crawford

However, YouTube has other factors that contribute to its addictive nature:

Content gratification

Information is a commodity that many online users seek via social media. This type of content can be in various mediums, such as images, text, emoticons, quizzes, videos, etc.

YouTube presents valuable information via video form to its users where content gratification can also include creating comments and commentary videos. The platform encourages the creation of original and unique content under any video genre. Hence, making viewers more inclined to engage with the content due to some of its educational content that it provides.

Social gratification

YouTube allows its content creators and viewers to create social relationships via comments, subscribers and likes. The social gratification can be a driving factor for online users that crave social interaction who are more inclined to engage in online communications and sharing behaviour on the media.

The popularity of certain “E-Influencers” has further established a solid community of fans, which fosters the illusion of togetherness and belonging within the digital space. It also gives the viewer a sense of relatability and commonality as they watch the creator’s personal life play out on video. Hence, creating audience loyalty to the creator.

Process gratification

Process gratification satisfies entertainment, passing time and self-expression. The video content on YouTube acts as a digital television, which provides amusement and pass time gratification for viewers. It also gives content creators self-expression to create entertaining content and to interact with fans.

This interaction increases viewer engagement and gives the perception of better viewer enjoyment. The opportunity to also gain knowledge through viewing educational YouTube videos encourages the audience to keep watching more.

Technology gratification

YouTube is both convenient and easy to use. It is user friendly due to its simple layout and design. The YouTube homepage already displays recommended videos for you to choose from. It is also location convenient, as you can access YouTube via a computer, tablet, or phone. Not too mention that its free content!

With such easy access to the platform, this motivates viewers to watch, engage and create content on YouTube.

Strategies to break your YouTube addictin

1. The 5 Second Rule

When you feel that itch or urge to go on YouTube, count to five. This will prepare your brain to make a choice, either do what you need to do or watch YouTube.

And then take action and redirect your energy to what you intend to do.

If you don’t redirect your focus after that five seconds, your brain will most likely give in to that YouTube itch.

Those five seconds gives you a choice to hold yourself accountable to your goals or indulge in fleeting, short-lived entertainment.

2. Find Something else to Do

Decide to use the time that you would have to watch YouTube videos and instead, invest that time to pursue a hobby, passion, or interest.

Ultimately, we have limited time on this earth. Our days are limited to a 24-hour cycle but we can choose how we use our time.

Needless to say, that watching YouTube videos to relax is not wrong (I still do that!), however, letting YouTube consume your time can hinder your progress in other areas of life.

Imagine if you had spent those hours on YouTube to pursue something that intrigued you instead that had growth potential.

3. Think of your Ideal Self

Ideally, who would you want to be?

It would be interesting to draw a comparison between who you are right now i.e your beliefs, values, hobbies, passions, interests, etc. and contrast that with who you want to be.

What would you want to do? How would you like to be spending your free time? Who would like to be spending your time with?

And then create systems and plans to work towards that ideal self. I know its easier said than done, but there are many online resources to help you do that.

Conclusion

YouTube addiction has been a growing phenomenon with the rise of social media platforms. Many factors differentiate YouTube from other media forms which has added to its success. Content, social, process, and technological gratification are the main driving forces that contribute to YouTube addiction. However, there are strategies to break it;

• The 5-Second Rule
• Finding a hobby or passion
• Becoming your ideal self

It’s your choice whether you want to take action or not.