YouTube reveals how much time you’ve spent watching clips – here’s how to check
From daily and weekly viewing times to notification purges, YouTube's new tools give you more control over your watching habits
FOLLOWING Facebook and Instagram, YouTube is the latest web giant to show you how addicted you are to its app.
The company is launching the "digital wellbeing" tools it previewed in May at the Google I/O event, including features that show the time you've spent binging videos and notifications that urge you take a break.
They should prove helpful for users who want to keep track of their activity and parents looking to keep tabs on their kids' online habits.
Here's how to use the full suite of updates:
Time watched profile – This new profile tells you how much you've watched YouTube videos today, yesterday and in the past 7 days – also offering a daily average.
To access it, make sure you're signed in to the YouTube app on Android or iOS, tap your account icon at the top right, and tap "Time watched".
Take a break reminder – This hard-to-ignore notification will pop up on your screen when you reach your viewing time limit as set by you. You can then either dismiss it or switch off the app for some down time.
To get it, tap your account icon, tap settings, and then general, and then select "Remind me to take a break" – now set your reminder frequency (which can be from anywhere between every five minutes to almost 24 hours) and you're all done.
Scheduled notification digest – If you hate YouTube notifications buzzing you when someone goes live or posts a new video, this is the option for you. With it, you can bundle all your daily alerts into one notification each day and set a time to receive this "digest".
To turn it on, Tap your account icon, tap settings, tap notifications, tap "Scheduled digest", and select your desired delivery time.
Disable notification sounds and vibrations – YouTube notifications will now be silenced between 10pm and 8am, but you can customise this period further.
Here's how: tap your account icon, tap settings, tap notifications, tap "Disable sounds & vibrations", select your desired start time and end time.
Silicon Valley is finally taking responsibility for the addictive nature of its products, which in the case of Facebook are alleged to have been created with getting people hooked in mind.
Just weeks earlier, the big blue social network and its subsidiary Instagram launched their own set of updates that keep you in the loop with time spent on the apps.
Google and Apple's mobile operating systems are also bundling similar features in their respective updates.
YouTube claims that its aim is to put you in charge of how you use its video service.
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"Our goal is to provide a better understanding of time spent on YouTube, so you can make informed decisions about how you want YouTube to best fit into your life," said the company of the new tools.
What's your most-watched YouTube channel? Let us know in the comments.
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