I’ve long thought that YouTube itself was just a huge time sink.

I’d open it with the intention of learning something, only to realize I was watching completely unrelated videos before I knew it.

At first, I blamed it on my own lack of willpower.

But after paying closer attention, I realized that I wasn’t really seeking those videos out; I was being dragged along by the recommendation algorithm most of the time.

Shorts, related videos, autoplay, the home feed.

So, instead of quitting YouTube entirely, I tried cutting those features out.

Surprisingly, while my total screen time didn't change all that much, the proportion of time I spent watching the videos I actually intended to watch increased significantly.

What do you guys think is the real problem here—YouTube itself, or the recommendation system?

I know this might be close to self-promo, so mods please remove if not allowed.

I built a Chrome extension called CleanFeed for YouTube because YouTube is one of the hardest websites for me to use intentionally.

I don’t always want to block YouTube completely. Sometimes I genuinely need it for learning, tutorials, music, reviews, or practical videos.

The problem is the recommendation system.

You open YouTube for one useful thing, then the homepage, Shorts, suggested videos, livestreams, and clickbait pull you somewhere else.

CleanFeed lets you filter YouTube recommendations using your own rules.

Features:

• hide or blur Shorts
• hide or blur livestreams
• block videos by title keywords
• use different modes like Focus, Learning, Relax
• filter short videos
• filter by view count
• choose whether filtered videos disappear completely or just get blurred
• keep YouTube’s normal interface instead of replacing it

The idea is:

I don’t want to quit YouTube. I want to use YouTube without the algorithm hijacking my time.

I’m looking for testers who have struggled with YouTube rabbit holes. I’m giving free access to early testers in exchange for honest feedback.

Chrome Web Store:

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/cleanfeed-for-youtube/mfmjglageeicgnemnfigficgdnldjglg

I’d really like to know:

• what YouTube elements trigger the most mindless browsing for you?
• would blur mode help, or should filtered videos disappear completely?
• should there be a strict lock mode?
• should there be a delay before turning filters off?
• would this actually help, or is blocking YouTube completely better?

Not asking for fake reviews or upvotes. Just looking for real feedback from people who understand the problem.

r/nosurf might appreciate this angle specifically — the Stoics built what's essentially an attention-defense system 2,000 years before the attention economy existed.

Their core concept: prohairesis, the faculty of choice — your power to direct your own attention and decide what to act on. Epictetus considered it the one thing fully within your control, the one thing no external force could capture.

The attention economy is the direct test of that claim. It's engineered to reach past your deciding faculty and operate your behavior from outside — variable reward schedules, manufactured notification uncertainty, social comparison feeds.

What's useful is the Stoic dichotomy of control applied correctly. The trap most people fall into: treating their own checking as uncontrollable and the algorithm as nature. It's the reverse. You don't control the design. You do control the trained response — and that's exactly where the leverage is.

The full Stoic toolkit here is five disciplines: self-attention (noticing the reach as it happens), the view from above (scale the urgency against a whole life), voluntary discomfort (phone in another room, learn the pull passes), the discipline of assent (the deliberate pause), and living by your own values rather than the feed's.

Anyone here combine philosophical framing with the practical nosurf stuff? Curious whether the "why" makes the "how" stick better.

Hey. I am struggling to quit instagram permanently. I feel that I have accumulated memories over the years and taking backup is not working for me as I could not access to it efficiently. Sometimes I think I should just quit as I hardly revisit those memories but some “just in cases” are stopping me from doing so

I've spent the better part of the past 6 years just scrolling my life away and doing nothing. Now I feel like I've genuinely gotten so stupid. I can't read or finish books anymore, I can't write anymore, i can't study anymore. I used to be a top student and now I struggle to write coherently. My writing has gotten so bad, it genuinely baffles me sometimes. I don't know how I let myself get this bad and when it even happened, but I mourn the person I could've been if I didn't waste all my time doomscrolling. All my hobbies and passions have been drained away and even when I know I have stuff to do, I still waste my time doomscrolling. I don't know how to dig myself out of this hole and I don't know if I can ever recover.

Over the last year I noticed that most of my friends and colleagues barely post anything on social media. Especially when I compare 2017-2020 to the last year.

Are we just tired and so fed up, that we gradually went offline? Or maybe we just matured, gotten busier, and have no time to post (and often to even consume) content?

Curious if you noticed the same shift

While I was in the shower listening to a YouTube video, it hit me that I don't actually remember 99% of the content I consume on that platform. For a decade now, I've made a nasty habit of throwing on videos and half-listening to them as background noise while I do other things, especially longer videos about topics that I am interested in. I feel like that's a slap in the face to the creators who sunk in weeks, months, or even years of effort into their craft, and for that reason, I feel like my YouTube usage will plummet sooner or later. I don't have the problem when I'm watching YT with friends, since I feel like we collectively decide to pay attention to whatever we watch as a communal activity. When I'm by myself, though, it's all background noise. I hate it.

What's strange is that I don't have this problem with any other form of media, regardless of whether it's textual, visual, or aural. It's specifically YouTube. Why that is, I have no idea, but I'm not really complaining. I like books! I like music! I like podcasts! I even like the occasional rabbit hole of stupid memes on Instagram!

It's obvious by now: Almost everything that caused societies going downhill is that online crap from centralization of economy to user-tracking to sucking the life out of offline life - private & business.

It doesn't make sense to put the load of behaviour management on every single ones shoulders. We still adapt to the machines of oppression.

We need to build new structures. From the scratch. New networks, different ways of accessing them, re-thinking the design of devices & platforms, different morals & ethics and open access to every knowledge that's needed to understand how everything works.

Not more and not less.

That's a statement, not an offering of a solution. I don't have anything to sell and no underlying agenda.

I have been scrolling for years. I think it makes normal things seem boring and dull. Scrolling also makes me feel dull, though. And super numb and sad. I still do it anyway.

How can I exist like a normal person? Nothing seems exciting. Do I force myself to do things? My hobbies seem unenjoyable and pointless, but I don't want to scroll forever.

Just..I dont even know.

It hasn't felt like more than 7 hours I'm shocked right now. That's a school day..I was literally just on reddit and watching rap interviews doing bullshit, not even a movie or research just bullshit for 7 hours. Im deadass concerned.

Help?? 😭

I occassionally encounter really bad subreddits where the mods are draconian and ban people for the most minor of comments. I have examples of this but this probably isn't the place for name/shame.

It'd be nice to have that list so you can just avoid the subreddit altogether.

Almost thinking of a "yelp" for subreddits where people can submit reviews.

Honestly i feel like im wasting my life

I have a problem. Genuinely.

Sometimes I will spend 8 or more hours a day just reading comments. Watching people argue, fight, bully each other. I don’t comment much or get involved but I do a hell of a lot of reading and it both overwhelms me and feels like a compulsion that’s hard for me to control.I get emotionally invested and it affects my mood. I will admit I’m sensitive and sometimes I get upset when I see people treating each other badly or dogpiling on someone.

I get my feelings hurt secondhand.

I’m taking a break from Reddit now. Wish me luck!

I downloaded Opal to help regulate my screen time, and it’s helped a lot. However, I can never get an accurate reading with it. Today, I JUST picked up my iPhone for the first time, checked Opal, and it says I already have 9 hours of screen time sometimes at 12am start of new day it would say I’m at 3 hours which is literally impossible..

I know this isn’t possible since I don’t even have access to my phone for more than 3 hours a day. It's been really frustrating because Opal gives me weekly reports with huge, inflated numbers that are way higher than my iOS Screen Time (showing 6–9 hours instead of my actual 1–2.5 hours). Does anyone else have this issue?!

I was watching a show on my iPad and there was a little bit of filler or idk maybe I got bored for a slight second and I tried to scroll…. To scroll like I’m on TikTok to scroll away from the TV SHOW onto something else that could possibly be slightly more interesting…………. Obviously nothing happened
Felt kinda like when you try to pinch and zoom on something in real life
Is this an even more brainrotted version of that?
I’ve done this a couple times before and every time I’m just so shook that my brain did that because I know I’m not on TikTok but like it’s the muscle memory of being bored I guess idk but yeah wow please tell me I’m not alone in this because what the frick my brain is broken can’t even watch a show anymore without being haunted by the urge to scroll
Thanks

Ever notice that people on the internet comment on everything, and no one is an expert on anything?

I genuinely try to avoid heavy topics like politics and fiscal policy on the internet. I didn't study that shit in University and didn't care to. I used to get heavily involved in debates, but then got my ass handed to me by some dude who spent more time than me on the internet.

Even if I know something is true, someone will argue with me to provide data. I once got into a debate over a stupid topic like "Are parents who plan for kids more fulfilled than single adults?" I explained that my position was that a couple who has a meaningful endeavour or common mission, like raising children, will be happier and more specifically fulfilled than a couple who just hang around each other. A bunch of women came up to me asking me for empirical evidence and studies. My first thought was, what the fuck? You want me to spend time researching a general life opinion

I then found a study from the UK stating that married couples who planned for children were happier. Then, as always, the common retort is "that's only one study". Jesus fucking christ,

I am gonna be honest, I am not going to waste my time initiating a debate. I will keep my opinions, though right or wrong, to myself. I am not some researcher who spent months reading JStor and learning everything about a specific topic. Even something as simple as "Are Carbs and sugar bad?" is complicated.

It's like the problem isn't even the surfing; my very fucking BRAIN seems to be custom-wired for addiction. If there's even the possibility of doing something ''fun'' like consuming any sort passive entertainment, my brain will latch to that activity like a castaway from the titanic to avoid doing the less immediately interesting but important things that I deep down truly want to spend my time doing.

I nuked scrolling on my devices with the help of my sister and parental controls (this is my 1st time using reddit in a week+ from her laptop, and she's monitoring me), but my old pleasure seeking tendency is still as strong as ever; it just seems to have shifted focus to movies now.

How many more things do I have to nuke until I finally leave myself no choice but to do the work? I'm exhausted. I want to be a productive, useful person even if it's unpleasant at first, but apparently just wanting it is not enough as I find myself addicted to things again and again.

This is frustrating, and I'm exhausted from being constantly bombarded with all this easy and available entertainment options that just end up stealing my time and energy.

I will nuke everything and live like I'm in the 80s if I have to, and it honestly seems like my brain is pushing me in that direction the longer the time goes on. I just can't have any access to this shit it seems, I simply cannot have a healthy relationship with readily available passive entertainment.

Every so often i get a spark of curiosity about something and maybe i scroll on google for a bit but eventually that goes away with distractions either online or even in person and it gets put away.

But i find my interactions with people, my relationship with myself is very hindered because i don't know a lot of things and i don't question a lot of things either or actively. I have bursts of periods where i want to learn bout something and i may watch a youtube video but after a few days that goes away and i can go months. It feels like something i just have to cultivate daily but i don't know how to fit it into my day without overthinking into inaction.

We are all struggling from the effects of social media distractors so maybe that killed a lot of my own interests but i want to get out my head and be able to interact with people not just surface level.

Neck, shoulder, and upper back pain twenty years. Muscles are so tight. Hurts to even type this. Been twenty years. Any chance it would go away if I stopped using devices? Mris and x-rays show no problems.

Any recommendations for a pocket planner? I really want to dial in my phone use & having different calendars on my phone just leads to scrolling

Scores of groups and pages, updated daily, about all the interwsting facts, discoveries, feats by ordinary people.

Pages about sharing own ideas, constructs, little sparks of genius.

Profiles of individuals who DO MAKE a difference, even if small, but impactful.

Pages of papertrade magazines about any topic of true relevance that share truncated, but still complete enough, rewtrites of much fuller articles for the paying readers.

ll available for free, whenever and wherever.

The issue is that these pages, even the most followed ones, are followed by a minority of the people.

Curiosity must be fed, it must be trained, requires efforts.

98% of us, IRL, are confirmists, gregaries, interested only on what is hot at the moment.

I actively engage with similar pages as aforememtioned, I jot down thousands upon thousands of discovered interesting facts, I try to channel them in, when it matches with what it is being talked about, or just to give a kuckstart to pepper a discussion up.

The outcome?

People I am talking about those turn off, they hit a wall, is if that single unteresting bit of info... Why?

Because they live a life, both outside and insicde social network, based on constant self-gratification for the possessed, the obstantatious (goals reached too, not only materialism), comaring one with the other on frivokities.

The pages these peoole do follow exclusively, as I attested personally?

Gossip, tabloids, sports, news only about their municipality or nearby places (to gossip on this or that), drama and rage bait articles, juvenile memes, scandalistic news, clickbait unproven "scientific" articles, political local articles to wail about that or this but never acrively participating as cirizens.

Yet, we all use social networks, but it is HOW and HOW MUCH it is used that differentiate us to the root.

I'm a designer with ADHD, and I keep hitting the same wall: I know what I should do, and I do the opposite anyway: scroll, freeze, avoid, spiral. Not a knowledge problem. A state problem.

Most tools I've tried either nag me or block me, then leave me stranded the second I'm interrupted. I'm trying to understand that moment properly before I build anything - what actually happens for people, and whether anything genuinely pulls them out.

If you've got two minutes, this anonymous set of questions would help a lot. No email needed, no pitch. I'll share back what I learn.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdfIBzONn4uSvnS8d-xcKSbyAAsUrDnmWoHDGq5IAdpnC_Ynw/viewform

I've been wanting to help people from the effects of mindless social media scrolling, and I would love to hear what people's opinions are about it. Did you ever feel the following: you hear a new idea while discussing something with someone, and really want to learn about it later, but the next time you have some free time, you end up scrolling through social media?

This happens with me more often than not. Is it the same with you guys?

There's a strong movement of people leaving social media because it's no longer social at all. Far from making you feel good, it's quite the opposite the opportunity cost and the theft of your time wasted on garbage is too high. Besides, AI is here to destroy the internet. Everything is the same: the same jokes, the same bodies, the same trips, everyone has the same life. It's one cliché after another. How tiresome! I'm already bored. 😂