A week without YouTube

Posted on 2022-01-23

Today marks the end of one week without YouTube, Reddit, Lbry and co. YouTube was definitely the biggest time-waster of the mentioned services, the others I barely use, maybe once a month.

One week obviously does not sound like much, comparing it to some people living a year (semi-)offline from other blogs I have read, but everyone has to start somewhere.

Background

I have been watching YouTube for many years now, starting of course with the official Android application. A few years in I did not like the YouTube application any more, the UI changed every update, adding buttons that were unnecessary for consumers like my, and of course ads everywhere. Therefore I switched to NewPipe, and I am still happily using it since today. About a year ago I also stared to develop my own YouTube application for the PinePhone, Tubefeeder, that I am using in parallel to NewPipe (NewPipe is my backup if the battery has drained on my PinePhone).

NewPipe

Tubefeeder

The above mentioned FOSS application obviously have one advantage/disadvantage (probably depends who you ask, but a advantage for myself): No "algorithm" to support doom-scrolling.

The rules

The rules are very simple: No YouTube, Reddit, Lbry and similar applications/websites/etc in any form, so neither watching the videos nor scrolling through the new videos were allowed.

The week

I must say, the week was surprisingly good, I never broke the above set rules. I of course had some times where I normally wanted to watch some videos or accidentally almost opened the above mentioned application, but most of the time I just read through some new posts on gemini instead.

What I have learned

I have learned that this week did not differ too much from any other week. The way I consume YouTube, basically just a feed of my subscriptions with a watch-later-list, was not detrimental to my way of living, and not too different from the way of consuming gemini. But at the end of the week, I still have some channels I want to watch the videos I missed, mainly Linux-Related and general knowledge based, and some I noticed not to have too much interest in anymore, mainly gaming.

The path forward

I will definitely continue watching YouTube again, in my way and not using "the algorithm". But I will unsubscribe from some channels I have no interest in any more. Additionally, I will continue the habit of reading more content of gemini, now that I have many gemlogs that interest me.

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