[Timpy]

I think being aware of what's happening to you is the right direction. The content rarely engages you, and that's part of the feature that's trapping you. Partial reinforcement is extremely addicting. If you gave somebody a pile of dimes and said "put these in this slot machine, pull the lever and get 11 cents every time" nobody would play that game. But the randomness of a slot machine means that when it hits, your brain lights up.

Youtube's "recommended for you" section is a slot machine for whatever will engage you. For me it's novelty, for a lot of people it's an irresistible clickbait title. Nobody is immune to it, although I feel the hacker news crowd might be suspect to clickbait much more specific than whatever youtube chums the waters with on their front page when you're not logged in and have no history (open Youtube in an incognito window to see what I'm talking about, it's terrible).