[GeekyBear]

Personally, I would rather see public resources used to teach parents how to use the existing controls (in iOS and Android) to restrict what their own kids can do on their own smartphone.

However, if a school district wants to restrict the use of smartphones during the school day for all students, I would be OK with that.

[burningChrome]

>> if a school district wants to restrict the use of smartphones during the school day for all students

Both of my kids went to public school. My sisters kids both went to a private school. The policy was the same at both places. Kids come in the classroom, turn off their phones, put in a pouch at the front of the class. At the end of the class, kids get their phones back.

Apparently since there is little or no time between classes, I guess with the lack of time to be on their phones, in person conversations have increased and more face-to-face interactions are the norm. Its faster and easier to meet someone down the hall then it is to go through the process of texting someone, which is the entire point.

The goal was to create enough friction (psychological or real) so kids simply revert back to just meeting up at a regular spot to catch up, as opposed to constantly being on their phones. The school admins I talked to said its really pushed kids back into communicating like humans. Many have forgone their phones in between classes, except a quick check for emergency purposes, that sort of thing.

Kind of fascinating to hear to be honest.

[Triphibian]

Where's the setting to make YouTube not display shorts?

[RunSet]

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-short...

[Timwi]

Apparently not compatible with Android.

[ilidur]

Settings -> time management -> short feed limits -> 0 minutes

[Triphibian]

It took some digging but I found that setting on browser. Thank you. I'd love a big toggle for "brain fucking" that you could just set to off.

[Triphibian]

And of course these settings do nothing if he just opens any browser and watches YouTube logged off.

[kakacik]

New Commodore flip phone - has google maps and whatsapp for calls and video, otherwise a dumb phone.

Hard to argue below 18 actually needs more. Wants, sure, but then whole cancerous can of worms is opened and good luck there.

[Triphibian]

He has a Lightphone which he hates. That's how I know it is working. He built a gaming PC last year, so I am aware that Pandora's box is open there. But look, it has been thirteen years of playing whackamole with YouTube. I can't keep him off it. They watch it at school. They give him chromebooks that I have no control over. And the stuff I do have control over the control is tenuous. I have largely given up. He is pretty much grown now. But man, has it felt like gaslighting when people are like, "Do parenting. Use the settings. Get a dumb phone. Problem solved."

[Triphibian]

And have you ever tried to find or access parental settings on a school Chromebook?

[stickfigure]

Is this mobile app only? I don't see "time management" on the website.

[Timwi]

I tried on both phone and desktop and couldn't find that alleged setting either.

[pluralmonad]

This works for me:

echo "0.0.0.0 youtube.com www.youtube.com m.youtube.com" | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

[amtamt]

One really does that on phones?

[marysol5]

You'd have to root it....which breaks most functionality even if you do it.

So it's a flat no

[InvisibleUp]

That’s all of YouTube. There’s some good stuff on there, just not in the “Shorts” tab.

[Dylan16807]

> There’s some good stuff on there, just not in the “Shorts” tab.

Why do people get so weird about the shorts tab? There are perfectly good videos in there, they're just tilted weird. You can fit quality content into 3 minutes.

And remember Elsagate? That was entirely landscape videos.

[jhbadger]

Exactly. Drew Talbot's brilliant "Bistro Huddy" (which anyone who has ever worked in a restaurant whether as a server or in the kitchen can relate to) is done as Youtube shorts because that makes sense for comedy sketches. What exactly is wrong with a short vertical video? Just that it reminds people of Tiktok?

[quickthrowman]

You can post short regular YouTube videos, I have dozens of favorites that are under 30 seconds long, some are only a few seconds long. The YouTube algorithm didn’t always punish short videos.

The method of ingestion for short form video content is what I dislike, it encourages endless consumption. Each video is immediately followed by another video. It’s very hard to critically consume that style of content when you don’t have time to think about what you’re watching or just watched once another video starts playing. I believe this leads to uncritically believing whatever you’re watching.

The format itself incentivizes sensationalism and puffery, I feel like I’m ingesting questionable information every time I’ve watched short form videos. That’s the main reason I reject short form video content outright, it just feels .. ‘wrong’ somehow.

[Dylan16807]

> You can post short regular YouTube videos

Yeah but I don't control the people posting.

> you don’t have time to think about what you’re watching or just watched once another video starts playing

Mine doesn't go to a new video until I tell it to, which is the same for shorts and non-shorts.

[inigyou]

Because the incentives are very different which leads to different content being available.

Notice how Shorts recently removed the dislike button?

[aethertron]

There are good Shorts. One problem is a flick of the thumb scrolls you down to the next, then the next, and many are crap. The uncertainty about whether you're going to see crap or gold is part of what makes recommendation-based infinite scrolling addictive.

[kakacik]

Never done that, muscle memory is simply not there. But then again i dont watch youtube on phone, computer with ublock origin is vastly superior experience.

There is whole world to read and discover before switching to passive videos. Or even spend time here lol

[Dylan16807]

And that uncertainty doesn't apply to watching normal videos? I dunno, if shorts gets unreliable because it ran out of the channels I regularly visit then I just leave.