The state of things

Deleting my social media profiles has been hard, but I did it. Now, I can confidently say it has been for the best, I miss none of them — except for Instagram: when I watch a movie I feel the need to read everything I can about it's making, it's reception and about the cast; I used to browse the actors' profiles and now I can’t do that anymore. Honestly, though, if that's the only thing I miss about Instagram, I can totally live with myself.

Youtube is the only social media I still use. I never really cared about the social part, only the media. I spend HOURS every day on that site, watching curious, entertaining and informative videos about? everything! music, philosophy, literature, science, but also funny sketches and shows, and video essays! I can't even begin to express my love for video essays! But I also watch a ton of useless crap.

By the way, on a definitely related note, I feel like the quality of both the content and the recommendations algorithm have decreased a lot lately. I figured this has to do with the platform pushing for the Shorts format.
I HATE SHORTS! they devour my brain, they leave me feeling empty, dull, numb.
I reach a point where I suddenly feel like my eyes have just opened, my brain just woken up and I realise "wait, how long have I been watching shorts?". Me, who has always been proud for having avoided the TikTok trap, is just as addicted as the others...

It is clearly time for me to do something about it.

The disinterested solution

"Find other hobbies and activities to fill up your day with"
To me, that simply sounds too easy to actually work, it’s like asking a disinterested parent how to do something and being answered «just do it».
Look, if you have no other stimulating activity then this idea might work for you; find something else, anything! and you’ll do just fine.
I find myself in a trickier situation. I have many hobbies: playing music, reading books, blogs and articles, writing, going out for walks, coding, ... and I don’t feel like I don’t have time to pursue them, I just wish I spent less time watching stupid videos.
I need a more practical solution.

What actually helps

Delete the account

I got over the other socials pretty quickly once I deleted my accounts, and I've just learned I could delete the Youtube one without loosing the entire Google account (I thought they were one and the same). So, I guess deleting this account too would rid me of the social media temptation for good — but I don't want to! as I said above, I watch some pretty interesting stuff and I'd like to keep updated on some channels.

Block the website

I also won't block the site with some browser extension because (1) I already tried and found myself disabling it not long after (2) I would not be able to watch those interesting videos mentioned above.

Delete the mobile app

Done months ago, never looked back. Problem is I spend most of my day on the computer.

Disable autoplay

Never had it on, it was too unpredictable and annoying when I happened to leave a tab open on the browser and a video would start playing without me knowing.

Unsubscribe from excess channels

I got the list and asked myself "have I watched (or wanted to watch but they didn't upload) a video from this channel in the last month?". I unsubscribed whenever the answer was "No". Starting at 150, I ended up with only 30 subscriptions but — I need to mention — most of the spared channels upload a video once every blue moon.

Disable adblock

I am conflicted about this one. The pros? I would be supporting those creators I actually care about; and that 15 seconds of wait add extra fiction to the habit. The cons? Ads.

Disable Youtube search history

I just did this, it seems the perfect solution. I found the suggestion in this reddit post. It points to this google's account settings page where to disable the Youtube activity and clear the entire watch history.
It worked like a charm! When I open Youtube now, the home page is empty! There are no recommendations and it seems there will never be!
The question here is: won't that prevent me from discovering new interesting videos/channels? Yes, yes it will. But I can't expect to decrease my usage if I'm always looking for new stuff. In any case, recommendations still appear to the side of a video, but those do not scare me because (1) I rarely notice them and (2) they are inherent to something I am actually curious about.

Add channels to RSS feed

So, what happens now is that I can open the Youtube homepage and see literally NOTHING except for a notification when one of the channels I follow posts something.
There's still room for improvement, though: I can add those channels to my RSS feed.
By doing so I don't even need to open the website to know when something new is available. No more temptations!
I check my RSS feed → A new video is available → I watch it → I close the site.
Boom. Quick and precise. No scrolling, no stupid Shorts. No distractions.

I'll probably post an update in a month or two. I truly hope this will work.