With YouTube, I’m right there with ya. I intentionally have zero engagement with YT shorts, and if given the chance I will opt to “not recommend”. I am not sure if this has done anything to reduce the amount of Shorts I’m shown, but I can say that they haven’t pushed them any harder.

I’ve purchased a subscription for the “Play” app, which can ingest channels and playlists. I use this for dedicated/planned watching (learning stuff) and am hoping to expand that: Shorts aren’t the only addicting feature imo. Indie developer, he is active on Mastodon (and very friendly). Heck, I might have come across the app here.

Did you try the UnTrap extension for Youtube? It can block shorts, infinite feed, related videos, even comments if you wanna go extreme.

You need to reframe what’s going on man. I have a really negative take on social media that you can use if it helps you. I believe social media is basically children’s TV programming that dysfunctional adults don’t grow out of. It’s literally the same as being stunted in growth.

I don't really think the components of your theory are wrong, but I do disagree with the conclusion. Most of the written works that exist today have no basis in factual or enriching knowledge, but society would undeniably be worse-off without them. Maybe you and I would rather see every Mr. Beast video on the internet disappear, and so too would the Holy See rather that 120 Days of Sodom never be read by human eyes in 2024. But there is anthropological value to these works, even as slop. We look at 120 Days with a diagetic understanding of the hopelessness of it's author and the social satire integrated into it's narrative. Yes, there is a debauched reflection of society in the mirror, but it's an undeniably human one.

When I was younger, I resented a lot of things that I didn't participate in. I hated my boyfriend for watching shitty TV dramas instead of the respectable AMC thrillers that were popular at the time. I hated my parents for whistling Beach Boys instead of the pop tunes everyone knew and loved. Even today, I bristle when my siblings mention an influencer at the dinner table. After a while I came to realize that I was the dysfunctional one for obsessing over how other people spent their free time. My boyfriend spent 8 hours a day doing meal prep for the local college, my parents drove me around without ever asking for gas money - who the fuck was I to complain about their habits?

If I try to denigrate other people for being "stunted" or "dysfunctional" for using social media, I see the reflection of my own obsession with fiction on the other side. Tolkien put it nicely - the human desire for storytelling is universal because all of us are united by a fear of death. The fact that we still yearn for fantastical narratives is a sign that humanity hasn't transcended it's basic concerns yet.

Yeah I mean, you are absolutely right at heart, but ...

Look, TikTok videos in the 90s would have been Americas Funniest Home videos (cute kids and pets doing silly things). Fast forward 20 years, those videos are not really the same anymore. You still have those videos, but you also have a lot more other stuff. America's Funniest Home videos (modern TikTok) is quite different now days.

As in, it's strikingly different where I would say it's an escalation and not an evolution. And maybe it's getting weirder simply because you really are not supposed to be there after awhile. We must grow out of things, truly.

On the desktop, I use uBlacklist to completely block YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, videos, and AI crap from Google. It makes the results a lot more usable.

Look up filters for ublock origin.

https://github.com/gijsdev/ublock-hide-yt-shorts

Good luck!