Oh No: YouTube Now Tells You How Much Time You’ve Wasted on YouTube

Procrastinato revelio!

YouTube wants you to take a long, hard look at your viewing habits, having added a "Time watched" feature to your profile.

Yep, that means you’ll finally be able to see the amount of time you’ve wasted poring through BTS music videos or laughing dog clips. Your mortality will never seem so fleeting!

Here’s how to do it on your phone.

1. Sign into YouTube (duh).

2. Tap your Account icon.

3. Tap Time watched.

4. Weep uncontrollably.

The data is pulled from your watch history, providing you with a daily average, as well as the amount of time spent on YouTube today, yesterday and over the past week.

If you can’t find the Time watched option, that’s probably because your “watch history” is paused, which means you are both a genius and living in denial.

Also, if you want to fool the algorithm, you can delete your watch history, watch videos in Incognito mode, or never sign back into YouTube. But you’d only be lying to yourself.

(This is a good reminder that Google, which owns YouTube, similarly collects your search history, even if you’ve "cleared" it.)

If the stats are alarming, you can implement a few rules to shake you from your YouTube rabbit-hole stupor, such as a 'Take a break' reminder. Might be smart to do so before exam season kicks off.

Of course, we recommend binge-watching everything on the Student Edge YouTube channel before you implement such a rule.

Header Image: 20th Century Fox