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Comment by pow_ext | Hacker News Reader

Apps like instagram and YouTube should be required at least to give an option to disable reels and shorts

There should be a law to require the ability to disable algorithmic customization of content. If these apps are so compelling it shouldn't take a Spark cluster riffing on my private viewing habits to come up with content for me.

I don't recall a lot of complaints about Facebook or Instagram when it was actually your friends' content. But now it's force-feeding everybody their own "guilty pleasure" viewing material 24 hours a day. It's fucking sick.

> disable algorithmic customization of content.

What does that even mean?

I assume they mean a similar experience to browsing /r/popular on Reddit. You're getting a feed that isn't tailored to your browsing history, likes or preferences. It's less addicting and the company doesn't need to know anything about you to provide the experience.

one of the benefits of being on android and being able to sideload apps. Look up "revanced youtube" and you'll be able to turn off shorts.

ublock origin for blocking them on desktop. If you're on an iphone... uninstall youtube?

my quality of life has increased substantially... although sometimes the app bugs out and shorts still make it on my home page. I spend like 10 minutes scrolling through shorts and get a weird shock "how the fuck did I end up here?", restart the app and boom shorts gone again.

Don’t forget WhatsApp. Kids are allowed to have WhatsApp as messaging but they get fed videos there too. There is no way to really disable them . Also this be allowed as parental supervision, not something that kids can override.

We need a return to consent. I want to be able to say "no". Not "see fewer shorts", see NO shorts. Not "maybe later", actually fucking "no".

This

For YouTube, on the mobile app: Setting -> Time Management -> Daily Limits -> Shorts Feed limit

there is no option for zero

Perhaps we need more social activism (remember that?) to stop people falling into this kind of addiction. I remember anti-drugs campaigning , they were everywhere. Phone addictions are not taken nearly as seriously.

Using the war on drugs as an example as a successful social movement is kinda hilarious

People still generally think drugs are bad, don't they? And only the ones that were included in the war on drugs (not nicotine, alcohol, caffeine)? So it was a success.

> People still generally think drugs are bad, don't they?

> There were high levels of agreement that drugs are a problem in Irish society: 88% of respondents agreed that drug-related crime is a major problem in Ireland, and 87% agreed that the availability of illegal drugs poses a great threat to young people nowadays.

https://www.drugsandalcohol.ie/27213/

> Only 22 percent of respondents said they would be willing to work closely on a job with a person with drug addiction compared to 62 percent who said they would be willing to work with someone with mental illness.

https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2014/study-public-feels-more-ne...

Youtube shorts will come back but you can just click the row each time to show less. Otherwise if you really don't want to see them on the desktop at least a browser extension works well.

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