YouTube addresses 'digital wellbeing' by tracking time we spend watching videos

In a move to promote and address digital wellbeing, Google has announced tools on YouTube so that you can get a good idea of your online habits.If you open your account options now, you will see an updated menu, where a ‘Time watched’ option appear. When you click on it, you will get details about how long you’ve watched YouTube videos today, yesterday and over the last seven days, building your own sense of digital wellbeing.Google basically wants users to start “building your own sense of digital wellbeing.” Here are some other tips, besides keeping a watch on how much you watch, that they’ve mentioned in their blog post.[caption id="attachment_4629131" align="alignnone" width="1024"]

YouTube logo illustration.[/caption]After you have a fair idea of how much time you’re spending watching videos, you can “remind yourself to take a break.” You can do that by tapping on the account icon and going to settings. Here, under the General tab, you can choose the ‘Remind me to take a break’ option and set a reminder with your choice of frequency.You can also choose to “keep it to one notification a day.” By this YouTube means that you can control how you get these notifications. There is an option for you to bundle all the push notifications up into a single notification which you will get every day only at the specific time of your choice. You can do this by, again going to the accounts menu, clicking on settings, and then notifications. Here, under the ‘Scheduled Digest’ option, you can pick your desired Delivery time of the notification.Finally, you can also “Disable notification sounds and vibrations.” It is hard for users to resist the urge to check a phone when it buzzes or vibrates, and also make a sleepy person awake. YouTube offers you can opt to make all the notifications between 10 pm and 8 am, reach you without a sound or a vibration. To do that, under the notifications tab in the settings option, go to ‘Disable sounds & vibrations’ and here you can modify the start time and the end time.“Our goal is to provide a better understanding of time spent on YouTube, so you can make informed decisions about how you want YouTube to best fit into your life,” the company says.YouTube Music and YouTube TV do not count toward the “time watched” profile.