Unsubscribed from all clickbait YouTube channels and mental health has improved 😌

I stopped watching YouTube on YouTube since I found out about FreeTube and NewPipe + Brave mobile. My subscriptions are on my RSS reader now and I turn off shorts and recommended videos. When FreeTube or NewPipe stops working, I’ll go on YouTube on Brave or Mullvad until there’s an update. Some creators I follow do make content that caters to the algorithm, but I don’t think that’s the same as clickbait. I follow creators I watch regularly and unsubscribe from creators if I haven’t watched any of their content in over 6 months. You can pretty much tell when creators are making clickbait or ragebait content because their videos are frequently recommended on YouTube to maximise engagement. I do manual searches for new creators I want to follow to avoid these types of creators. It has improved my mental health significantly as I feel more in control over the content I watch and I’m not on the platform for longer than I wanted to. And if I find myself watching too much YouTube, I just clear my RSS feed to stop myself from watching more content. I’m still trying to find strategies that can further reduce my watch time (e.g. watching gaming-related content today, tech-related content tomorrow, etc.), but overall, I’m happy with my current strategy.