YouTube adds at timer for you to stop scrolling Shorts

It’s common for people to open a short video, thinking they’ll only watch one — then realize they’re still in the app an hour later. YouTube is adding a new timer feature to help users manage this behavior, a move that reflects both growing public pressure on technology platforms and the company’s interest in fostering long-term engagement rather than risking user burnout.

Users can set a daily time limit to watch Shorts through the app’s settings. Once they reach their limit, they see a pop-up informing them that scrolling in the Shorts feed has stopped — although the pop-up is dismissible.

Later this year, later Android Authority With the feature spotted in development in one of the Android APKs (app files), YouTube has confirmed that it is exploring a time-limit feature for using shorts.

YouTube notes that this limit is not currently integrated with parental controls, meaning that parents or guardians cannot set a specific limit on how much their kids will scroll through the Shorts feed. However, the company says parental controls are coming next year, when kids won’t be able to dismiss their prompts.

In the past, YouTube has introduced digital wellbeing features, including “Take a break” and “Bedtime” reminders To prevent users from doomscrolling.

with “Take a break,” For example, users can set a reminder to appear every 15, 30, 60, 90 or 180 minutes, at which point the video will pause. Users can then dismiss the reminder and continue viewing or close the app.

Similarly, with its Bedtime Reminder feature, users set a specific time window (start and end time) when they want to be reminded to stop watching and go to sleep. When it’s time to sleep, YouTube shows a notification to remind them to stop watching.

While features like these help demonstrate corporate responsibility, their optional nature means they don’t actually reduce engagement, allowing YouTube to address concerns about addictive design while maintaining its core business model.

Right now, according to a recent Bloomberg Law According to the report, nearly 2,000 lawsuits are pending against social media companies in the US, with families, school districts and state attorneys general alleging that the platforms intentionally designed addictive features that harm children’s mental health.