I stopped seeing videos I'd already watched. My YouTube homepage finally went quiet.
YouTube kept serving me videos I'd already seen. Tracking the problem revealed 37% of my homepage was recycled content, so I built a filter to remove it.
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Insights on YouTube habits, attention management, and building a healthier relationship with video content.
The rewatch tax: I watched the same 12 videos 8 times each without realising.
Rewatching feels like revisiting good content. My data revealed it was mostly invisible drift, the same videos, dozens of times, adding up to hours I never consciously chose.
The 10-Minute Weekly YouTube Review That Actually Changes Your Habits
A scheduled ten-minute review of your YouTube scores, top channels, and intentional-versus-drift split tends to produce more lasting behavioral change than any vague resolution to watch less.
YouTube Shorts vs TikTok: Which One Damages Your Attention Faster?
YouTube Shorts and TikTok share a format but differ in one structural detail that matters: Shorts sits at the entrance to a vast long-form library, so a session that starts with a 60-second clip can quietly become two hours.
Why Your YouTube Diversity Score Matters More Than Watch Time
Watch time tells you how long you watched. Your Diversity score reveals whether your viewing has been narrowed to a handful of channels by the recommendation algorithm, something four hours of total runtime cannot show.
YouTube Watch Time History: How to See Every Video You've Watched (and How Long)
YouTube's history page shows what you watched. It doesn't show how long you spent, how many times you replayed it, or whether you meant to watch it.