Addicted to YouTube?

Pixels flicker across the screen and light rebounds off my face as I stare blankly at my laptop. The background music fades and my finger twitches almost reflexively, starting up another video.

The light in my room, once warmed by streams of sunlight trickling through the window has transformed to a cool blue. My only illumination comes from my computer screen, less than a foot from my enraptured face. A whole day has seemingly passed by and I’m still in bed, having only made occasional and slight adjustments in my position as my neck has gotten sore throughout the day. I’ve been here for more than four hours… watching YouTube.

My addiction started innocently enough, as a way to wind down in the evening after work, classes, club meetings and putting in a couple hours for my online internship. But slowly it began to replace healthier activities like exercise or chatting with friends as a coping mechanism for stress.

Soon, instead of finding sources for my essay due in three days I would tell myself that first, I’d watch just one YouTube video. Of course, one usually turned into three. In the back of my mind, I knew the videos I was watching were mind-numbing and useless. But that’s partially why I liked them.

Whenever that startling feeling of panic about all the deadlines I was facing or how I would find a job after graduation crept up on me, I would turn on a video and space out. It was like a form of hypnosis. Suddenly all the fear drained out of me and all I could think about was what was in front of me in that moment.

How to make prison pizza? A Sign Language Q&A with a deaf and hearing couple. An Art Professor critiques your RISD portfolio. 120lb girl eats 10,000+ calories. Leah Remini debunks Scientology. You get the idea.

I tried deleting the app on my phone. But I quickly started reaching for my computer instead. I tried using a website blocker on my browser. But I would switch it off to watch “just one video” before getting to work.

In the internet age, one of the worst things about this type of addiction is it’s almost impossible to get away from. I needed my computer and the internet to complete almost all school assignments and to search job boards and apply to open positions. And it’s easy to hide. Since I need my device to do work no one would question why I was on my laptop.

Ironically, I was never able to watch anything I was actually interested in like a debate on moral philosophy or a Spanish documentary on future technological advances. These kinds of videos reminded me that I was an actual human being with goals that I needed to work on and accomplish. What I was really craving was an escape from existence.

When I finally acknowledged this, I was able force myself to sit in the uncomfortability of a barrage of negative thoughts and sort out the reality of my present and try to plan for a somewhat better future.

I haven’t yet cut out the habit entirely, but I’ve been watching closer to 45 minutes a day instead of hours and that number is slowly decreasing.

p.s. I highly recommend you read Domingo Cullen’s piece for the Guardian on YouTube addiction as it helped me clarify some of my thoughts and was inspiration for this short meditation on my own addiction.