Dear Payce,                                                                

I watch too many YouTube videos and I want to watch fewer. I always tell myself not to watch so many, but then I just click to the next one in my recommendations. Some things I really do want to watch, but I don’t need to know this much about cooking or makeup or clips of television shows that I have already watched. Literally, halfway through writing this, I opened YouTube to see what kinds of things I usually watch and I clicked on a Glee music video without even thinking. Some days, I can’t tear myself away from YouTube long enough to accomplish even a few basic things I wanted to get done. How do I cut back on watching videos I don’t actually care about while still getting to watch the ones that I do?

-YouTube Addict

First off, don’t use YouTube for television clips, just watch the shows that you like. That’ll give you a better content-to-time ratio. Secondly, you need to look at yourself in the mirror and evaluate why you are watching so much YouTube. Are you running from something? Why are you running? 

You may find that it is time to face your fears. There are many ways to find good content on YouTube. It sounds like at this point the suggested videos on your account are a mess, so stick to your subscriptions only. A recommendation is to turn autoplay off so you can have a moment to evaluate my next step. Remember that autoplay is a trick to get you to watch more ads so YouTube can make money from the number of views each video receives! 

If you’re trying to cut back on YouTube, try texting a friend whenever you get that viewing itch. You never know, maybe they’re up too. Maybe they miss you. Maybe they want to hang out or they may even know of some good videos to watch. 

If your ultimate goal is “getting more things done,” then you may have to dig deeper and change something fundamental about your way of thinking. There can be no quick fixes in this area. 

Why do you want these things in the first place? What is going to happen if you don’t do them? Sometimes I find to be helpful is figuring out exactly why I want something in order to be properly motivated to do it. It is important to focus on the question of why as well as the what and how.

Much love, 

-Payce Shepard and advice team

Advice team: Micah Madox-Gilbert
Write to us at shepard_payce@wheatoncollege.edu