YouTube's new timer stops you from doom scrolling into procrastination

What you need to know

• YouTube announced that it's rolling out a "daily limit" for its Shorts feed to viewers this week.
• Users can set a limit of how long they can scroll per day, and once that hits, they will receive a "dismissible" notification about it.
• YouTube says parents will have this option for accounts under their supervision "later this year," and those notifications will be "non-dismissible."

Short-form content can get addicting, and it looks like YouTube's trying to rein that in with a new feature that's rolling out.

Earlier this morning (Oct 22), YouTube announced a new feature that users will soon notice when scrolling endlessly through Shorts. Rolling out today, users can "set a daily limit" for how long the YouTube app on mobile will allow them to scroll through Shorts. The post states this option will appear in the app's Settings once the update arrives.

YouTube says that once users reach their daily limit, the app will inform them via a "dismissible" notification indicating their Shorts feed will be "paused" until the following day.

Users can look at this as a sort of "digital wellbeing" update for YouTube's Shorts, as the post highlights the intent behind encouraging better viewing habits/time management. While older users can utilize this to help manage themselves, YouTube says it will bring this to parents "later this year."

When this update arrives, parents will be able to set a daily limit on Shorts viewing for kid and teen accounts that they supervise. However, the main difference here is that the alerts for younger users will be "non-dismissible." Parents will be able to activate and set a daily limit for their children at will, and disable it, if desired, all the same.

Shorts are popular

While it's up to the user to decide whether or not they need a "daily limit," it's clear that YouTube's Shorts are extremely popular. Less than two years after the platform debuted its short-form content, it reported that Shorts had already surpassed five trillion views. This number was achieved across multiple platforms, such as Android phones and laptops.

While Shorts proved quite popular, YouTube was already looking into ways to help short-form content creators gain more revenue.

On a related note, it also sought ways to push the shopping experience to people watching Shorts. These videos gained shoppable ads, designed to help advertisers bring their product closer to viewers, in an attempt to, of course, get them to buy that new dress or shirt or pair of shoes. Viewers would see a "Shop Now" button when seeing a shoppable ad, which throws them right into the brand's catalog of available products.