The advice about deleting youtube history and setting and auto-delete cadence (though every 3 months looked like the most frequent possibility for me) is good and I wasn't aware of it. I don't have social media, but I do have a personal gmail email address, which links to youtube making it hard to avoid spending time on my phone watching youtube videos.

https://untrap.app/ for YouTube customisation has been a lifesaver for me. It can even be added to Safari as an extension, for £2.99.

Also UBlock Origin for blocking specific elements on the screen is a lifesaver for reading articles or tutorials.

In the 5 years since giving up a smartphone I started a new generation Linux Distro from 0, started a security consulting company, made hires, traveled the world, and learned several completely new skills, while having a fairly active family and social life.

Having so much more time to do actually useful things means I am present when relaxing, and focused when working, and get a lot more out of both portions of my life.

Anyone telling you that you need a smartphone to survive in the modern world is an apologist gaslighting you. Use cash, and offline tablet or nothing at all, and be digitally invisible and 100% present in the real world.

I am still trying to turn the clock and read books (on paper), at least before bed. Decrement the screen. I must be lazy. Going back to the screen to do nothing is so much easier.

I think the most surprising thing about it, at least in the US - is that mobile bandwidth is THE most expensive. I imagine that's inverted or opposite elsewhere

Another tip for getting more out of youtube, is if your topic of interest is potentially not dependent on current events, you get higher signal to noise ratio searching for videos from 10+ years ago exclusively. Earlier the better.

Youtube was so much better when you didn't see the uploaders face and there wasn't incentive to pad video duration.

Related but if you want a less algorithmic YouTube experience, I'd recommend the Play app on Apple platforms. It uses each channels RSS feed to rebuild YouTube in a much nicer and less distracting native app.

Unlike a lot of people on this site I really enjoy the YouTube algorithm to discovery new topics/videos, but it can definitely become a rabbit hole.

That algorithm is like a friend who never shuts up but somehow always knows your guilty pleasures

the cable company asked me to accept their generous 50pct monthly discount provided I would not cancel the subscription service but I said I am trying to watch less tv, and that was that