3 Better Ways To Watch YouTube
YouTube has become a horrible experience. But it’s still a miracle of the modern world. There is so much knowledge buried under so many ads, so much fluff, and so many dark patterns messing with your brain. Here are 3 ways to watch YouTube just a little bit better.
Turn Transcriptions Into Quick Takeaways
I’m a sucker for a good explainer video about a novel topic. But video is not the best way to learn facts & raw information. Text is king of raw information. Text has no fluff (there’s no slow moving shots of B-Roll). Text has much higher information density than video. And honestly, most explainer videos are click-bait into stealing 13 minutes of your time.
Here’s how to do it.
First, you’ll need either a Claude.ai or ChatGPT account. I prefer Claude for this, since some YouTube transcriptions are crazy long. Both are free.
Second, head to the Chrome Web Store and add the Glasp.co YouTube Summarizer to your browser.
Third, change up the settings a bit in Glasp. I prefer to edit the prompt to provide 10 takeaways and to focus on the details of the video.
Fourth, find a good explainer video that you are pretty sure is just a slow Twitter Thread with B-Roll footage. Notice at the top right is a button to open the transcript in your AI tool. Click it.
It should open a new tab, paste in the video transcript, and summarize the video for you.
Speed read the takeaways, and boom, you’ve reclaimed 10 minutes of your life while still learning something new.
Turn Off YouTube’s Distractions
Your time is very valuable. It’s valuable for you AND YouTube. YouTube employs thousands of the world’s most brilliant engineers, developers, and psychologists (yes, psychologists) whose only job is to keep you on YouTube for longer…while keeping you happy and feeling “in control.”
Your only option is to turn off as many design elements as you can. It’s like creating a shopping list for the grocery store instead of wandering around.
DF YouTube (Distraction Free) solves that issue.
If you are using Chrome, go to the Web Store to download it.
If you are using Firefox (which you should be), go to Extensions store and add it.
Change up the settings to your liking. Browse YouTube better.
Also, try not to use the app. Desktop browsing is better.
Customize YouTube’s Settings
YouTube provides more control than you’d expect over your experience. They just bury the settings. The key is to click around and change what you want. For example, turn off autoplay and notifications. Turn off everything that you can turn off.
Lastly, if you use YouTube quite a bit per month or have young children, get YouTube Premium. Yes, it sucks having to pay for yet another service…but it can pay for itself simply be freeing up time and removing all the influencing ads that you see. If you aren’t sure, track your time on YouTube (both iPhone and Android has Digital Well Being tools). See how many hours you are spending and ballpark figure out how many ads you are viewing. It might be surprising.