Back at Google I/O this year, Google announced some digital wellbeing tools for YouTube and Android. Now that Android 9 Pie is official we have access to some of those system-wide tools, but the YouTube update has been elusive all year.
It's finally starting to roll out, though, so you'll soon be able to keep an eye on your YouTube binges.
First up, you'll be able to track how much you're actually watching throughout the day, with statistics for the current day, the previous day, and the previous 7 days. This is available in your account menu and will also give you an average tally of watched minutes daily.
If you are binging too much, YouTube will be able to tell you to take a break in the middle of your session. You can customize that reminder to whatever limit you think is appropriate, too, so you're not giving up all of your control.
If you're sick of a barrage of YouTube notifications, the app will now lump all of your subscriptions and alerts together into a single digest and only send you one notification per day. You can also choose the time of day you want to see this one, too, so you can better customize your experience without being digitally overloaded.
And, lastly, YouTube is offering its own version of night hours. You can adjust the hours that you want to receive notifications, period, so you can stop all alerts after 11PM and keep them from coming through until some time the next day. Again, totally customizable, so you can adjust this to whatever works for you and your schedule.
Keep an eye out for these new features over the next few days in your YouTube app.
source: Google
