The default setting on streaming platforms isn’t always the best, especially if you value your choices more than trusting companies’ algorithmic recommendations.
This also applies to YouTube. Given that it’s designed to entertain people in multiple facets, there are several features you need to tweak to get the best YouTube experience.
What you need to turn on or off manually also depends on how you want to use YouTube. So, the list may vary from person to person.
I also have certain features disabled on YouTube, and I recently added one more to that list.
It was more like an attempt to reduce YouTube’s authority over my consumption pattern than to enhance the viewing experience. I’m happy I did it because I’ve seen a positive impact.
I turned off the default autoplay feature on YouTube, and here is why I did it.
YouTube’s autoplay doesn’t respect my choices
YouTube’s autoplay starts playing a new video 10 seconds after you finish watching something. It also has a countdown overlay with a tiny thumbnail of the video, notifying you when you can expect the next one to start.
This sounds good only in theory. The biggest problem with it is something fundamental to personal preferences: choice.
I searched for Diwali videos the other day, and the YouTube autoplay started playing the highlights of a cricket match right after finishing the festival video. I might not even think of turning it off if it automatically started playing more exciting Diwali videos.
I also understand that sometimes you aren’t in the mood to watch different videos on similar topics, and therein lies the problem. It can’t accurately predict your current mood.
I may turn YouTube’s autoplay feature on again if it allows me to choose whether I want it to play videos on related topics or something different.
The most convenient way for the users will be to have YouTube screens seek permission on what type of content they want to watch next.
It may not be easy for YouTube, as its algorithm will have to prepare two different sets of recommendations for that to happen.
However, from a user’s point of view, I would love to have a choice, until at least autoplay’s algorithm absolutely nails it with every single suggestion, or at least gets it right most of the time.
A ‘perfect’ autoplay will still be a luxury for healthy viewing
We’re glued to our phone screens more than ever. The ever-increasing accessibility of technology is one driving factor, but the other one is that too much content is coming to you.
It isn’t a healthy habit to consume content beyond a certain point in a day. But when you keep YouTube’s autoplay feature enabled, you risk getting a few steps closer to disrupting your healthy screen habit.
I regularly use the Digital Wellbeing app on my Samsung Galaxy S21 to set a screen time goal and track where I’m spending most of my time on my phone.
YouTube was miles ahead of any other application in that metric, and, for a long time, I couldn’t realize why.
It was easy to justify when I was in college, where I had to watch long video lectures to do well in my college exams.
Several years have passed, but my YouTube screen time has only gone up, and this time around, I didn’t have a justification.
YouTube’s autoplay was the last throw of the dice to reduce my screen time, and it worked. I won’t say ‘magically’ because there is logic behind it.
When you turn it off, you can completely control what you want to watch next. YouTube throws some suggestions just below the video screen, and you can quit the application if you don’t like any of them.
You can quit in the middle of a video suggested by the autoplay, but I always found it harder to do so. I wasn’t always at fault, as autoplay’s suggestions geared more towards sensational content.
Its recommendations have improved over the years, but they still aren’t perfect, not even anywhere close to it. It isn’t practically possible to always stay vigilant and spot polarizing content without even watching it.
Turning autoplay off gives me peace of mind. It also turned out to be one of the effective ways to reduce my screen time.
A ‘perfect’ autoplay can fix the quality of recommendations. Still, it can’t fix the human nature of wanting more. I’ll have to think twice before enabling the feature again, even if its issues are fixed.
Google should be more transparent about its autoplay feature
While I dislike the idea of autoplay, I appreciate Google for giving users the choice to cancel the suggestion or turn it off altogether from the playing screen.
However, there is a lack of transparency from the company about how it recommends those videos.
For someone new to YouTube, it’s easy to be misled into thinking that it’ll play the first video on the current page.
It rarely does that. Most of the time, the next video is something very different from what you see on the current page.
It’s even worse when it throws an unrelated video, because your brain has to quickly decide whether to watch or ignore the video. That’s mental fatigue.
A more transparent autoplay on YouTube will make decision-making a lot easier. This way, YouTube can gain users’ trust, the lack of which is currently one of its biggest problems.
