In the past few weeks, I’ve been working hard to overcome my massive YouTube overconsumption. The shorts always reel me in (no pun intended) and for about fifteen years now, over half my life, I’ve needed YouTube playing in the background to fall asleep. Last year, my New Year’s Resolution was to improve my media diet, which was a success! However, my consumption of YouTube videos remained excessive, despite the content being less destructive along with my increased consumption of other things, like movies, TV, and books.
It was hard at first, but I’ve found that it’s gotten pretty easy now. I added some extensions so that when I do open YouTube, there are no recommendations, and I can just search for what I need for school or for a project. In the past, I would’ve removed that extension within a few days, but I don’t feel the need to do that. In fact, the regular YouTube interface seems extremely overwhelming now.
That’s where Spotify comes in. Of course, I’m not trying to be an ascetic. I still listen to podcasts, watch TV, and even watch entertaining videos, just not on YouTube as that is solely where my problematic use lives. I’ve been pulling up those podcasts on Spotify. I am definitely not the only one who has noticed this, but Spotify has massively changed their UI to be more and more like YouTube or other forms of social media. There are DMs, comment sections, and the “podcast” section is just reuploads of YouTube video essays and political content— aka the exact kind of content I overconsume. They’ve even added a shorts section!
I had the idea of switching to only buying my music late last year as a kind of last hurrah of my 2025 Resolution. However, I’m seeing now that it fits more with my 2026 Resolution. I haven’t thought of a good, quippy name/phrase for it yet, but it’s essentially that I focus on rest, quietness, and appreciating less-ness (in a general sense). It’s not minimalism per se, it’s more of a quieting of things that aren’t useful or enjoyable to amplify the things that are. It’s very general and not particularly focused on material ownership.
Once again, my reduced use of YouTube has led me to notice more and more the annoyingness of YouTube itself and other platforms as well. And now, I can’t stand the loudness of Spotify. It’s incredibly obnoxious. I just want to listen to my music and podcasts! Instead, I’m assaulted with a bunch of irrelevant content that only upsets and irritates me, making me feel like the world is hopeless. Because of this, I’ve deleted Spotify off my phone, opting for alternatives like music files I’ve uploaded to VLC media player, BandCamp, Apple Podcasts, and Patreon.
In many ways, this is a continuation of a trend I’ve experienced with behavior change, one that’s been noted many times before. Intellectual or high level thinking is not the thing that typically makes you change long term. The concept of Spotify being scummy towards artists or generally being a bad company makes you want to use it less, sure, but only until you forget. However, finding Spotify’s UI annoying makes it so that you never forget. Every time you get on the app you’re reminded, and you just want to leave— not for any righteous reason but just to keep your own sanity. I think it's interesting that this shift in my mind has occurred for both platforms (YouTube and Spotify) in such a short span of time, but I’m not terribly surprised that it has.
Good riddance!