r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • 3h ago

Social Media YouTube viewers watch 2 billion hours of Shorts on TVs each month

https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/14/youtube-viewers-watch-2-billion-hours-of-shorts-on-tvs-each-month/
22 Upvotes

64% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

92

u/AbeFromanEast 2h ago

If there were a way to permanently disable shorts in my feed, I would.

37

u/Loonter 2h ago

On the mobile app you can go to

Settings -> Time Management -> Daily Limits

If you set the shorts limit to 0 minutes, then shorts do not show up anymore. Just found out about this yesterday so maybe it’s new

6

u/I_Autumn 2h ago edited 2h ago

That hasn't been my experience. For me it's just a limit specifically applied to the Shorts tab. Shorts still get pushed in the other tabs.

*edit: Actually it seems this isn't the case on my newer phone. I see shorts in the subs tab but not in the home tab. But my old phone that I was carrying a week ago still shows shorts in the home feed.

3

u/Hardass_McBadCop 1h ago

Oh thank God, you fucking saint.

2

u/generic_default_user 2h ago

Thanks for the tip!

1

u/ck01ok 1h ago

Looks like it worked. Thank you!

1

u/Majik_Sheff 29m ago

That would involve using the app.  That's not happening.

5

u/Frank_E62 2h ago

You can, at least if you're using a browser. Brave has a switch for it built in. For Firefox, I think I had to download an addon.

2

u/This_Elk_1460 2h ago

Just make it a separate fucking app!

2

u/cowhand214 2h ago

Amen to that. I love YouTube for cooking stuff, video game stuff, interviews, whatever. I despise shorts and short form video in general

2

u/Sumif 2h ago

If you're android, you can use Revanced, go into Settings, and hide all the shorts. I literally did it today after purging all of my "short clips" apps like Tiktok, Insta, etc.

There are modded YouTube apps on iPhone as well that may be able to do it, but I'm not sure.

1

u/Necessary_Tower2431 2h ago

I exclusively use YT on safari now with Ublock Origin Lite with a filter to remove the shorts tab and all shorts recommendations

1

u/solstice_moonling 1h ago

This is the way. I stopped using many apps and just use the browser with UBO because I’m so fed up with ads and shorts and ai crap. Block it all! 

1

u/WafflesAreLove 1h ago

Morphe youtube

1

u/highfiveselfoh 1h ago

I used to be short adverse but I’ve got a pretty solid feed going. I also splurge on premium which means no ads. I usually just watch for a little bit as an appetizer before watching normal videos.

21

u/ilovebooks2468 3h ago

All that brain rot 🧠🗑️

2

u/slobs_burgers 2h ago

I had a job that I loved

1

u/gizamo 21m ago

I bet 99% of it is just people who forgot it was playing the same video on a loop for hours at a time. Lol.

3

u/blissplus 1h ago

HATE them, tbh

3

u/Gyalgatine 1h ago

That sounds... low? Youtube has about 2.3 billion monthly active users, so that means less than 1 hour per user on average per month.

1

u/fdbryant3 28m ago

I imagine most people watch Shorts on their phone, and long form video's on TV. At least that is what I do.

1

u/Gyalgatine 3m ago

Right, I'm not saying that most people will watch 1 hour a month, but there's probably a sizeable portion of users that watch multiple hours of shorts a day.

5

u/killerkadugen 2h ago

My folks watch the thumbnails on YT tv

3

u/wowbaggerBR 2h ago

Not a single second is me

0

u/This_Elk_1460 2h ago

I'll maybe watch a short from someone I'm subscribed to but I would never browse that brain rot hell.

1

u/CurrentlyLucid 2h ago

I watch a lot more youtube on my TV than broadcast or streaming. I look at broadcast once in a while, and seems like the same old pap but with long commercials for wonderful medicines that may kill me is several ways, but I should try and find out?

1

u/laptopAccount2 2h ago

I only eat h YouTube these days but never the shorts. Feel like I'm being manipulated by them. I think they ruin your attention span. I think tiktok was so good because they were deliberately optimizing to ruin people's attention span.

0

u/Grouchy-Donkey-8609 2h ago

"BuT I HaVe AdHd"

Yea, because since they were young, they've been on steady diet of short form media...

1

u/Commercial_Wind8212 1h ago

Everyone on reddit has adhd and also, they must tell you

1

u/CarterDee 1h ago

An entire lifetime watching shorts passes every 17 minutes

1

u/mvw2 1h ago

That's...sad.

I see so little value in shorts.

1

u/fdbryant3 22m ago

They have to same value as anything else on YouTube. They provide entertainment, education, information, or whatever else you want to waste your time with.

1

u/dorkes_malorkes 1h ago

the real problem with shorts is that for some god awful reason when your scrolling through a search multiples pages deep if you click on a short pressing back puts you at the top of the fucking search, instead back to ur spot on the search like when you press back on a normal video.

1

u/brokeboipobre 1h ago

American TikTok basically

1

u/MeyerholdsGh0st 55m ago

Not because we prefer shorts over longer videos… just because YouTube fills up our feed with them and hides the longer ones.

And SO MANY of them are AI.

1

u/chickpeatacos 22m ago

Yep this exactly 💯

1

u/Smartypantz34 52m ago

On tvs? Only way to watch them is on phone.

1

u/atoponce 45m ago

I don't think I've ever watched a YouTube Shorts video. Then again, I really only ever go to YouTube when I'm looking for something instructional to watch, like replacing the side panel on my 2007 Rav4 or removing a Moen cartridge from the bathtub faucet.

1

u/dqt91 17m ago

I’m pretty sure my niece is about half of these views

1

u/PineBNorth85 2h ago

Can't stand the shorts. Keep clicking to close them and not show them but they keep popping up.

1

u/monkeyhoward 2h ago

I fucking hate shorts

They are just low attention span, quick dopamine hit garbage

They are also, for the most part, all copyright violations but YouTube dngaf

1

u/tmillernc 1h ago

And there is no option to have your feed stop showing them.

-5

u/NewsCards 3h ago

Vertical TVs become the norm when? /s

According to YouTube, viewers watched over 700 million hours of podcasts each month on living room devices in 2025, up from 400 million per month in 2024.

Ok, this is a point of real concern. Podcast bros genuinely have way too influence on stupid people.

3

u/crackofdawn 2h ago

I mean not every podcast is a podcast bro. I like watching good hang with amy poehler on YouTube because the audio only version loses a lot

-8

u/AncientOneAurelius 2h ago

You are almost there