YouTube expands its time management settings to include a zero-minute time limit on Shorts, effectively letting you disable them in your app.
YouTube has read the room, and now allows you to put a zero-minute time limit on Shorts from the app’s time management settings. This essentially means you can remove them from your app on both Android and iOS. It’s an update to the time management options first announced in October and expanded in January, which previously only let you set a minimum time limit of 15 minutes.
YouTube spokesperson Makenzie Spiller says the zero-minute feature is now “live for all parents, and is currently being rolled out to everyone,” which includes users with regular (adult) accounts. Some users have said they did not yet have the option on Android, but YouTube has confirmed the functionality is currently rolling out for all users across Android and iOS.
It’s a move to allow parents better control over the content their kids watch, which comes as the Australian government moves to ban social media for minors, including YouTube. It also comes amid widespread concern over the way short-form content (and social media in general) can affect the brain, which can be especially impactful on kids.
But regardless of age, the ability to turn off YouTube Shorts completely is handy for anyone who wants to limit their time spent scrolling. Once you hit your time limit, the Shorts tab won’t show any videos, but a notification that you’ve reached your limit. It also appears to remove Shorts from the Home Screen, which allows you to disregard the format entirely from your YouTube app experience.
To turn it back on, simply go to the setting in the YouTube app and select “time management.” Then, just toggle on the Shorts feed limit and select the time you want.
However, it’s worth noting that the ability to limit Shorts is currently only available on the mobile app. That means if your kids browse YouTube on a computer or TV, they can still watch Shorts without limit. It’s possible YouTube will expand its parental controls to rein this in more effectively across platforms, especially now that Australia’s social media ban on under-16s is in full swing (the legislation was passed in December).
