YouTube now lets you turn off Shorts entirely, kind of
YouTube’s new zero-minute daily Shorts limit is here to stop endless scrolling, potentially impacting music discovery with it.
YouTube’s new daily Shorts limit
Last October, YouTube introduced daily time limits for Shorts, letting users take control of their screen time. The aim? To help prevent users from endlessly doomscrolling, at least kind of. Since then, the platform expanded those controls to parental accounts, letting parents set limits as low as zero minutes for their kids.
Now, YouTube is taking that a step further, effectively letting users switch off Shorts altogether.
What’s changing?
When the tool initially rolled out, users could cap their Shorts scrolling between 15 minutes and 2 hours. With the latest update, any user can now set a daily limit for Shorts at zero minutes. Following on from the parental controls, YouTube told The Verge that a new zero limit timer is “live for all parents, and is currently being rolled out to everyone,” including adult users.
How to set a daily Shorts limit
Same as previously, users can head to Time Management inside Settings on the YouTube app to set a daily limit. Once that limit is reached, you’ll see a full-screen notification that appears when you attempt to scroll on the Shorts feed.
When that timer is set to zero, Shorts are removed from the YouTube homepage too. They can, however, still be viewed in the subscription feed.
However, the feature isn’t exactly strict. Like previous limits, it can easily be dismissed to keep on scrolling.
What this means for the music industry
Once again, this raises a familiar question: if users spend less time watching Shorts, what happens to music discovery.
Shorts remain one of the most powerful tools for artists to reach new audiences. If even a small portion of viewers actively limit or remove Shorts, it could reduce the level of exposure possible. That’s especially true with a time limit of zero as it goes a step further than previous updates.
Still, the feature is optional and easy to bypass. I even have a time limit for certain apps on my phone which I easily dismiss on a daily basis. So, perhaps the real impact is likely to be extremely limited.