Something is happening at Google. And it is that, after its last Google I / O conference, the company seems willing to move us away from the mobile. Or at least not to become a problem in our daily lives. That is why it is creating a whole system of notifications, alerts and self-imposed limitations to prevent the mobile from separating us from what really matters. Something that has already reached YouTube, to prevent us from spending all day watching videos on this platform.
This is a limitation system with which to receive rest notices. That is, make us notice that we are spending time watching content on YouTube. This is a self-imposed system, no parental controls. They are just warnings so that we do not lose track of time. A system that is already available for Android devices as well as for iPhone and iPad Just follow these steps to activate it:
The first thing is to update the YouTube application. And this new function has been introduced in version 13.17, so make sure you have the latest available version installed on your mobile. To do this, we access the Google Play Store or the App Store, depending on the operating system of our device: Android in the first case, or iOS in the second.
By default, this notice is disabled. But when triggered, the message will pause the video for a while to remind us to take a break. It is possible to set this reminder in time periods of 15, 30, 60, 90 and 180 minutes And, of course, we can ignore the warning and resume playing the video if that's really what we want to do.
To activate it, just go to the user account on YouTube, by clicking on the profile image in the application. It doesn't matter if it's on Android or iPhone.
The next thing is to look for the section Settings, where all the configurations related to the application and the service are found. Within this menu, iPhone users have to go directly to the section “Remind me to take a break”. For their part, Android users must go through an intermediate menu called Overview, where this new YouTube feature can be found.
In this way we access the configuration menu of this notification to take a break. Here all that remains is to establish the time interval in which we want the notice to appear. We remember that it is not any type of limitation, but a reminder to avoid wasting too much time between videos. So we can cancel it and continue viewing the content, or become aware of it and return to the work or tasks that touch.
With all this active and configured, we can now watch YouTube regularly and receive the break notice when appropriate. As we have already said, this warning pauses the video and shows the message to rest for a whileThe Ignore button appears next to it, with which you can continue viewing the content and ignore the notice received. In addition, there is also a button called Settings, which takes us directly to the configuration screen of this notice. In this way, if we get tired of the interruptions, we can modify the time interval with which the notice appears. Or even deactivate this function if we prefer.
Keep in mind that the timer that triggers this break notice pauses if we pause the video we are watching. Of course, it works only through the application, on the mobile. This timer is reset when we close the YouTube application, the session, if we change accounts or devices or if we pause a video for more than 30 minutes. The prompt does not appear when watching videos offline or when streaming live video from the phone.
