YouTube’s new ‘Take a Break’ feature will remind you of your digital wellbeing
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has come up with an interesting new initiative called ‘Digital wellbeing’ that aims at helping people get rid of their smartphones addiction. At the annual developer conference I/O 2018, Pichai revealed that Google will be declaring many controls that will help users limit their time online. The first feature from their list is YouTube’s ‘Take a Break’ reminder.
As the name suggests, the ‘Take a Break’ feature will set limits to the users’ video viewing and will remind them that they have been surfing through the app for too long. The user will be able to set a reminder for every 15, 30, 60, 90 or 180 minutes, at which the app will pop a notification ‘Take a Break’ reminding them to stop. Users can choose to dismiss the reminder and keep binge-watching or close the app.
TechCrunch reported that all the changes announced during Google’s I/O keynote will roll out in the latest update of YouTube, along with YouTube’s ability to send notifications.
Another interesting update that will be made is to silence the notifications. The reminders will come with an option of being dismissed and the feature will also allow users to disable notification sounds during a specified time period each day.
The new features are expected to be made available in 13.17 and higher versions of the YouTube mobile app on both iOS and Android. The OS comes with four new controls – Dashboard, App Timer, Do Not Disturb, and Wind Down.
The Dashboard will give you a complete overview of app usage and shows the time duration you have been spending on your device. App Timer will also poke you if it detects that you’re spending too much time on your phone.
‘Do Not Disturb’ mode is an existing Google feature which now has been updated with a new characteristic that enables you to silence visual eruptions, A feature called ‘Shush’will activate automatically once you have enabled DND. ‘Wind Down’ turns on DND on your phone and turns the screen to greyscale as per your set bedtime. You will have your phone back with normal lightings once you wake up
