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YouTube has introduced a new tool designed to help users better manage their time spent scrolling through its short-form “Shorts” feed.
The new feature, which is rolling out to mobile devices, allows users to set a daily viewing limit that pauses the feed once the time is up, offering a prompt to take a break. The move aligns with growing concerns over screen-time overload and reflects the broader industry trend of promoting digital wellness.
Users can find the Shorts daily time limit setting in their account settings within the YouTube mobile app. Once a time limit is chosen and the threshold is reached, a notification appears, pausing the feed.
While this initial alert is dismissible for adult users, YouTube confirms that the feature will be integrated into its parental controls in 2026, where it can be made non-dismissible for supervised accounts. For now, families can layer this in-app limit with existing system-level controls on their devices, such as Apple’s Screen Time or Google’s Family Link.
According to the company, Shorts are a “core part” of the YouTube experience, but they acknowledge that unintentional hours of scrolling can undermine users’ goals. The addition of a self-imposed time cap joins other digital well-being features, such as “Take a Break” and “Bedtime Reminders.”
By offering a targeted tool specifically for the short-form feed, YouTube aims to make viewing more deliberate rather than automatic. This also comes at a time of increasing legal pressure on social media platforms, with lawsuits citing the potentially harmful effects of addictive features, especially on youth mental health.
While a significant step for YouTube, the optional nature of the initial time limit for adults is less restrictive. While other platforms like TikTok have stricter default settings and more robust parental controls for younger users, YouTube is moving towards offering more granular controls within the app. It also joins other recent Shorts updates, such as the extension of the maximum length to three minutes in October 2024, showing a continued evolution of the short-form video format.
The rollout of the Shorts daily time limit, which began on mobile devices on October 22, 2025, signals YouTube’s willingness to support users who want to take control of their viewing habits. However, YouTube’s effectiveness for curbing deep-seated habits and current limitation to mobile devices remain points of consideration.
