It will sound cliché, but if dark thoughts come to you, if you start feeling like whatever else than Youtube is worthless, etc... it might we worth finding someone qualified to listen.

If it's mild, and you just fell like you're too easily drawn into whatever the algo feeds you, well... it means the dopamine dealers at Alphabet are doing their job "right". Your job is know to try and cure the addiction.

This is not like "spending you days on cable TV" - YT has infinite content, with no occasion for boredom. Everything is always going to be 100% interesting, captivating, infuriating, etc... And if it's not, the "next" rush is a click away. Your brain is fighting an unfair battle.

Thankfully, "cold turkey" should not have any critical downside, so you could try.

Just being mindfull of how long you spend can help.

Leechblock NG has a helpful mode where you just restrict how long you can spend, before being locked. [1]

Any extension that removes the "suggestion", "shorts", etc... would put you in a better spot. I use Enhancer for Youtube for that [2].

I also find that many of the most interesting youtubers happen to be on nebula.tv, which clearly is way less designed for binge and addiction. [3]

And of course the usual stuff apply - find something or someone so great that you're rather spend time with them that on YT.

Also, at some point, I hope someone will run on a platform of "not letting advertisers completely rot people's brain for a few clicks". Even meth dealers have to sleep and watch they back.

Good luck !

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock-ng...

[2] https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/enhancer-for-youtub...

[3] https://nebula.tv/featured