I find YouTube kinda baffling; I never really had any use for it (I will occasionally use it to watch an old music video, but that's about it), but some people do seem to get really properly addicted to it.

Are you using it to watch people you subscribe to, or things it suggests to you, or something else? If you're primarily going on its suggestions, you might want to try using an extension to block that; social media suggestion thingies are very much _designed_ to hook people.

For the first time in months, I'm occupied enough to not even think of Youtube, and when I look at it in the evening nothing appeals to me (the opposite). When I scroll on shorts, I just feel dissatisfied and close them.

But generally, I'm on there hours a day, enjoying none of it. Shorts, long videos, etc. I do the same with the front page of Reddit, even though 99% of the posts there bother me. If I block those, it's Hacker News, Facebook, or even LinkedIn. Ultimately, I think a lot of compulsions and addictions, technology or otherwise, come from a lack of purpose or joy in life.