I feel like there are some key differences between the companies though.

The second one outlined for Meta is:

> Heavily-redacted undated internal document discussing “School Blasts” as a strategy for gaining more high school users (mass notifications sent during the school day).

This sounds a lot like Meta being intentionally disruptive.

The first one outlined for YouTube is:

> Slidedeck on the role that YouTube’s autoplay feature plays in “Tech Addiction” that concludes “Verdict: Autoplay could be potentially disrupting sleep patterns. Disabling or limiting Autoplay during the night could result in sleep savings.”

This sounds like YouTube proactively looking for solutions to a problem. And later on for YouTube:

> Discussing efforts to improve digital well-being, particularly among youth. Identified three concern areas impacting users 13-24 disproportionately: habitual heavy use, late night use, and unintentional use.

This sounds like YouTube taking actual steps to improve the situation.

> This sounds like YouTube taking actual steps to improve the situation.

The issue I take with statements like that is that they are saying one thing while doing the opposite. This document [1], for instance, shows that YouTube knew as early as April 2025 that infinite feeds of short form content can "displace valuable activities like time with friends or sleep", but that hasn't stopped them from aggressively pushing YouTube shorts everywhere.

The most charitable interpretation I can think of is that there are two factions, one worried about the effects of YouTube in teens and a second one worried about growth at all costs. And I don't think the first one is winning.

[1] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.40...

My YouTube use definitely isn't healthy, but it's still the only social app that asks me to take a break if I use it too long or late at night. That should be standard in any of these apps.

No, it sounds like youtube being fully aware of the consequences of their offering but couched in terms that allows them to pretend they were not. 'could' indeed.

With the looping TikTok-style shorts, YouTube seems to be more habit forming than ever.

YouTube Shorts exist, which they brag about hours watched, so I don't think they really care about those things at all.

Not realistic to reply to all your replies re:youtube, but they've absolutely added some features to mitigate bedtime use and at least for me they were opt-out rather than opt-in.

>This sounds like YouTube taking actual steps to improve the situation.

Maybe if they actually did any of those things...

Are they taking actual steps though? Or was that letting a team do the work to make them feel better but never actually implementing it.

> This sounds like YouTube taking actual steps to improve the situation.

And yet here we are years later without change. So we've got proof that they knew this and have done nothing. Don't need to speculate at all.

[flagged]