YouTube Will Let You Put a Limit on Your Shorts Doomscrolling

Do you also want to break free from your YouTube Shorts doomscrolling habit? I think most of us do. Thankfully, YouTube is now rolling out a daily time limit feature for Shorts, giving us more control over how long we spend endlessly scrolling through short-form videos, the company announced.

YouTube is finally letting you limit your Shorts doomscrolling spiral

The update began rolling out on October 22, 2025, and will continue reaching more users over the next few weeks. It will help people keep track of how much time they spend scrolling through Shorts. Once you hit your chosen daily limit, YouTube will display a pop-up. That will let you know that scrolling in the Shorts feed is paused for the rest of the day.

But what if you want to keep watching? The reminder can be dismissed if you choose to continue, but it’s to encourage people to be more mindful of their screen time. You can adjust or turn off the limit anytime in the app’s Settings menu. YouTube says this new option is part of its effort to help users manage their time better and avoid doomscrolling. It joins other digital well-being tools already, such as the Take a Break and Bedtime Reminder.

These tools gently remind users to pause for a while or head to bed after a set time. The company also plans to bring this feature to parental controls later this year. Once that happens, parents will be able to set time limits for their kids or teens that can’t be dismissed, giving families more control over daily screen time.

The move comes as more social media platforms face pressure to introduce features that reduce excessive screen use. After all, many of us know how easy it is to open a short video, watch one or two, and then suddenly realize an hour has flown by.