Measuring Me (Take 2)

My habit

I have a bad habit of spending hours on end watching YouTube videos in my room. To measure the behavior, I set out to record my activities in 30-minute increments for two weekdays, which are the days I should cut down on the habit most. I felt that this way of logging was more appropriate for my habit since I wasn’t repeatedly opening YouTube throughout the day but rather staying on it for a long time, usually more than 15 minutes at a time.

The log

My experience

One of my main challenges was trying not to go out of my way to do anything more “normally,” per se. For example, I talked to my dad over a video call for about four hours on Thursday night, and even though it was an unusual event, I didn’t do anything to force my schedule—or the log—toward a more usual routine. I also went to sleep unusually late that night due to watching a multi-part, multi-hour series on YouTube and not wanting to close it until I’d reached a good stopping point. I felt a bit ashamed of logging this lack of willpower the following morning, but I also wanted to make sure I was recording everything truthfully.

Friday’s log was more in line with my usual routine, although the time I would usually spend on extracurricular activities or school work in the middle of a quarter was instead spent on YouTube. I feel like I would have gotten better results if I had done my logging for a full week in the later weeks of a quarter, when it would have been more vital for me to spend my time on things other than leisure activities.

The models

Iceberg model

From referencing my logs to jog my memory and also look for patterns in my behavior, I made this iceberg model for the event of watching YouTube videos. The pattern I noticed was that I always seemed to be watching the videos in my room when I didn’t have anything pressing to do. I might have a video playing in the background while doing other low-effort chores (e.g., cleaning my room, brushing my teeth), but the bulk of it was me sitting at my desk, maybe eating a snack, and watching YouTube videos. The underlying structure seems to be my procrastination and getting distracted by wondering what will happen next in the multi-hour series I’ve been watching. When I feel motivated enough to do something for classes, I might work on that for a bit, feel satisfied, and decide to take a break by going on YouTube. The mental model here is that I get bored when I’m alone in my room, and since I have no motivation to work on things with later deadlines or go out of my way to spend time with other people, I turn to watching videos to pass the time enjoyably on my own.

Connection circle

When trying to make a connection circle for my habit, I found that many arrows led to my watching YouTube videos, but only one arrow led out. I seem to have many reasons to watch YouTube videos: being in my room, having no immediate responsibilities, feeling accomplished after doing something productive, thinking about a series I’ve left unfinished, or already being on YouTube. I’ve colored all these incoming arrows a light red. Anything not directly leading to me watching YouTube videos is blue: for example, sometimes when I’m in between YouTube videos or I’ve just had a good laugh and feel satisfied, I’ll become motivated to switch to school work of some sort. I’ll then do that for a bit and return to YouTube if I don’t feel rushed to do more. Looking at the number of arrows in the circle that either go to watching YouTube videos or loop back to it in a couple of steps, it feels like the habit is close to being a sink—it isn’t easy to come out of the YouTube pit.