You Can Now See Exactly How Much YouTube Your Kids Watch

Prepare to be shocked...
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YouTube has unveiled a brand-new set of tools that will show you exactly how much time you (or your children) spend watching videos.

The feature breaks down the stats between the amount of time spent watching today, yesterday, the last week and finally gives you a daily average based on the amount watched overall.

Called simply ‘Time Watched’ the feature is the latest push by Google to give people more transparency over the amount of time we spend using their smartphones, tablets.

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For parents this could prove to be particularly eye-opening, especially if you have children who are too old for the YouTube Kids app and you might be concerned about how much screen time they’re secretly getting in.

Currently the feature is only available via the app so you’ll need access to a phone or tablet that has YouTube and is logged in with your child’s account or your own if you’re just curious.

Find out how much time you spend on YouTube

Open the app and then tap on the profile picture in the top right-hand corner. Then tap on the button that says Time watched. 

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Once you’ve tapped on Time watched you’ll be given a full breakdown of how much video is being watched.

You’ll also have the option to set a timer which then tells you to take a break after a set amount of time. Finally you can turn Autoplay on or off.

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If you have Android Pie you’ll also be able to make a number of other changes including bundling all the notifications you get from YouTube into one digest you receive each day.

Or if you want to be increasingly vigilant you can actually mute all notifications and sounds between 10pm and 8am using the new Do Not Disturb mode.

To find out more about Android Pie’s new features and the wellbeing tools that Google are releasing read our guide here.