What do You watch on Youtube?

Recently we hear more and more news about people watching their screens instead of watching a road, side walk and causing car accidents or falling down as they been hypnotised by their mobile devices. This is the effect of global technology growth and accessibility for millions of us. This particular growth goes up together with less concentration for outer interactions. It's little bit creepy. If I think about my first iPhone 3G back in 2009 it was only phone and text device with occasional Wi-Fi connection and basic apps. Simple and straightforward device. As soon as social media came to the stage I realized my eye sight was concentrated more and more on this little black screen. Quickly I was unable to go out without my phone in my pocket. The way I become connected with technology was sophisticated and very subtle. Total slavery and addiction at the same time. Compared to other addiction in our world - this one is generally accepted.

So the question we need to ask to ourselves is:

WHAT IS SO ATTRACTIVE in OUR SMARTPHONE SCREEN?

One of the greatest distractor are online videos aka You Tube which is displacing standard television. So we need to closely look into some statistics to understand what really this virtual medium is. To understand this we need to watch the top list of You Tube in the world. Let's just do a sneak peak on what is hot (stats from October 2015 by Reelseo):

From cartoons, music videos, games in to sport and wide range of entertainment. Are You kidding me? Don't get me wrong. I'm not against having fun and laughing but something is wrong in here. You Tube is winning against TV, it's a raw fact. Back in the 90's we had no choice what to to watch on TV so we watched everything. But nowadays we have so much better control over the source of information even if we are being bombarding by so many ads we might just simply skip them.

So if we're not in the 90's any more why we treat You Tube as a hypnotizing source of amusement where cats and dogs, babies, fails and music videos are on the top of the pyramid? It seems like we made a circle and got back to the 90's but instead TV set now we have more advanced devices. Our behaviour is still the same: we want to have fun and treat media as a funny place where we feel good.

You Tube is so powerful and advertisers want to place so many ads online via this medium just to analyze people's reaction on what might be a top selling product next month. Of course I don't say You Tube is the place only with annoying ads. There are many conscious authors with great content. I'm not anti-Youtube because it's my daily source of knowledge. I'm only trying to point out we been entangled by it's stupidity rather than having great instant knowledge from scratch. Ask Yourself:

"WHAT I WATCH ON YOUTUBE?"

If Your answer is "Entertainment", You better re-think on how You spend Your priceless free time. Entertainment is to make us laugh, right? We love this state of mind so much we do almost everything to stay in that state all the time. I'm not against being happy. But we all know entertainment is prefabricated on every level (ads, sitcoms, series, movies etc.). It's produced just to amuse us. So if top 10 You Tube channel are channels from this particular area we might say this is prefabricated virtual reality. So do You need fake reality fulfilling Your daily basics? We need real world interaction, real experiences rather than fake smiles, cats and dogs, boobs and scripted opinions. It's a totally waste of time!

So entertainment makes us lazy and unconscious individuals. Is You Tube the way to push us down to the dark hole and stupidity? Maybe. Faster You'll figure it out better future You'll have. I think I have a simple 3 steps solution to use this magnificent medium in a right way. Depends on what Your interest area is, You can adjust these steps in to Your routine just to improve the way of using the net.

STEP 1 | TURN YOUR TV OFF!

This oldschool type of getting knowledge is outdated. Shows are boring. Daily news like forecast etc You can get on Your smartphone app. Most of the channels are the same. Sports, cartoons, sitcoms, cooking, nature, movies. Super booooring! Maybe music? Naaah. MTV died in the late 90's for stupid Jersey-Shore-Type reality shows.

STEP 2 | LIMIT SOCIAL MEDIA.

Social media are some sort of virtual world. If You don't need it for business, sales or services - You should limit it to the minimum or just use it as a messenger with friends. Why limit? Just look to Your Facebook wall. What is there? Mostly garbage content shared with millions of people around the world. Dogs, babies, fails etc. This is the main content of social media. There is also a good side of content on social media which is gathering large amount of people to take an action on something. But mostly we use social media as a source of entertainment.

STEP 3 | USE YOUTUBE AS A ALTERNATIVE MEDIA TUBE.

This was original idea of You Tube. To have an alternative from TV. If You check analytics and see what You watched on You Tube You might be concerned. Use You Tube as a source of creative and unique knowledge. There are so many YT channels containing great piece of information like alternative news, tutorials, DIY, even audiobooks. Just pick the right area of Your interest. Listen to some brilliant speeches online as well as You might produce Your own show or Vlog.

You Tube is a great place. No matter what channel is in the top 100 list. Create Your own top 100 list rather than following recommendation of entertainment industry. When use it right it might be a cure for disproportion on our planet where so little people knows everything and so many people has no access to basic informations from science to healthy lifestyle data. Let's create our future bright and clear by just getting inspiration and sharing it around with friends, rather than just having fun and wasting our time in front of our computers, tablets and smartphones.

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