I am addicted to YouTube
I grew up with YouTube, it has shaped my habits and my mind. It truly is the TV of my generation.
My addiction to YouTube is a boredom-driven one. When I have stuff to do I rarely even think about watching a video. In fact, even in situations where most people would pull out their phone to look at something (e.g. on a bus), I am so entranced by the experience that I just sit and take it all in.
But when I'm at home is where the fun really begins. Almost everything I do has to have a video playing in the background, lest I miss out on content and waste my time.
Out of curiosity, I even deactivated my only social media account, Instagram. It has all my friends, online and offline, and I use it almost exclusively to keep in contact with them. I don't use it to "consume content" or to waste my day, the SNR is extremely high. Nonetheless, I have been going on without it for more than a month, and just a couple of days into the challenge I basically stopped thinking about it. So no, even when bored I am not addicted to Instagram. phew.
But YouTube is something else, I tell you. Even deleting the app doesn't help, I always find a way to watch it somewhere else. I have no friends there, there are so social aspects. Yet, it draws me in like nothing else. This must be my childhood conditioning, making it impossible for me to imagine being at home for a month without watching a single video. The only way I could achieve that is if I somehow managed to not use the internet for a month, which is preposterous.
Internet + any useful device = YouTube
Not good.