How To Depersonalise Youtube Video Recommendations
Scroll down to Step 1 for the tl:dr
Today I made the plunge (again) into learning Unity because I’ve been holding it off for too long. I am the kind of person who hates learning something new, and generally disagree with the belief that ‘learning is fun’. Doing is fun, learning sucks.
So whenever I am trying to learn something new, my brain will seize any opportunity to escape from the torment imposed on it by its conscious host. That includes escaping to youtube videos of a lower caliber than the tutorials I’m trying to learn from.
So imagine the internal struggle I face when seeing these recommendations pop up straight after watching a video on 2D movement in Unity:
Sean Carroll explaining physics to a layman like Joe Rogan? Tucker Carlson making a case for conservatism? Political intricacies of the vegan movement? Something about Anita Sarkeesian?
No time for self-radicalisation now, I’m trying to learn!
I suspect that even without my youtube watch history informing which recommendations are shown, some TEDx-esque videos will still beckon me to the dark side of self-improvement, where the learning-is-fun mantra actually rings true, if only because you won’t come away from the video with any real skills.
Nonetheless it’s time to clean up this mess of clickbait.
Step 1: Go to youtube and click on your account icon at the top left of the page and click on ‘Google Account’
Step 2: Click on ‘Manage your data & personalization’ under ‘Privacy and Personalization’
Step 3: Click on ‘Youtube Watch History’ under ‘Activity Controls’
Step 4: Flick the switch aside ‘Youtube Watch History’
Step 5: Click ‘Pause’ on the confirmation popup. This will stop youtube from recording your watch history. I would prefer to be able to just pause personalised recommendations themselves but this is the next best thing.
Step 6: Now click ‘Manage Activity’
Step 7: Open on the menu button in the search box and click ‘Delete activity by’
Step 8: Select ‘All time’
Step 9: Click ‘delete’
And we are done!
Now to rewatch the tutorial and see if it worked:
As predicted, still some TEDx-ness, but far more wholesome!
