Your YouTube time, added up
Shorts, per day
11 min
Total, per day
56 min
Share that's Shorts
Every week
6.5 hours
Every year
340 hours
14.2 full days
If it continues to age 80
18,700 hours
about 2.1 years, non-stop
How it's calculated
Shorts time is your daily count × the average length you set (33 seconds by default). That's added to your regular-video minutes for a daily total, then multiplied by 7 for the week and 365 for the year. The lifetime figure assumes today's habit continues, unchanged, until age 80 — the same assumption the doomscrolling calculator uses, so the two are comparable.
Why Shorts and regular videos aren't the same habit
A regular video has a visible end, and YouTube's own Autoplay feature queues a related video after it unless you cancel it — a nudge to keep watching, but still one video at a time, with a point where you'd naturally decide whether to continue. Shorts don't work that way: it's a continuous vertical feed, each one ending by sliding straight into the next, with no equivalent moment where the app stops and waits for you. That's also why Shorts total time is so sensitive to count rather than length — at a commonly cited average of about 33 seconds each, 20 Shorts is already 11 minutes, and it rarely stops at 20.
Watching less of it
- Remove the Shorts feed, keep search and subscriptions. Stillfeed is a free iPhone browser for YouTube and Instagram that removes the Shorts tab and Shorts shelves before they load, while your subscriptions and regular videos work as normal. See how to turn off YouTube Shorts on iPhone for what YouTube's own settings can and can't do.
- Cancel Autoplay when you're done. It's one tap at the end of a video, and it puts the stopping point back.
- Check your real number. See average screen time by age for how your total compares, or try the screen time calculator across every app you use.
Sources
- Google / YouTube Help, About Autoplay — how Autoplay queues the next video.
- Average Shorts length (~33 seconds): an Inflow Network analysis of roughly 5,400 Shorts, widely repeated across industry sources without independently published methodology; treated here as a rough default, not a verified statistic. The 3-minute maximum length replaced a 60-second maximum in October 2024, per YouTube's own announcements at the time.
Common questions
Why split Shorts from regular videos?
They behave differently. A regular video ends and YouTube's Autoplay queues one related video unless you cancel it; Shorts are a continuous vertical feed with no equivalent stopping point, so a "few Shorts" session runs longer than the same time spent on long-form video. Splitting them gives a more honest total than one "minutes on YouTube" field.
How long is a YouTube Short, on average?
Commonly cited figure: about 33 seconds, from an analysis of roughly 5,400 Shorts, repeated across several industry sources without full methodology published (treat it as a rough industry figure, not a verified independent statistic). You can change the default in the calculator; Shorts can run up to 3 minutes since YouTube raised the limit from 60 seconds in October 2024.
Does Autoplay affect the total?
It can extend a regular-video session beyond what you planned, since another video starts automatically unless you cancel it. It doesn't change the maths here directly — this calculator works from your actual daily minutes, however they happened.
Is my data stored anywhere?
No. Everything is calculated in your browser. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere; your numbers only appear in the page address so you can share or bookmark your result.
How is this different from the doomscrolling calculator?
The doomscrolling calculator covers scrolling across any social app in one number. This page is YouTube-specific and separates Shorts from regular videos, since they're different habits with different fixes.
