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Your Evening After One Video

A Weeknight, One Performance and Two Hours Gone

An evening of videos can run for hours before anyone looks at the clock. This is one of those nights, in Omar’s apartment.

  • YouTube can pause a video and suggest a break once you have been watching for a set time: 15, 30, 60, 90 or 180 minutes.1
  • Executive function is the brain’s ability to prioritize and manage thoughts and actions, and people with ADHD may have difficulties with it.2
Omar sitting upright on a couch in a lamplit living room, holding his phone, a mug on the table in front of him

Omar opens YouTube for one performance

It is Wednesday evening, and Omar has the couch to himself. Everyone at work keeps mentioning one live duet, so he looks it up on YouTube. It is only one song. He means to watch it, then go to bed. When it ends, he plays the rehearsal, then an interview.

Omar reclined on the couch with his legs stretched out, the phone held up close to his face in the dark room

Omar goes to Instagram to send it on

He opens Instagram to send the performance to his sister. Someone has posted the same song, filmed from the crowd. After that comes a reel of a dance to it, then a cooking video, then a dog on a skateboard. Omar stretches out his legs and keeps going. He does not look at the clock.

Omar sitting on the edge of his bed with a clock on the wall behind him, reaching toward the lamp on the nightstand

Omar checks the time at last

He is sitting on the edge of the bed, back in YouTube, halfway through an interview from years before, when he looks at the clock. Two hours have gone. Omar closes the app, puts the phone on the nightstand and turns off the lamp, much later than he meant to.

Two hours after the performance

Omar had taken the time for something only the clock on the wall could tell him. He had no idea YouTube and Instagram each kept a reminder of their own, YouTube’s in its General settings and Instagram’s under Time management.

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Omar opens YouTube for one performance

If Omar had used TrueTo, it would have gone into YouTube and Instagram and set a break reminder in each for him.

Omar goes to Instagram to send it on

In Instagram, a reminder would have come up once he had scrolled for as long as he chose.

Omar checks the time at last

In YouTube, the video would have paused for a reminder at the time he chose, and each reminder would have been his to turn off again, with everything else left as it was.

Break reminder

In YouTube, under Settings and then General, Omar can turn on Remind me to take a break himself, choosing a time from 15 minutes to three hours.1 In Instagram, under Settings and activity and then Time management, he can turn on Break reminder and choose how long it waits.

Sources

  1. Android Central, “How to turn on YouTube’s reminders to stop watching videos,” Android Central, read October 12, 2026.
  2. CHADD, “About ADHD - Symptoms, Causes and Treatment,” CHADD, read October 12, 2026.