Why I Blocked YouTube

bysarazoldan

2.3K followers

10 years ago

Over the past several months, I've read discussions, blog posts and tutorials on the pros of having and using a YouTube account to monetize an online business, as well as ways to go about doing so. I've pretty much deleted all those emails in my inbox as soon as I saw the word YouTube.

I know that there is a lot that can be done with YouTube and it is an awesome tool, so why did I do this? Why did I not bother to read those informative articles/videos?

Growing up, the computers in my home were used for email and work. There was no such thing as computer games (if I got to play Solitaire or Minesweeper I was lucky!) or any source of entertainment on the computer. If my mom deemed it ok to watch a movie, we would borrow The Sound of Music from a family friend or take out Pollyanna or My Fair Lady from the library. That was it. That was all we needed.

YouTube for all intents and purposes didn't exist. It wasn't until middle school that I actually learned what it was, but it was no big deal. I had no interest in checking it out; it just didn't mean anything to me. It was one of those things that we simply didn't 'do' in my house... I got to high school, grew up some, got my own computer...at first YouTube was a no-no, but as time went on and I learned more about the outside world, I began watching a clip here and there. Nothing major, nothing inappropriate, mostly America's Got Talent type of thing.

But then, something changed and I began using YouTube more and more; as a break from homework, as a distraction from real life, as a pastime. At first it was all in limited amounts of time, but over the next couple years I began spending more and more time on my open YouTube page. I guess one could say I was on my way to getting addicted. Actually, who am I kidding? I think I was addicted!

So, when I decided to put the K9 filter on my computer, I asked them to please block YouTube. I knew that by blocking it, I would be able to focus more on my priorities and it'll be one less of a distraction. Yes, I still watch now and then; although I blocked the 'open media' category of K9, there are still certain sites that work, but the amount of time I spend on them is much, much less. I still have YouTube on my iPod, so if I feel that I really want to watch something, I go there, but it's not a great way to 'spend time' because it's way too small for me :-)

Yes, YouTube is a great tool to monetizing a business; no, it's not for me. At least not now. I hope and I'm confident that there will come a day when I no longer fall back to audio-visual entertainment as a way to escape reality and at that point I will come here, to WA, and read all those discussions, posts and tutorials about using YouTube. In the meantime, I'm going to stick with building my site and using my very own quality content to do just that!