Psychological Report: A Self-Control Program to Reduce YouTube Usage

This psychological report details a self-control program designed to reduce a high school student's excessive YouTube usage. The program involved setting daily goals, tracking time spent on YouTube, and implementing walking as a new activity to break the habit. The report includes an introduction outlining the problem of excessive screen time and its associated health risks, a methods section detailing the baseline week and the subsequent intervention week with the introduction of walking, a results section presenting the data in a graph format illustrating the reduction in YouTube time, and a discussion section analyzing the findings and limitations. The study hypothesized that walking would help meet the goal of reducing YouTube time and found that the intervention was successful, demonstrating a significant decrease in time spent on the platform. The report also acknowledges the need for consistent implementation to maintain the habit change.

PSYCHOLOGICAL
REPORT

ABSTRACT
A self control program was developed to decrease amount of time spend on watching YouTube. I
was 16 year boy and read in school. The frequency of spending time on watching YouTube was
observed for one week and for that daily goals is being set in the subsequent program week. It
was hypothesised that by walking I would be able to meet with my goal. However, there was
limitation regarding implementation of activities which are discussed in the study.

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
METHODS......................................................................................................................................2
RESULT..........................................................................................................................................2
DISCUSSION .................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
Young people spend huge time on watching YouTube. It increases skin, eye issues
among them. Children watch YouTube to see videos, listening music, and playing online games.
In the recent era 74% young people watch television programmes on YouTube. Spending huge
time on such type of medium, means inactivity and that is linked with obesity and heart disease
as well. Recent research by Harvard School of public health states that young people spends
much time on watching you-tube due to which risk of developing type 2 diabetes among children
(Duckworth, Gendler and Gross, 2016). It is very important to self control over this habit
otherwise individual has to face serious medical issues in early age. Hence, present report will
employ a self-control program in order to minimize watching time period on YouTube. The
study will follow a new rule or different activity to decrease amount of time I watch YouTube.
This new rule will be as often in which I will walk for 10 minutes as new activity. This
activity will be done by me mostly every time whenever I will watch YouTube. However, this
short term one week exercise may reduce the spending time on YouTube. For instance, through
personal experience I have observed that walking activity distract me from continuous watching
YouTube thus, it helps me in reducing spending time on such medium. As a result my spending
time on watching YouTube is being decreased (Milkman, Minson and Volpp, 2013).
Furthermore, I must remember that reapplying this method can be beneficial in self control on
my this habit. This is helpful for my health as well. By walking I can be active thus, diabetes,
obesity type of disease will not occur.
Karoly. Paul (2005) states that behaviour can be modified by setting goals and specific
objectives. These objective needs to be specific, measurable, reliable and traceable. Accordingly,
my new rule of watching YouTube is recorded for one week in order to achieve aim of my self
control program. Positive support will be administered after achieving the daily goals. According
to Sunstein and Thaler, (2012)
reinforcers is required to be effective in making changes in behaviour and habits. The main
purpose of this self control program is to decrease amount of time I watch YouTube. It is
hypothesised that with the help of positive reinforcement I would be able to met with my target
and my habits will be changed to great extent (Watson and Tharp, 2010).
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METHODS
I was the subject of self-control programme, a 16 year old boy in high school diagnosed
with spending too much time on internet in particular on youtube. The no. of hours i spend on yo
utube was recorded for two successive weeks. Starting from Monday this activity was initiated.
The first week was selected as baseline condition. The recorded no. of hours, later are used to cr
eate graph to get the desired result. The average number of hours recorded in baseline are then us
ed to set a goal for the following week for candidate. Later it was found that the time I spend on
you tube was more than six hours daily and the average time I spend on it, was recorded 5 hours
in first week the baseline week (Thoresen and Mahoney,
1974). Thus, the goal was set for coming week the plan was to reduce this long hour to one and
half hour daily. I know the goal set by me was hard to achieve, as i have to reduce too much of m
y daily hours, which was one-fourth of the maximum record in baseline, the goal set by me was
more than average, many of my friends said that I have set my expectation, too high and that I m
ay quit before i even start, but I was determined to achieve this goal. I introduced different activit
ies in my daily routine to compensate the hours I waste on youtube, I tried to replace this with ot
her activity such as walking, I decided to spend 10 minutes walking every time I wanted to watch
youtube (Effectiveness of Programs Designed to Improve Self-Control,
2017). In addition to it my plan was not to achieve everything together but patiently so at first I t
ry to reduce 30 min of my daily hour and decided to increase this no. for each day, so that I coul
d reach my goal without getting demotivated. I also decided to reward my self for every goal I ac
hieve.
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Illustration 1: Self control program results
Illustration 2: Walking time during program
RESULT
The graph shows the frequency of no. of hours spend in both baseline and program week.
The left side of graph presented the result from the observation of baseline week. Its clearly evid
ent that that daily hour waver between 6 to 5 hours with weekly average of 5 hours of daily spen
ding. The right section of graph represent result gained through programme which shows positiv
e result of this implemented programme. In starting days of programme average of 40 minutes da
ily walking to reduce my Youtube hour. The first day the hour recorded was 4 hours 30 min. and
by day three it was already reduced to 3 hours 15 min. In later days I try to increase my walking
hour, on 4th day I spend 1 hour and 30 min walking spending only 2 hours and 30 min watching
Youtube. In last three days I was able to spend only 1 hour on Youtube while I give 2 hours to da
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ily walking activity. The average hour of spend on Youtube was decrease to 1 and half hour. The
average no. of hour spend during the program was much lower than baseline week. I was able to
achieve higher result than what I have expected. Therefore, the positive confirmation was receive
d every day of programme.
DISCUSSION
Examining the baseline period I have found that on seventh day I have spent only 1 hour
watching YouTube. During this activity I have walked a lot that has helped me in sitting less
time on computer and watching less period on YouTube. When I was walking then it breaks my
concentration level thus, I took lack interest in watching YouTube these days. I have noticed that
when I sit continuously on computer to watch these sites then I become addicted to this. But
when I think for other activities then I do not take much interest in YouTube. That has helped me
in decreasing my amount of time. On first day I have done 30 minute exercise of walking and I
have spent 4 hours 30 mint watching YouTube. In the next day I have increased my walking
exercise and have done 50 mint exercise. Thus, second day I have spent 4 hours watching
YouTube. Third day I have increased my walking duration and have given 1 hour 20 minute to
walking, rest time which was 3 hour 15 mint have been given in watching YouTube. Fourth ad
Fifth day I have walked 1 hour 20 mint and 1 hour 30 minute. Furthermore, this time duration
was continuously increasing ad on seventh day I have walked 2 hours and I have watched
YouTube 1 hour only.
Results from the self control program indicates that involvement of walking activity in
daily life is helpful in decreasing the spending time on watching YouTube. With the help of this
new rule I became able to meet with my daily goal. As a result, now I do not spend much time of
watching YouTube and I do proper exercise in order to be healthy and fit.
Clearly, the results of this self control program is as same as original hypothesised
(Rogers, Milkman and Volpp, (2014)). However, limitation of this study is that this habit can not
get changed frequently, it will take time and I will have to implement this activity in my routine
life.
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REFERENCES
Duckworth, A. L., Gendler, T. S., & Gross, J. J. (2016). Situational strategies for self-
control. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(1), 35-55.
Karoly. Paul (2005). Self-Control. In Encyclopedia of Behavior Modification and Cognitive
Behavior Therapy, vol. 1: Adult Clinical Applications, (Eds.) Michel Hersen and Johan
Rosqvist.
Milkman, K. L., Minson, J. A., & Volpp, K. G. (2013). Holding the Hunger Games hostage
at the gym: An evaluation of temptation bundling. Management science, 60(2), 283-299.
Rogers, T., Milkman, K. L., & Volpp, K. G. (2014). Commitment devices: using initiatives to
change behavior. JAMA, 311(20), 2065-2066.
Sunstein, C. R., & Thaler, R. H. (2012). Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth
and Happiness. Penguin UK.
Thoresen, C. E., & Mahoney, M. J. (1974). Behavioral self-control. New York: Holt,
Rinehart & Winston.
Watson, D. L. , & Tharp, R. G. (2010). Self-directed behaviour: self-modification for
personal adjustment. Belmont, CA: Thomson-Wadsworth
Online
Effectiveness of Programs Designed to Improve Self-Control, 2017. [Online] Available through:
<http://www.crim.cam.ac.uk/people/academic_research/david_farrington/scsw.pdf>.
[Accessed on 19th September 2017].
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