The news: A new mobile setting available only on iOS and Android smartphones and tablets lets anyone set a daily YouTube Shorts limit to zero minutes, hiding the infinite scroll format from the Shorts tab and main Home feed, per The Verge.

The setting was previously a parental control that could only drop the limit to 15 minutes.

Toggling Shorts time to zero could be YouTube’s answer to regulatory pressure, especially for younger users in the wake of a landmark legal loss and as global under-16 bans begin to take shape.

Zooming in: By ceding this level of control to end users, YouTube risks fragmenting engagement in one of its main products—CEO Neal Mohan said Shorts average around 200 billion daily views.

Among US children ages 2 to 12, 70% watch YouTube Shorts on phones and 62% on tablets, per Precisify. Those are the exact devices where habit formation runs deepest.

By letting users self-regulate Shorts, YouTube may insulate itself from future regulatory scrutiny. The off switch shifts responsibility to individuals, deflecting pressure to reform infinite scroll’s addictive design.

Implications for brands: The zero-minute option fragments reach. With the new setting, a large segment of viewers—especially regulators’ focus groups and parents—won’t be shown certain ad formats.

However, horizontal video like traditional YouTube, which lacks infinite scroll and its habit-forming grip, bypasses that filter entirely, preserving reach. Marketers should reinvest there to align with longer dwell time, fewer regulatory risks, and ad placements not subject to user-set off switches.