YouTube is testing a new button that you can press if you don’t know what you’re watching
- Look for a new ‘Play’ button
- A recommended video will be selected for you
- Some users are seeing the feature on Android
There’s a ton to watch on YouTube: more than 500 hours of content are uploaded every minute, according to the official statistics – and it looks like YouTube is testing a feature to help viewers who are a little stuck on what to load next.
According to 9to5Googlemaybe you’ll see one soon Play something button will appear while you are using the latest version of YouTube for Android. Tap the button and a selected video will play through the YouTube Shorts interface.
It’s not clear how YouTube chooses the video to play, but presumably your YouTube listening history and your recommendations are involved somehow. You will then see more videos after the first clip ends.
Although the feature uses the Portrait Shorts interface, it appears that regular YouTube videos can also be played. However, it’s not something that has gone live for every user, like Android Police reports – so you may not see it.
Too much choice
This is actually something YouTube has been testing for a while, although the interface has been tweaked a bit along the way. It now appears that at least even more users are seeing the feature, if not everyone.
And it’s a meaningful feature, too: YouTube doesn’t want its users to be stuck on a browser screen, not knowing which video to load next, and spending more time scrolling than watching (or even switching to another app entirely).
While it may seem a bit arbitrary to let YouTube choose something for you to watch, keep in mind that the platform knows a lot about you and your preferences. It may even be better at choosing what to watch than you are.
We’ll have to wait and see if this new idea will be available to everyone, but YouTube has been making frequent tweaks and upgrades lately, including skip portions of videos and (for premium users) smart downloads for YouTube Shorts.