I use YouTube as a source of entertainment, education and research. YouTube also plays a vital role for making purchase decision for the products that are in my bucket. In short, I watch countless hours of videos from my favorite and unknown YouTubers for building knowledge about and in the process convincing myself to pull the trigger. The purpose of this visualization is to self quantify the amount of time I spend on the platform. The outcome is my deepest fear that I spend way too much time on these platforms to research a product before clicking the checkout button. I hoping that this visualization will be my intervention!

Data Collection:

I have collected data from Google takeout, a neat service from Google that allows one to ask for all sort of Data that is tied to one’s Google account. The data set is Huge! However, I have only used the fraction of it from my YouTube History. Nevertheless how awesome the data is, it lacks key attributes such as length of video that I absolutely require for this project to determine the WatchTime. I had to write a python script to extract the length of the video. It was not a great experience since YouTube actively blocks all the attempt of scrapping. Also, I have collected browser data for the possible future purchase.

Key Findings:

1. I watch YouTube a lot!
2. YouTube is just a minor influence! Brand bias, Product Bias, OS Bias plays an important role in decision making.
3. Price is the deciding factor.
4. I do not rely on Websites for review. YouTube is responsible for my knowledge stack. I am surfing the web for offer and discounts!

Limitations:

1. Skip sections of the videos has not been considered.
2. Made an educated guess for website visit time.
3. Could have included more data but the narrative would have been hard to deliver. This is a design choice not a limitation maybe?

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