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Youtube has been essentially banned in my house after seeing the effect it had on my kids. The problem, in short, was that Youtube continuously feeds them new c

Youtube has been essentially banned in my house after seeing the effect it had on my kids. The problem, in short, was that Youtube continuously feeds them new content. Sadly - especially given the huge amount of actually great content on Youtube - everything that it wants to show my kids is absolutely dogshit garbage. A bunch of Gen Z kids with obviously wealthy families just acting like idiots. I couldn't stand it any more. I am, in general, a fairly permissive and liberal-minded parent. I had to put my foot down and have just disabled the site on the devices they use. It makes me sad because I know if they were directed to the right kinds of videos they could learn all kinds of things and be inspired by the creativity of the folks behind them. This is not what comes up in the feed and the content that they've become most interested in is the mental equivalent of eating off-brand Oreos for every meal. Hard pass.

mhss 4y ago
I largely agree, but I've not banned it. I just have explicitly told them they can only watch from the subscriptions we've curated. It requires monitoring of course, so they'll watch it on tv (Apple TV) when I'm present. My kids are young enough that they're never alone. Once they're not, I've been thinking if I can write a MITM proxy at home for youtube that somehow only allows content from explicit channels.
- theGnuMe 4y ago
  >I've been thinking if I can write a MITM proxy at home for youtube that somehow only allows content from explicit channels. great idea!
- MattDemers 4y ago
  You could probably run a Plex server with something like TubeSync that would download offline copies automatically; pair this with a metadata agent and you'd still get all the playlist/thumbnail/description stuff.
mrexroad 4y ago
Several kids in my household. YouTube plays a vastly different role for each, which is frustrating. Oldest goes down rabbit hole of topics of interest - benign useless filler stuff, e.g. mostly pro sports commentary, random things like Disney ride trivia, and other random pop-culture filler. If left unchecked, i wouldn’t be surprised if they spent 8+ hours on YouTube. If moderated, YouTube gives them a fair amount of stuff to talk and connect with others about in real life. Overall impact: neutral to slightly positive if moderated to <1h/day. Food/drink equivalent: Honey Mustard and Onion Pretzel pieces (a few are great, but then you can’t stop and you end up eating 1500 calories and everything tastes wrong for 24h) Younger teen: will consume insane amounts of gaming videos, most of the creators border on toxic personalities. We’ve banned a number of channels for them, but they find other shitty personalities. I can’t stand the content they consume, but I chalk a fair bit of that to my ignorance about teen culture and mostly grit my teeth. Covid was the worst. I hate YouTube because of their content choices. However, it does provide a small basis of connection to their group of friends. [edit: I also stupidly made a deal that w/ straight A’s I won’t be overly restrictive, which they’ve upheld, sigh] Overall impact: toxic to the point where every month or two I’m convinced to ban YouTube across every device in the house. Food/drink equivalent: Natty Light that’s barely chilled. Pre-teen: by choice, they spend ~3/4 of their YouTube time learning new skills or facts. Mostly learning specific techniques in the iPad app Procreate, acrylic painting (irl), a ton of educational videos about wildlife/animals they love, etc. But more significantly, their YouTube use has created the reflex to “search first” whenever facing a knowledge/skill gap, then ask for help. They’re the only reason i don’t straight up block YouTube at the network level, for all devices. Overall impact: very positive. Food/drink equivalent: natto and rice.
- aerovistae 4y ago
  Sounds to me like that younger teen needs an intervention, i.e. more oversight. I wouldn't grit my teeth and bare it on that.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    Is that because they’re not doing what you want? Or because it’s bad? They’re still scoring straight A’s in school.
api 4y ago
The YouTube algorithm seems to steer you toward absolute shit. Age doesn't matter. Try just following it as an adult and you will end up in the toilet pretty fast.
Aeolun 4y ago
> The problem, in short, was that Youtube continuously feeds them new content. Does it? I feel like my son has been watching essentially the same 20-25 videos over and over again. Of course his youtube time is limited, but it doesn’t seem like it suggests anything but his three favorite channels.
bamboozled 4y ago
The problem, in short, was that Youtube continuously feeds them new content. This is a problem for me too (an adult), I'm getting stronger at turning it off, but it's poison.

mhss 4y ago

I largely agree, but I've not banned it. I just have explicitly told them they can only watch from the subscriptions we've curated. It requires monitoring of course, so they'll watch it on tv (Apple TV) when I'm present. My kids are young enough that they're never alone. Once they're not, I've been thinking if I can write a MITM proxy at home for youtube that somehow only allows content from explicit channels.

theGnuMe 4y ago
>I've been thinking if I can write a MITM proxy at home for youtube that somehow only allows content from explicit channels. great idea!
MattDemers 4y ago
You could probably run a Plex server with something like TubeSync that would download offline copies automatically; pair this with a metadata agent and you'd still get all the playlist/thumbnail/description stuff.

mrexroad 4y ago

Several kids in my household. YouTube plays a vastly different role for each, which is frustrating. Oldest goes down rabbit hole of topics of interest - benign useless filler stuff, e.g. mostly pro sports commentary, random things like Disney ride trivia, and other random pop-culture filler. If left unchecked, i wouldn’t be surprised if they spent 8+ hours on YouTube. If moderated, YouTube gives them a fair amount of stuff to talk and connect with others about in real life. Overall impact: neutral to slightly positive if moderated to <1h/day. Food/drink equivalent: Honey Mustard and Onion Pretzel pieces (a few are great, but then you can’t stop and you end up eating 1500 calories and everything tastes wrong for 24h) Younger teen: will consume insane amounts of gaming videos, most of the creators border on toxic personalities. We’ve banned a number of channels for them, but they find other shitty personalities. I can’t stand the content they consume, but I chalk a fair bit of that to my ignorance about teen culture and mostly grit my teeth. Covid was the worst. I hate YouTube because of their content choices. However, it does provide a small basis of connection to their group of friends. [edit: I also stupidly made a deal that w/ straight A’s I won’t be overly restrictive, which they’ve upheld, sigh] Overall impact: toxic to the point where every month or two I’m convinced to ban YouTube across every device in the house. Food/drink equivalent: Natty Light that’s barely chilled. Pre-teen: by choice, they spend ~3/4 of their YouTube time learning new skills or facts. Mostly learning specific techniques in the iPad app Procreate, acrylic painting (irl), a ton of educational videos about wildlife/animals they love, etc. But more significantly, their YouTube use has created the reflex to “search first” whenever facing a knowledge/skill gap, then ask for help. They’re the only reason i don’t straight up block YouTube at the network level, for all devices. Overall impact: very positive. Food/drink equivalent: natto and rice.

aerovistae 4y ago
Sounds to me like that younger teen needs an intervention, i.e. more oversight. I wouldn't grit my teeth and bare it on that.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Is that because they’re not doing what you want? Or because it’s bad? They’re still scoring straight A’s in school.

api 4y ago

The YouTube algorithm seems to steer you toward absolute shit. Age doesn't matter. Try just following it as an adult and you will end up in the toilet pretty fast.

Aeolun 4y ago

> The problem, in short, was that Youtube continuously feeds them new content. Does it? I feel like my son has been watching essentially the same 20-25 videos over and over again. Of course his youtube time is limited, but it doesn’t seem like it suggests anything but his three favorite channels.

bamboozled 4y ago

The problem, in short, was that Youtube continuously feeds them new content. This is a problem for me too (an adult), I'm getting stronger at turning it off, but it's poison.