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As a new(ish) parent, I'm astonished at how readily most parents hand off their kids over to YouTube/tablet/phone. I even saw a stroller the other day with a pe

As a new(ish) parent, I'm astonished at how readily most parents hand off their kids over to YouTube/tablet/phone. I even saw a stroller the other day with a permanent mount for the phone. I haven't banned YouTube (yet), but I have limited it almost completely due to concerns about the long-term effects of extended use from such an early age. Those concerns will only deepen as my son gets older - there's a lot of good content on YouTube but it's sitting under a mountain of mindless, click-bait, influencer drivel.

cmsj 4y ago
I tried YouTube Kids a few years ago, the experience was not great - content isn't pre-screened, so weird stuff can slip through the cracks. It's also obviously not being maintained with a sincere attempt to solve the problems that parents actually have - for example, as your kid gets older and they get a google account, they can't sign in to YouTube Kids, you have to sign in with an Adult account, but then that account is on their iPad and available to any other Google apps they have installed. Parental restrictions on Google accounts also don't let you easily limit a child's account to an allowlist of approved channels. I would love to let my kids use their daily screen time to learn/enjoy a mix of channels my wife and I have vetted, but it's excruciatingly difficult to actually do this, to the point that I've given up trying. Our approach has ended up being that when the kids ask to watch a youtube video about something, we send them a link to a video via iMessage - watching the video in the Messages app shows just the video, no comments, no "suggested" videos, and it's sufficiently high friction to get us to do it that they don't ask very often. My next experiment will be using https://github.com/Tzahi12345/YoutubeDL-Material https://github.com/Tzahi12345/YoutubeDL-Material to download videos from our allowlisted channels, but I super resent that I'm having to engineer solutions to Google's disinterest.
- itsoktocry 4y ago
  >content isn't pre-screened, so weird stuff can slip through the cracks You can individually add channels with acceptable content, so unless you're adding sketchy channels, nothing is going to slip through. >as your kid gets older and they get a google account, they can't sign in to YouTube Kids I feel like by the time a child needs their own Google account they have moved beyond YouTube Kids, no?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago
I’m also horrified by the responses of parents here who are lax with YouTube, even to a slight degree. It’s like they feel that they are morally bound to find a middle-ground stance despite not having a good mechanistic explanation for why YT is OK even at small dosages, given how it has already radicalized people and impacted the global political order on the basis of fake news? Why isn’t the concern far more sweeping? Like, what harm can erring on the side of caution actually do and not letting your kids access YT before their cognitive development has progressed far enough so that they have self-control and have explored their own interests without the interference of internet culture?
- watwut 4y ago
  > why YT is OK even at small dosages, given how it has already radicalized people and impacted the global political order on the basis of fake news? Why isn’t the concern far more sweeping? That concern comes in during puberty and above, not when the kids are small. When they are 16-23, not when they are 1-9 years old. You have significantly less control at that time and crucially, should be transitioning to loosing control. They are getting ready for independent living or college.
  - rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago
    Can you explain how you are sure that the concern is limited to the age range that you specified? You make it sound like there’s just one way that kids can grow. It’s completely possible for kids to gain access to bad internet stuff at a far younger age and they could carry it with them for a long time.
    - simiones 4y ago
      You think 3-6 yo kids can get radicalized by YT fake news?
    - a4a4a4a4 4y ago
      You will never be _sure_ that it's limited to that age range, because what's appropriate for a given age is pretty subjective. I don't know why people are obsessed with making perfectly isolated bubbles for kids, it's just not possible.
philips 4y ago
I have had good experience with using YT Kids: 1. set it to approved content only because the recommendations are horrifying. 2. from the parents account on YouTube mobile app use the share menu -> share with kids when I find reasonable and good content for them. They watch a lot of JPL documentaries, BBC nature documentaries, crafsman videos, kurzgesagt videos.
Calloutman 4y ago
I think it has its uses. For example its really handy when changing nappies as my toddler wriggles like crazy and it helps to distract him whilst I getting rid of the poo.

cmsj 4y ago

I tried YouTube Kids a few years ago, the experience was not great - content isn't pre-screened, so weird stuff can slip through the cracks. It's also obviously not being maintained with a sincere attempt to solve the problems that parents actually have - for example, as your kid gets older and they get a google account, they can't sign in to YouTube Kids, you have to sign in with an Adult account, but then that account is on their iPad and available to any other Google apps they have installed. Parental restrictions on Google accounts also don't let you easily limit a child's account to an allowlist of approved channels. I would love to let my kids use their daily screen time to learn/enjoy a mix of channels my wife and I have vetted, but it's excruciatingly difficult to actually do this, to the point that I've given up trying. Our approach has ended up being that when the kids ask to watch a youtube video about something, we send them a link to a video via iMessage - watching the video in the Messages app shows just the video, no comments, no "suggested" videos, and it's sufficiently high friction to get us to do it that they don't ask very often. My next experiment will be using https://github.com/Tzahi12345/YoutubeDL-Material https://github.com/Tzahi12345/YoutubeDL-Material to download videos from our allowlisted channels, but I super resent that I'm having to engineer solutions to Google's disinterest.

itsoktocry 4y ago
>content isn't pre-screened, so weird stuff can slip through the cracks You can individually add channels with acceptable content, so unless you're adding sketchy channels, nothing is going to slip through. >as your kid gets older and they get a google account, they can't sign in to YouTube Kids I feel like by the time a child needs their own Google account they have moved beyond YouTube Kids, no?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago

I’m also horrified by the responses of parents here who are lax with YouTube, even to a slight degree. It’s like they feel that they are morally bound to find a middle-ground stance despite not having a good mechanistic explanation for why YT is OK even at small dosages, given how it has already radicalized people and impacted the global political order on the basis of fake news? Why isn’t the concern far more sweeping? Like, what harm can erring on the side of caution actually do and not letting your kids access YT before their cognitive development has progressed far enough so that they have self-control and have explored their own interests without the interference of internet culture?

watwut 4y ago
> why YT is OK even at small dosages, given how it has already radicalized people and impacted the global political order on the basis of fake news? Why isn’t the concern far more sweeping? That concern comes in during puberty and above, not when the kids are small. When they are 16-23, not when they are 1-9 years old. You have significantly less control at that time and crucially, should be transitioning to loosing control. They are getting ready for independent living or college.
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago
  Can you explain how you are sure that the concern is limited to the age range that you specified? You make it sound like there’s just one way that kids can grow. It’s completely possible for kids to gain access to bad internet stuff at a far younger age and they could carry it with them for a long time.
  - simiones 4y ago
    You think 3-6 yo kids can get radicalized by YT fake news?
  - a4a4a4a4 4y ago
    You will never be _sure_ that it's limited to that age range, because what's appropriate for a given age is pretty subjective. I don't know why people are obsessed with making perfectly isolated bubbles for kids, it's just not possible.

philips 4y ago

I have had good experience with using YT Kids: 1. set it to approved content only because the recommendations are horrifying. 2. from the parents account on YouTube mobile app use the share menu -> share with kids when I find reasonable and good content for them. They watch a lot of JPL documentaries, BBC nature documentaries, crafsman videos, kurzgesagt videos.

Calloutman 4y ago

I think it has its uses. For example its really handy when changing nappies as my toddler wriggles like crazy and it helps to distract him whilst I getting rid of the poo.