We blocked YouTube, and when we did our kids were suddenly alive again. They had friends, went outside, did activities, played. We also blocked TikTok and lots

We blocked YouTube, and when we did our kids were suddenly alive again. They had friends, went outside, did activities, played. We also blocked TikTok and lots of other stuff before they discovered it, thankfully. We do allow Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Apple TV, and those seem to be okay. They'll watch a movie or a TV show from time to time, which is fine, and they'll get bored and do something else. But YouTube... they are dead to the world. Forever. It's unbelievable. The stuff they'd watch on YouTube too... it's like they gravitated straight to the dumbest most vapid thing on the platform. Stuff like the worst low-quality gamer livestream videos, AI slop, videos of people unboxing products, "jump scare" cut-up cartoons that make no sense. Found one of them once watching hours of a six hour long video of someone running over things with a truck: old laptops, old phones, toys. Crunch, repeat, crunch, repeat, with some kind of loud repeating banging music playing. That's all it was. Millions of views. It's sad because there's a huge amount of great content on YouTube. But that's not what's addictive, and if you follow the recommendation algorithm it will send you to the trash every time. The only way to find good content is to ignore recommendations and search it. Glad I banned TikTok before they discovered it. I know one parent who had to get that one away from their kid after the kid was already hooked and the kid was screaming, hunger striking, refusing to sleep, stuff similar to what you describe. If you haven't seen it, you don't know.