I'm not the OP, but having also watched a ten year old consume YouTube videos... they tend to stay far far away from anything remotely educational.

For example, this is the kind of thing that the particular kid I know watches: https://youtu.be/5O66ssNpg_A

22 million views. So basically nothing is gained from watching these sorts of videos. But what's lost? Maybe the opportunity to connect with family members?

Define educational.

Watching stupid Call of Duty videos as a teenager is what allowed me to learn English (I am not a native English speaker) and I now owe my entire career to that.

On the other hand, proper “educational” stuff has yet to make me a penny.

Just because it doesn’t look “educational” (or should I say boring) to you doesn’t mean the kid isn’t learning stuff by watching (or listening to) the video. Chances are, those people are doing real-life stuff that is never taught in school and they would otherwise try to figure it out by themselves via trial and error.

That's pretty funny. When I was in college I had a roommate from Colombia and mentioned that I'd like to learn some Spanish. He enthusiastically recommended watching the Spanish language soaps on Telemundo, he told me watching American soaps is how he learned most of his English.

I edited my comment and added a link to a typical video. The child watching this is already fluent in English.

That video is stupid but it is worse than reality TV shows or cartoons? It’s entertainment. Doesn’t always have to have a further purpose beyond passing time and satisfying curiosity.

My comment about English was just an example, when completely stupid (by my own admission) videos still somehow still managed to contribute to my life and career.

Is it really substantively different from “imaginative play”?

My own kids watch similar stuff quite a bit, and while I don’t enjoy watching it with them, they enjoy it and talk about it with their friends. They even make their own (private) videos for fun.

Ask any kid age six to twelve or so these days what they want to be, and most will reply “I want to be a YouTuber!”

There are studies about the benefits of boredom:

https://www.melbournechildpsychology.com.au/blog/the-benefit...

I think there's plenty of "cultural evidence" for this too: the subreddit for wacky revelations is called /r/showerthoughts, and the shower is the last place where we have no screens or books around us.

But you’re not bored in the shower. You are doing a task. The most creative thoughts don’t come when you are bored, but when you are doing something routine or low effort.

Sitting on the couch staring at a wall won’t have the same effect, but doing housework will.

Having grown up in a small town in the 80's where it was hard to get access to all the media I might have wanted, I can really appreciate how great it is that kids today have access to this incredible world of content! And there's a lot of fun and engaging ways that kids use modern technology, whether it's playing Minecraft or keeping up with friends and family.

I'm mostly concerned about the specific category of content that tries to be as addictive as possible to young minds. Yes, people in the 80's tried to make content as addictive as possible, but people today are so much more skilled at it.