I try to teach my kids that these things are tools: we want to know how something works --> there's definitely a video on that --> we found out and turn it off again. And as with any tool, you can use them to become better or to hurt yourself.
You go to YouTube and order a salad. When you're done with the salad, they put a donut in front of you. When you finish that donut, they immediately put another donut in front of you.
Adults should be able to reject those temptations, but YouTube doesn't make it easy.
Is that true for YouTube kids app too? I thought you could put timers using parental settings. When the timer goes off, it will lock the device. And, some N minutes before, it would show a warning as well.
That seems way better than state of the art (dumping kids in front of TV or video game consoles etc.)
The only thing I really want is for foreign language videos not to appear in the list of suggested videos. Sometimes he gets trapped happily watching videos in Russian.
I actually think the problem is specifically binge watching services like Netflix and services with very variable quality of content like YouTube.
Whilst it’s not ideal, as a kid I’d watch the BBC children’s afternoon segment from 3 till 6 after school and whilst 3 hours of TV is unlikely to have been great for me, I received a variety of programming, some ok and some great. My problem with Netflix and YouTube is a child can binge watch a whole season of average content without any variety whatsoever. It’s not just a question of quality which I’m raising but quantity of the same show episode after episode.
As far as teaching kids sure, by all means we should teach them to moderate themselves but as a 34 year old I find it takes discipline and will power to regulate myself, what hope does a toddler or infant have when faced with video services which are designed to encourage consumption?
Maybe the problem isn't Netflix and Youtube, maybe
the problem is letting them watch for 4 hours?
However, my point is this: different things require different amounts of moderation. Candy all day is probably worse than carrots all day. In moderation, candy is great. Same as YouTube.
Wouldn't surprise me if that feedback loop was damaging even for many adults, but at least they are responsible and already have some grasp of how the world should work.
Might be more appropriate to demand universal child care or sth along those lines instead of bashing the parents.
Spending time alone in a room with Lego is very different from spending time alone with some dark-pattern-studded UI, even if a parent is beyond viewing distance and within shouting distance in both cases. Do I need to argue that?
Yes, you do need to argue that.
Humans are good at learning to interact with things; neither Lego nor YouTube were present in the ancestral environment but we manage just the same. If anything I'd say that people who grow up with "dark-pattern-studded UI" all around will probably learn to handle the tricks much better than people who only encounter it as adults (just as those who grew up with social media tend to have a much healthier relationship with it than the older generation).
I will, though.
I'll argue my point by RAA. You may recall my phrase, "spending time alone doing <x> is very different from <y>, ….". If spending time alone doing X is not very different from Y, then it follows that pairs of activities are roughly equally educational, roughly equally dangerous, roughly equally healthy, and so on, or at least roughly equal in sum of the qualities parents care about. Ie., if one activity is more educational than another, then the other must necessarily be less dangerous for the child, so as to conserve equilibrium. This is absurd. QED.
I interpret you as saying that people are better at learning to cope with dark patterns as young children than as adults. Right? Please argue.
"This is absurd" is pure assertion. The same argument would say that spending time alone playing with lego is very different from spending time alone playing with toy trains, or with dolls, or with crayons, or in a treehouse, or ... . If you're saying that all these things are "very different from" each other, then sure, youtube is different from lego in the same way that lego is different from crayons. But very few parents seem concerned that their child spends too long playing with crayons and not long enough with lego, or vice versa, or would want to ban one in favour of the other.
> I interpret you as saying that people are better at learning to cope with dark patterns as young children than as adults. Right? Please argue.
I gave an analogy to that effect already. More generally, people are better at learning anything (particularly things that are largely subconscious) as children than as adults - languages, riding a bike, performance arts...
I’d say that leaving kids in a an environment of addictive substances (say, cigarettes?) is a great way to get them addicted.
Why would YouTube be any different?
Just as with social media, my general impression/experience is that people who were kept away from addictive substances (cigarettes/alcohol/coffee/...) growing up tend to be more likely to have problems with them in later life than people who had them around when they were growing up.
(There are specific health reasons to keep particular substances away from young children, but that's a distinct thing).
I mean it's the same as children's TV on cable, with the main difference that it's infinite instead of constrained to at most a couple of hours.
We have poor quality skills
The very existence of the so-called "gig economy" tells us something is rotten.
My memory of it is hazy and likely warped by pastiches like adult swim's Too Many Cooks.
Is this the same child that was convinced sleeping under a tree would be fatal?
Whilst I agree with the sentiment of less tech = probably better for young kids, your comment reads as FUD. 15 minutes a day watching youtube is probably fine and will likely have minimal effect on development compared to other factors.
- He also mentions something about four hours somewhere in the comment
- Less tech is not the same thing with less TV
- How are 15 minutes fine? Compared to how many?
- finaly, how is your opinion not anecdata?
A few years back when my kids were toddlers I’d rather naively give them my phone with YouTube on it, and after ignoring them for just 15 mins they’d have switched from whatever edutainment programme I’d put on to a video of a burly pair of hands unwrapping toys - for 4 hours...there are no studies on the long term effects of YouTube on cognitive development in young brains but why wait? It’s not like it’s rocket science to infer that if you show growing minds poor quality content you’re going to get poor quality results.
I don’t feel comfortable leaving my kids to watch Netflix either. It’s too easy for them to binge watch a half season of Paw Patrol or Omizumi or other similarly lite content. As a kid I remember eagerly waiting for the next episode of He-Man or Ghostbusters but to have had several seasons of dozens of episodes on tap would have been too much to resist. With auto play on these services too it’s not like they have the interests of us or our kids at heart.
We need to be super careful here, this is new territory with early indicators showing declines in ability to concentrate in adults from these forms of distraction - god knows what it’s doing to our kids.