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Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

theatlantic.com

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Re: Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

#101

Post by tzs »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #43
bdamm wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may make a different choice after years of being unable to do anything but give 100% of your attention to the child. Someone needs to cook & clean, or go to work, after all. In the "old days" you'd just cut your kid loose into the environment. Well, these days, TV and iPads are part of the environment, and YouTube along with it. I'm not saying you wouldn't make boundaries. Boundaries are important. But that may a…

Or you just do it the old fashioned way - teach them to read and give them books. If they can use an iPad they can read.

Some of the books people often think are suitable for children are pretty disturbing, too, such as Grimms' Fairy Tales.

When these are adapted for cartoons by Disney and others they are usually greatly sanitized. A parent who remembers those adaptations and thinks that is what they are getting when they get the original book versions is in for a surprise.

They are full of stories of people who are cruel and who cheat and abuse the weak and innocent, and in the end...that works out great for them and they get everything they wanted.

Re: Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

#102

Post by girishso »

bdamm wrote: post #48
SkyMarshal wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you just do it the old fashioned way - teach them to read and give them books. If they can use an iPad they can read.

My child was competently operating an iPad before he could talk or walk

It was same with my kid

Re: Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

#103

Post by megous »

fudged71 wrote: post #26
corysama wrote: post #16

In the past couple of years there has been a huge uptick in YT content targeting very young children. The feedback loop is so tight that many of the creators have converged on designing some of the most visceral (and disturbing) material that appeals to kids at a reptilian level. Think about how genuinely weird little kids are. Sometimes they do stuff that would be scary if it wasn't just a minute of innocent pretend…

My wife is a teacher and one of her students in grade 2 has somehow been seeing beheading videos (apparently on youtube but that seems nearly impossible) because they are left with an ipad for so long. I can't even begin to comprehend what that would do to the brain of a child. TV for children is very restricted and regulated for a very important reason.

The child might simply get desensitized.

Try watching disturbing violence (war images/videos for example) for a while yourself. Empathic response will blunt itself within a week or two.

Re: Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

#104

Post by nasalgoat »

bdamm wrote: post #25
thatswrong0 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed this myself watching my friends young cousin browse Youtube.. his feed was half clickbait 20-something white guys yelling at you to subscribe Minecraft videos, half perverted (such as Spiderman kissing Elsa from Frozen) or oddly gory children videos like the ones described in the article. If I ever have kids, there's no way in hell I'm letting them run free with an iPad or iPhone. I know it's the "easy way…

You may make a different choice after years of being unable to do anything but give 100% of your attention to the child. Someone needs to cook & clean, or go to work, after all. In the "old days" you'd just cut your kid loose into the environment. Well, these days, TV and iPads are part of the environment, and YouTube along with it. I'm not saying you wouldn't make boundaries. Boundaries are important. But that may a…

I really wish YouTube offered parental controls on the YouTube app for iPads. I catch my toddler watching all kinds of terrible videos.

I think there's some way involving a Google account but it's not obvious.

Re: Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

#105

Post by utefanoo1 »

dev1n wrote: post #99
utefan001 wrote: post #85

This is how my 11 year old daughter uses YouTube now... After 30 min, DNS no longer works for entertainment sites. In order to fix that she has to do 5 Khan problems or read thoery.com, Duolingo, prodigy math, code monkey, splash math, Xtra math, or typing club. It takes her 5 to 7 mins to earn points. My server detects points and re enables DNS replies for YouTube, etc. Best result so far is she now understands how…

This is an awesome product and congratulations for sticking to this for 12 months. How have you been trying to market it? What marketing avenues have you been trying? Facebook ads etc?

Marketing plan is evolving. Issue we ran into in January is so many non tech parents stuggled to configure DNS. We hoped to avoid the walled app gardens at first, but only having to install the app to configure is important.

I watched poverty inc documentary and saw how parents with some money in Haiti spent money on private school for children.

I believe, thanks to khan etc, great education already exist, parents just need innovative tools to help keep children on proper path. I reached out to some orphanages / schools in Haiti and they are excited to try this out once android app is complete.

Re: Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

#106

Post by throwaway919191 »

This is something that has bothered me lately with YouTube. As the article explains, tends to be inappropriate, sexual or mischievous. However not only that they tend to be cheaply made or make egregious copyright violations, most of which barely pass as "educational content" because they a child shouts the name of the color every minute or so.

What really bothers me however, is this type of content tends to be some of the most watched content on YouTube outside of music videos. For example, to give some context on YouTube performance, in the last 2 weeks, the most watched video on YT (according to our systems) was 'Luis Fonsi - Despacito ft. Daddy Yankee' with 300M views, #10 was 'DJ Khaled - Wild Thoughts ft. Rihanna, Bryson Tiller' with ~70M views. I think everyone would agree this type of content is well recognized in pop culture.

Kids "content" starts up at #29 with 'Сrying Babies Accident! Bad Baby Playing Doctor and Learn Colors with Bandage / Nursery Rhymes Songs' (http://youtu.be/b6B0pt_dhe0) with ~40M views. This isn't "niche content" nor is the spread of it limited. "Сrying Babies Accident" is more well produced than the other videos I've come across but still has same traits - the same stock sounds, the same stock music, intercut with 10 second "educational" content where the a child yells out the name of a color (see 2:40).

This video 'Learn Colors With Soccer Balls for Children' (http://youtu.be/OY7ILLGvAJk), exhibit more of the common 'yt kids content genre'. Again the same focus on learning 'colors' (I've yet to see content that teaches something other than colors), but now you can see the recurring characters of this genre, name Spiderman, the Hulk, and Elsa. I doubt any of this content is licensed by Disney, but the guys behind this are likely making millions.

My absolute favorite has to be 'THE BOSS BABY Learning Color Funny Videos - Learn Colors For Kids Best Moments Tim And The Boss' (youtu.be/gZVFKXt5WeQ), which is just a clip from the movie Boss Baby. It starts off normal until the final scene where it pauses and a child yells the name of the color. What happens next is strange - the entire scene tint shifts (for example the main characters body is blue), the clip plays again and a child yells a different color (~10M views in the past week).

For fun, the most interesting I've seen is 'Superhero Gamezone' (http://youtu.be/amrkiS1Bjao) - while many of these videos have "older" characters that act out Spiderman and Elsa, this is the only popular one where a full grown man acts like a toddler with his son. No colors in this one, but the same Spiderman/Hulk characters along with the exaggerated facial expressions.

A lot of children watch this content. I can't pass any judgement on whether its good or not, but to me, the obsession with this content is strange.

Re: Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

#107

Post by watwut »

pmoriarty wrote: post #82
watwut wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German censorship around books for children was quite tight actually. Not all of that was for little children, a lot of it effectively scary stories for older ones. Also half todays cartoons would not pass neither comic code nor restrictions at early movies.

What you describe is a later development. There was no comic code or movie censorship in the 19th century or in the centuries before, wherein lay the sources for the Grimm's tales.

There was however censorship in print in Germany in 19 century and beginning of 20 century.

The comic code and movies are simply two additional examples of historical censorship.

Re: Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

#108

Post by watwut »

Retric wrote: post #98
watwut wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German censorship around books for children was quite tight actually. Not all of that was for little children, a lot of it effectively scary stories for older ones. Also half todays cartoons would not pass neither comic code nor restrictions at early movies.

Comic code was a reaction to early and very gritty comics, US comics are still very tame by comparison.

The tame US comic still does not pass all 41 points of 1954 comic code which was fully endorsed. Nor half "Disnified" cartoons and stories for little children.

It is pretty much impossible to defend comic code as written, even ignoring the argument that adults should be able to read horror stories (including those grittier then Game of Thrones) if they like them. Comic code was simply a reaction of people unable to suddenly process that many have different preferences then them.

Re: Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

#109

Post by soundwave106 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #82
watwut wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German censorship around books for children was quite tight actually. Not all of that was for little children, a lot of it effectively scary stories for older ones. Also half todays cartoons would not pass neither comic code nor restrictions at early movies.

What you describe is a later development. There was no comic code or movie censorship in the 19th century or in the centuries before, wherein lay the sources for the Grimm's tales.

Censorship and criticism of "vulgarities" I honestly think has been around since... well, since art begins. However, the exact nature of what is a vulgarity often differs from culture to culture and from time to time.

In the US, there was no comic code or movie censorship, but there was things like Comstock laws. Would Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" raise many eyebrows today? It did in the 1850s-60s. (http://www.unm.edu/~unmvclib/handouts/bannedboston.pdf)

It is true that Grimm's tales were at first meant to be more of an educational archive of folklore that otherwise would have been lost. (https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2015/marchapril/feature/how-t...) However, apparently, it was found after publishing that the stories appealed to parents and children. So between the first and seventh edition, apparently the stories were made "more appropriate" for children of that era. (https://books.google.com/books?id=6gX-hNshMJEC&lpg=PR39&dq=M...) In those times, that more meant getting rid of any bawdy humor and any references to sex (violence to a "morally correct" end was okay though).

Culture changes; it seems like nowadays, some degree of bawdy humor is okay in children's entertainment. However, I've seen many articles wondering if the Grimm tales are too scary for kids.

Re: Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

#110

Post by cjf101 »

utefan001 wrote: post #85

This is how my 11 year old daughter uses YouTube now... After 30 min, DNS no longer works for entertainment sites. In order to fix that she has to do 5 Khan problems or read thoery.com, Duolingo, prodigy math, code monkey, splash math, Xtra math, or typing club. It takes her 5 to 7 mins to earn points. My server detects points and re enables DNS replies for YouTube, etc. Best result so far is she now understands how…

This is brilliant. DNS + API is a really smart way to build this. If you haven't done it already, it would be pretty straightforward to post a notification to the child's device (via a companion app on selected platforms) as an additional cue to let them know that they'd used up their time.

I'm halfway tempted to set this up for _myself_. You're absolutely right that 30 minutes is gone in instant when you start in on online entertainment.

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