What's so stupid is trying to avoid having humans in the loop. Paying an educator to find 100 hours of decent content per age level couldn't cost much. It isn't youtube, it doesn't have to be endless. But it needs to be good and appropriate. Human curation is the right thing to do.
YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers
31–40 of 261 posts
Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers
#32Can confirm. There is a strain of video (below) on there that is just like perceptual candy to kids. And there are LOADS of these videos in slightly different versions. My own anecdote: Our 2 year old found these videos (3 years ago): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7IsNFDtG4U&list=PLHZrFxrJbt... At first we were like "seems fine, colors and shapes...keeps him engaged". After a month or two he could just stare slack…
I find that video deeply unsettling.
Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Letting your kid browse algorithmically generated content is not wise :P If I'm vulnerable to stupid clickbait, can't imagine how badly children can be manipulated.
Yes, though they don't have credit cards, so the damage is limited to stunting their psychological development.
Well as long as it's low downside I'm fine with it
Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers
#34Water "wet" say parents
Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers
#35Can confirm. There is a strain of video (below) on there that is just like perceptual candy to kids. And there are LOADS of these videos in slightly different versions. My own anecdote: Our 2 year old found these videos (3 years ago): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7IsNFDtG4U&list=PLHZrFxrJbt... At first we were like "seems fine, colors and shapes...keeps him engaged". After a month or two he could just stare slack…
Yup those videos are exactly what caused me to swear of YouTube too... just weird memorizing content.
No YouTube anymore. PBS Kids from there on.
Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers
#36My kid had a great experience with YouTube kids. He learned so much from it, it shocked me. At one point he memorized all the presidents and very detailed minutiae about the dwarf planets, most I had never heard of.
My friends had a worse experience. Their daughter started watching cosplay videos where actors would dress up like Elsa and the Joker, and the Joker would kidnap Elsa and tie her up. Borderline porn and pretty inappropriate. Then she got fixated on makeup videos and they couldn’t stop her from watching those.
It sort of proves the point that Google’s search and suggestion algorithms take your interests and magnify them instead of giving breadth.
Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't believe it's YouTube's job to make it a completely safe space for kids I would say it is if the product is literally YouTube Kids... [1] [1] https://www.youtubekids.com
And they did, it's just that something so "safe" is just completely bland and useless.
It depends on your definition of "safe". YT Kids might be completely safe from violent sexual content, but it's a "vapid wasteland" of content optimized for the engagement algorithm, which has no values other than watch time.
YT Kids videos (see some examples above) are highly tuned dopamine production displays with little educational content.
There is good content on YouTube, like Cbeebies and BBC Earth, but that's not what tends to bubble up on the recommendation system.
Even trying to watch individual videos or channels that I do like doesn't work well, because my two year old sees the recommendations and starts demanding what one, and now I have to say "no" to something that shouldn't have been offered in the first place.
I've taken to saying "you can watch anything you want on PBS Kids" in response to demands for YouTube videos of various sorts.
Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers
#38Can confirm. There is a strain of video (below) on there that is just like perceptual candy to kids. And there are LOADS of these videos in slightly different versions. My own anecdote: Our 2 year old found these videos (3 years ago): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7IsNFDtG4U&list=PLHZrFxrJbt... At first we were like "seems fine, colors and shapes...keeps him engaged". After a month or two he could just stare slack…
Before I even clicked the link I guessed which video it was.. Oh man, that's not good.. ;\
Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't believe it's YouTube's job to make it a completely safe space for kids I would say it is if the product is literally YouTube Kids... [1] [1] https://www.youtubekids.com
And they did, it's just that something so "safe" is just completely bland and useless.
It's not bland and useless. It's only safe for a very narrow definition of the word.
It's "safe" in the sense that kids won't see boobies or hear potty words on the videos. But it's unsafe in that they will be constantly inundated with marketing content that is proven to be very effective on kids.
Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers
#40YouTube is still a great place. And yes, it has a multitude of problems, but personally I don't believe it's YouTube's job to make it a completely safe space for kids. Just like with television, it's a parent/guardian's role to parent their kids and set boundaries.
> I don't believe it's YouTube's job to make it a completely safe space for kids I would say it is if the product is literally YouTube Kids... [1] [1] https://www.youtubekids.com
From their website [0]
> YouTube Kids was created to give kids a more contained environment that makes it simpler and more fun for them to explore on their own, and easier for parents and caregivers to guide their journey as they discover new and exciting interests along the way.
And from TFA,
> The letter claimed that one research team, which it did not name, found only about 4% of videos had a high educational value. Much of the rest was low quality content such as toy unboxing and videos of people playing video games.
I don't see how those 2 things are incompatible with each other. Not all children's programming needs to be "highly educational". I'd say toy unboxing and videos of people playing (child friendly, hopefully) video games is totally fine. Parents just need to stop using an iPad as a babysitter and actually limit the amount of time they're watching things.