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YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

bbc.com

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Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#51

Post by abhishekbasu »

j4yav wrote: post #6

Curated and at least semi-professionally produced content, like PBS kids, is infinitely better in terms of providing consistently good content. I think YouTube is at its heart fundamentally incompatible with providing only high quality enriching content. Everyone being able to make content means there are gems that would never otherwise get made, and also vast wastelands of garbage to sort through, or get dumped into…

> I think YouTube is at its heart fundamentally incompatible with providing only high quality enriching content.

I think this is in some ways similar to reddit. While there are some great threads from time-to-time, it is a way for people to quickly vent/amuse themselves.

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#52

Post by duncan-donuts »

duxup wrote: post #35
drewcon wrote: post #21

Can 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.

I can’t tell if you’re also saying no to PBS kids or not, but based on my own observations as a parent I have to say PBS kids (and PBS in general) is the best kids programming out there. Full stop.

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#53

Post by spicybright »

2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #46
drewcon wrote: post #21

Can 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…

The people at Google/Youtube really make it hard for quality content to succeed most of the time and their beloved algorithms mostly just boil down to "If a person clicks X, bombard them with as much things as close to X as possible from now on". (Also their obsession with "engagement" which translates to outrage, but I hope this is less relevant in Youtube Kids...) The danger for kids also stems from this in my opin…

Kids should only be able to view content vetted by a human. Full stop.

Too bad it's never going to happen.

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#54

Post by wffurr »

Sargos wrote: post #3

My kiddo uses YouTube Kids daily and I find it to be a great service with shows like Katie's Classroom which is like video preschool.

There are great channels to be found, but also a ton of weird crap that shows up in the recommendations. The stuff that bubbles to the top of the recommendations often isn't quality content; it's stuff optimized for watch time.

There's a class of videos that seem designed to make kids' brains produce dopamine and want to watch more and more.

If you control the remote or device, then sure, fine, stick to quality content, but I wish there was a way to turn off the recommendations that show up on the big screen at the end of the video or when the app loads but before I've searched for or cast something.

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#55

Post by theshrike79 »

briga wrote: post #5

I would agree with the assessment, but isn't your typical kids TV channel just as vapid? Are US lawmakers worried about the ads and commercialism we bombard our children with on conventional television?

YLE in Finland has amazing content (I think it's pretty much the NPR/PBS equivalent).

People in there are actually educated about kids' development, with actual entertainers and scientists.

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#56

Post by otikik »

duxup wrote: post #10

I swore off Youtube Kids a while ago due to the inability to whitelist / black list effectively (I hear it is better now). There really was a strange amount of 'empty' what seems like almost procedural generated type content that is just sound and noise and nothing happening. It's like hypnotoad with slightly more action, but only slightly more action. I go with PBS Video ( https://pbskids.org/ ) if I need a quick go…

I confirm that you can blacklist in YT kids now. You need to be logged in as a parent. You can block individual creators from the main YTK page then.

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#57

Post by crispyambulance »

drewcon wrote: post #21

Can 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…

That channel, OKKYDOKY, has 1.2 MILLION views. Who makes that stuff? WHY? It even purports to be from the USA. It's just some weird anonymous garbage. How do the people that make that stuff sleep at night? It's like they're trying to exploit glitches in the brains of toddlers.

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#58

Post by Someone1234 »

j4yav wrote: post #6

Curated and at least semi-professionally produced content, like PBS kids, is infinitely better in terms of providing consistently good content. I think YouTube is at its heart fundamentally incompatible with providing only high quality enriching content. Everyone being able to make content means there are gems that would never otherwise get made, and also vast wastelands of garbage to sort through, or get dumped into…

YouTube Kids does have a way of turning on curated content only[0]. The main problem is that when you do that the library is tiny (and seemingly stuck in time).

This isn't the default though: Parents have to actively enable it. But it does get rid of most of the toy/McDonald's/etc adverts and "child personalities" that are prominent on the platform.

[0] https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/introducing-new-choices...

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#60

Post by billti »

I think some of the best purchases I've made for my kids' development is Apple TV and YouTube Premium ($13/month for no ads is a great deal).

My 4yo got into math heavily for a while, and shows like NumberBlocks were a big part of that.

He got into drumming this last year, and there's so much great content from kids not much older than him showing how to play pretty much any song you like. That really motivated him.

Any time we have a question pop-up that is best visualized to explain, like "Where does the poop go when we flush?", or "How does the wheat for bread grow?" - we just pick up the remote, ask the question with voice, and there's usually a couple of good quality clips to choose from.

Yes, there's a ton of junk. Don't let kids mindless watching YouTube (or yourself - I'm often guilty when the insomnia kicks in). But its also a total game-changer for the breadth of on-demand quality educational content if you use it right.

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